Cleaning out the inbox

We start the inbox cleaning with the sad news of the passing of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn from Salivary Gland cancer at the age of the young age of 54.

I often step on the W.J.Bryan box about how Cal Ripken was overrated and would offer this question-If fill in the blank played every day for that number of games, how many (hits or homers) would they have produced?
Every time the player that I would use for the hit comparison would be Tony Gwynn.
Gwynn didn't have the best power numbers (17 homers was his career-high), but he was the best hitter of his generation in my opinion.
Gwynn always seemed to combine the fun of the game with the business approach of the job and I always considered myself a Tony Gwynn fan.
He will be missed...

More from the baseball world as Sean Nicol was released by the Washington Nationals earlier this week.
Sean has always been a class act and did an interview with us in 2013.
I'm hoping to get him for another one looking back at his career and in the years of my going to Suns games, Sean Nicol ranks right with Erik Arnesen as my favorite Suns player.
A super person off the field and we wish Sean the best in life after the game.

We stay with even more baseball as an Indians blogger "Did the Tribe win last night" offers some thoughts on Eddie Grant, who was the only person to ever die in battle during an active baseball career.
Grant, who spent time with the Indians and Giants, was killed in the First World War and was memorialized with a plaque in centerfield at the Polo Grounds in New York.
If you play MLB the Show and play at the Polo Grounds (I do as the Giants sometimes), you can see the Grant plaque in the field of play.
The plaque was stolen when the Giants left in 1957 and wasn't heard from again until late 90's when it turned up in someone's home in Brooklyn.
The Giants turned down offers for a replacement as well as the original until putting one up in 2006.
Grant is also thought to have a connection to the film-The Natural as "Bump Bailey's" death and resulting plaque at "Knight's Field" is reported to have been loosely based on Grant...

Grantland slams one home with an article on the late Seton Hall star and NBA player Eddie Griffin, who passed away almost seven years ago.
I always find it an interesting read when we look back at players that never went to college or were one-and-done players years down the road and see how things turned out both on and off-court.
Give it a once over and see what you think.

Most of you know how much I love the Shawshank Redemption, but here is a Wall Street Journal post on the business side of Shawshank that explains why you can see it on various channels along with the cash that it still drives every day.
The article talks about the making of the film and other interesting notes that a huge fan like me should enjoy...

Finally, we wrap up with this note as the Jolly Roger amusement park in Ocean City MD celebrates its 50th year in business.
I haven't visited Ocean City for almost 30 years, but I remember through pictures and home movies, trips that my parents took me to O.C.as a pre-schooler in the early '70s, although I think the one that I remember best was the second satellite park opened there in 1974 just off the boardwalk.
Points to our favorite person to come out of Baltimore (I know, fans, it's a short list!) Mary Beth Marsden, who brought it up recently and added that she was a former employee at Jolly Roger!

Whew! That was a heavy cleaning, but I have more in the making with that Cavaliers draft preview talking about Jabari Parker or Andrew Wiggins and the autographs from the signing front just keep piling up, so we will have to do something about that soon!