Cleaning out the inbox: Passings

There have been a few recent passings of note, although thank goodness not as many as in some past editions of the passings series.


Goodbye to Alexei Leonov at the age of 85.
Leonov was the first person ever to spacewalk, which basically means the first human to leave their vehicle in space, in 1965 representing the then-Soviet Union.

Leonov barely survived his walk in space and forced himself to take several risks with his suit and re-entry into the capsule, either of which could have cost Leonov his life.
Leonov was also thought to be the most likely Soviet to be the first to land on the moon, had failures in the USSR's rocket program not occurred to keep them from performing the task.
Leonov was also the commander of the Soyuz half of the first joint mission in space which saw the Soyuz dock with an Apollo capsule (the rocket and capsule were unused from the canceled final two Apollo missions) in space and work together for two days in various experiments.

Another interesting note on Leonov came in 1969, yet little was known about the incident for years as Leonov and three other Cosmonauts, including Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, rode in a limousine with Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev on their way to a public event in Moscow and an assassin attempted to shoot Brezhnev.
The assassin got fourteen shots off (with two pistols) and the driver of the vehicle was killed, although Brezhnev and the Cosmonauts were not seriously injured.


Goodbye to Willie Brown at the age of 78.
Brown was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984 in the first year of his eligibility after spending sixteen seasons in the AFL and NFL, most of those with the Oakland Raiders after being obtained from the Denver Broncos.
Brown was named to the All-AFL team six times and would make the Pro Bowl in each of the Raiders' first four seasons after the merger, along with a selection to the all-time AFL team after 1969 as the first cornerback to use bump and run coverage with success.
Brown is famous to many for his pick-six in the Raiders' 1977 (1976 season) Super Bowl win over the Vikings, where NFL Films caught Brown running directly at their end zone cameraman and creating one of their most memorable clips.
Younger viewers might remember Brown better in recent years as the Raiders representative at the NFL Draft, announcing the Raider picks and reminding all the viewers that Mother's Day is coming soon and to remember their mom.

Goodbye to Patrick Day at the age of 27.
Day was a fringe contender in the junior middleweight division that was knocked out in the tenth and final round on the undercard of the Oleksandr Usyk-Chazz Witherspoon fight on October 12.
Conwell was ahead in the fight, but the fight was more than competitive and when Conwell slammed a three-punch combination on Day, Day fell backward and his head hit the mat with a thud, I had a bad feeling that Day was seriously injured.
Day had seriously tested another highly touted prospect in his fight before Conwell in Carlos Adames in losing a close decision and was the toughest opponent that the 2016 Olympian Conwell had faced in his pro career.
An alternate for the 2012 Olympic team, Day finished his pro career with a record of 17-4-1 and held a few minor titles.

Goodbye to Lou Palmer at the age of 83.
Palmer, who was one of the early faces of ESPN, worked for the network for a year before the first satellite feed bounced back to Bristol and then was an on-air talent until 1985.
Palmer also was part of start-up projects with WFAN in New York as they became the biggest sports talk radio station in the nation and also with the beginning of the Golf Channel before they were purchased by the NBC networks.
Palmer played minor league baseball under his real name of Lou Puma in the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox systems for parts of two seasons in 1957 and 1958.