Goodbye to Bernie Casey at the age of 78.
Casey had quite an eclectic life in being an athlete, actor, painter, author, and poet.
Casey ran in the 1960 Olympic Trials and reached the finals as a high hurdler and starred as a football player at Bowling Green before going on to the NFL for a seven-year career with the Rams and 49ers, making the Pro Bowl in 1967.
Casey would have a long acting career after leaving pro football with too many roles to name, but two of note that I remember well personally was his role as "Cal Hudson" the Maqui rebel in "Deep Space Nine" and of course "UN Jefferson" in "Revenge of the Nerds".
There have been quite a few times in my life that I've turned to Ryan and said "Hold it, Coach! Hold it right there"!
Another loss that happened a little while back when I was on a trip was the loss of longtime first baseman Lee May at the age of 74.
"The Big Bopper" slammed 354 homers from 1965 to 1982 and starred for the Reds, Astros, and Orioles before mopping up with the Royals off the bench.
May hit over twenty homers every season from 1968-78 (and hit 19 in 1979) and was the lone bright spot for the Reds in their five-game 1970 World Series loss.
May always seemed to have his timing just off with his career as first, it was May that was traded to the Astros as the main piece of the famous trade that brought Joe Morgan to Cincinnati.
Think about this-would the Big Red Machine been that much different with Lee May at first rather than Tony Perez?I don't think so.
May was actually the biggest name in that trade when it was made before the 1972 season, which is why the Reds wound up getting a better second baseman in the deal (Morgan over Tommy Helms) ,their starting center fielder (Cesar Geronimo), a solid member of their rotation (Jack Billingham) and two helpful bench bats (Ed Armbrister and Denis Menke) for May,Helms and Jimmy (Not Mr.Smith) Stewart.
May put up excellent numbers as an Astro hitting in the world hitters park in the game (Astrodome) before four solid seasons in Baltimore, first as the first baseman before being moved to DH in favor of Eddie Murray...
My personal memory of Lee May was with his tenure with the Orioles when I watched so many Oriole games with my grandfather.
Pap always would be very frustrated by players that struck out a lot and Lee May was one of those players despite his power.
Pap never liked players that didn't put the ball in play (You might remember I mentioned this before with former Oriole Earl Williams) and Lee May's swing was easy to imitate along with having holes for pitchers to hit-especially as May aged and gained weight.
One of my best memories of Pap is watching him squat down and doing the Lee May batting stance.
A loss that happened even longer ago than that of Lee May, goes back to April as former Texas Tech football coach Spike Dykes passed away at the age of 79 from a heart attack.
I found out about his death as I watched the Red Raiders win over Houston on Saturday.
Spike Dykes took over at Texas Tech on the eve of the 1986 Independence Bowl (Or the VCR Bowl as written about here) when David McWilliams, who had turned Tech around in his one season in Lubbock, jumped ship before the bowl to take the job at conference rival Texas.
Spike would win a then-school record 82 games and become the first coach to lead Tech to seven bowl games in a row.
Spike's Tech teams were at the height of my fandom as his teams ran the ball a lot and had great college backs such as James Gray and future NFL runners Bam Morris and Byron Hanspard.
Tech was always the forgotten stepchild in the old SWC behind Texas and Texas A&M, yet Spike was able not just be competitive, but able to defeat them as he defeated Texas six times in his tenure and in 1994 ended A&M's all-time record SWC winning streak with a 14-7 win that was decided by a pick-six score by future Pro Bowl linebacker Zack Thomas..
Many of you might be surprised how little coverage I give to the passing of former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta at the age of 95.
LaMotta might be remembered more for the 1980 film Raging Bull currently than for his career in the ring.
LaMotta had arguably the best chin ever (knocked down once in 106 fights), won the middleweight title from Marcel Cerdan and was the first fighter ever to defeat Sugar Ray Robinson.
So why not more notes on LaMotta? I give credit for his career, but I don't spend time on guys that take dives-no matter the reason.
Former heavyweight contender David Bey passed at the age of 60 when he died from injuries from being hit by a metal sheet pile at a construction site he was working at as a piledriver.
Bey, who challenged Larry Holmes for the heavyweight championship in 1985, was undefeated in 14 fights entering the Holmes fight and coming off a huge upset win over the number one contender at the time in Greg Page.
Holmes stopped Bey, who was nowhere near ready for an all-time great such as Holmes, in the eleventh round and the loss ruined Bey's career as Bey would go 4-10-1 in his post-Holmes career.
We wrap with a goodbye to former NBA/ABA star Jim McDaniels at the age of 69.
McDaniels was the star of a Final Four team for Western Kentucky in 1971, that was eventually vacated by the Hilltoppers as McDaniels was ruled by the NCAA to have signed with an agent and was therefore ineligible.
I know those were the days of the 32 team tournament, but for a team from Ohio Valley Conference play to make the Final Four (WKU finished third as they defeated Kansas in the days when the Final Four losers played a consolation game) is phenomenal no matter the era.
McDaniels signed with the ABA Carolina Cougars and averaged 26 points and 14 boards in 58 rookie games in Carolina before foolishly jumping to Seattle in the NBA, where his game would dip dramatically and was never the same player.
McDaniels would never average double-digit points in the remaining five years of his career after the jump, playing for Seattle, Los Angeles and Buffalo in the NBA and the Kentucky Colonels in the ABA before playing the remainder of his career in Europe.
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