As I am posting this, I have learned of the passing of Gale Sayers.
I'll be writing about Sayers tonight, if possible...
Goodbye to Diana Rigg at the age of 82.
Rigg is known by recent fans from her work on Game of Thrones, which earned her two Outstanding Guest Actress Emmy nominations, but to almost everyone else in America over 50, she will always be remembered for her role as Emma Peel in The Avengers.
"Emma Peel" arrived in the middle of the show's run (the show ran from 1961-69) for four seasons from 1965-68 and despite the show having a track record before her arrival, it is the four seasons with Diana Rigg as Emma Peel that most people think of when The Avengers is remembered.
Rigg had never watched the show when she tried for the role "on a whim", and often was said to have felt mistreated by the producers of the show and uncomfortable with her role as a sex symbol as well.
While Rigg would go on to do many roles on stage, film, and television, she will more than likely be remembered as Emma Peel by the American audience.
Goodbye to Larry Wilson at the age of 82.
The football hall of famer was legendary for his toughness in a thirteen-year career spent all with the St.Louis Cardinals as their free safety
Wilson was inducted into the hall in 1978 in his first year of eligibility after a career that saw Wilson make eight Pro Bowls for the Cardinals and named first-team All-Pro six times and second-team All-Pro once.
Wilson was the player that popularized the safety blitz, intercepted passes in seven straight games in 1966, and not only played games with two broken hands, Wilson actually intercepted a pass with casts on each hand!
Larry Wilson would also serve as the interim coach for the Cardinals in 1979 and was the team's front office leader (among a few different titles) from 1977 to 1993.
Goodbye to Alan Minter at the age of 69.
The 1972 Olympic bronze medalist at junior middleweight, Minter won the unified middleweight title in March 1980 (In 1980, there were only two titles- WBA and WBC) with an upset split decision victory over Vito Antuofermo in Las Vegas in a title fight with two of the largest "bleeders" of their day with both fighters with a long history of cutting easily.
The controversy with the decision wasn't as much giving the win to Minter (It was a close fight) as the British judge scoring the fight for Minter 13-2 in rounds.
Minter would defend the title in a rematch against Antuofermo in London three months later, winning on cuts in the eighth round.
Three months after the Antuofermo rematch, Minter would defend against the mandatory challenger in Marvin Hagler, who had drawn with Antuofermo in 1979 in a fight that most thought Hagler clearly won.
In a fight that was racially charged after a pre-fight incident, Hagler ripped through Minter in three rounds when the fight was stopped due to cuts on Minter's face and the British crowd rioted, pelting the ring with bottles and anything else that they could throw, and sending Hagler and his cornermen racing to the dressing room surrounded by police to escape the crowd.
Minter never received a rematch against Hagler as he would lose a split decision to Mustafa Hamsho in a fight that the winner would become the new mandatory challenger.
Minter then was stopped in three rounds by countryman Tony Sibson (who would eventually also challenge Hagler) and would retire.
Goodbye to Ian Mitchell at the age of 62.
Mitchell joined the Bay City Rollers at the top of their success as a seventeen-year-old bass player in 1976, but despite Mitchell's instant popularity with the group's fans and their high charting cover of Dusty Springfield's "I only want to be with you", Mitchell left the band after nine months.
What made Mitchell unusual was that after he left the band, Mitchell remained all over the teen magazines for the next year or so despite his new band (Rosetta Stone) never scoring with a hit record.
Mitchell was quite a bit younger than the other band members and that could have been why he connected with the group's fans despite such a short tenure.
Long time readers might remember a long-ago piece that briefly mentioned the Rollers that gained many MANY more hits than an average post at that time and made me wonder if Rollermania ever really moved away from their fans.
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