Goodbye to Sam Wyche at the age of 74.
Wyche, who was a backup quarterback for the Bengals and Redskins in his playing career, would be the head coach for Indiana for one season before moving to his best-known coaching spot with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Wyche took the Bengals to the Super Bowl in the 1988 season and his Bengals led the San Francisco 49ers until Joe Montana hit John Taylor with the game-winning touchdown pass with under a minute to play.
However, Wyche's Bengals only made the playoffs one other time in his eight years in Cincinnati and after being fired after a 3-13 season in 1991, moved to Tampa Bay for four losing seasons, but it was under Wyche that many of the players that Tony Dungy used to turn Tampa Bay around were drafted and developed under Wyche.
Wyche was an excellent color commentator for NBC, but that career ended when his left vocal cord was nicked during a biopsy.
Wyche also was the innovator of the no-huddle offense in that 1988 season as he would take advantage of defenses that were trying to change personnel on the fly.
Wyche's technique would either force the defense to keep players on the field that they wanted to replace or if they tried to replace them, quarterback Boomer Esiason would take the snap and draw a penalty for too many men on the field.
After the 1988 season, the NFL changed the substitution rule to its current state which allows the defense the right to match substitutions made by the offense.
Of all things that Wyche is remembered for, two stand out for me.
The first is his famous "You don't live in Cleveland" chastising of Bengals fans for throwing things on the field, which is what most likely remember, but I remember another Wyche moment.
In the NFL Films highlight films of the 1972 NFC Champion Redskins, it is Wyche that hollers at the Cowboys in the NFC title game to "Die, you dogs, die!, Die, you yellow dogs!"
The clip of Wyche is right after the twenty-minute mark.
Goodbye to Don Larsen at the age of 90.
Larsen pitched for seven teams over a career that stretched from 1953 through 1967 and never finished with more than eleven wins in any season but is remembered for one perfect day in 1956 for the Yankees as Larsen blanked the Brooklyn Dodgers in the only perfect game in World Series history.
Larsen's game five gem saw the right-hander throw only 97 pitches and only one Dodger was able to work Larsen, who often struggled with wildness, to a three-ball count.
Larsen lost 21 games for the 1954 Orioles before being obtained by the Yankees and would become a solid reliever in the 1960s with his best seasons being spent with the Giants.
Goodbye to Carlos "Sugar" DeLeon at the age of 60.
DeLeon was the top cruiserweight in the world before the reigns of Dwight Muhammad Qawi and Evander Holyfield and he would lose a 1988 unification fight to Holyfield when he was stopped in eight rounds, but DeLeon would win a cruiserweight title on four different occasions and his win over Marvin Camel in 1980 made his the second cruiserweight champion ever as Camel had defeated Mate Parlov in a fight to determine the first champion of the new weight class.
DeLeon was a smooth boxer-puncher that wasn't quite of the elite pound for pound class but had Evander Holyfield not started his career at cruiserweight, DeLeon would have clearly been the best fighter in the division for the decade of the 80s.
DeLeon was very talented but often seemed disinterested against lesser opponents which resulted in his title losses to S.T. Gordon, who shocked DeLeon in a two-round upset before DeLeon would easily win a rematch, a split decision loss to Alfonso Ratliff, and a disqualification loss in the eleventh round to Massimiliano Duran.
When DeLeon was motivated, he was an excellent fighter as he showed below as an underdog after the Gordon loss in dominating former heavyweight champion Leon Spinks, who was attempting to drop to the cruiserweight division after a knockout loss to the naturally larger Larry Holmes in a bid for the WBC heavyweight title held by Holmes.
Goodbye to Saoul Mamby at the age of 72.
Mamby, who held the WBC junior welterweight title for a three-year reign from 1980-1982, did not retire until he was 60 years old and never took a large amount of punishment due to Mamby's elite defensive skills.
Mamby traveled to South Korea to win his title with a 14th round knockout of Sang-Hyun Kim and would defend the title five times including a nationally televised in prime time title defense over Esteban DeJesus, who is most remembered for being the first man to defeat Roberto Duran (Mamby lost a ten-round decision to Duran in 1976 in a non-title bout), on a Larry Holmes undercard.
Mamby knocked out the favored DeJesus in the 13th round and would defend four more times before losing a close decision to Leroy Haley to lose his title.
The loss to Haley scuttled a scheduled title unification fight with WBA champion Aaron Pryor.
Mamby would lose the rematch to Haley via decision and would lose another decision to Haley's conqueror Bill Costello in his final title shot.
Mamby retired in 1994 but returned for four fights from 1998-2000 and a final fight at 60 years old when he lost a ten-round decision to Anthony Osborne in the Cayman Islands.
Goodbye to Carl Scheer at the age of 82.
Scheer was the first general manager of the Charlotte Hornets, would serve the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets in the same job and with the ABA Nuggets was a key part of the 1976 NBA-ABA merger.
Scheer built the Denver Nuggets into the best team in the final year of the ABA, although they lost the championship series to the New York Nets, and some have credited Scheer's signing of David Thompson and Marvin Webster before the 1975-76 season as the final tipping point in forcing the merger.
Scheer also brought Larry Brown from the Carolina Cougars to coach the Nuggets after the Cougars announced their plans to move to St.Louis as they would spend the final years of the ABA as the Spirits of St.Louis and traded for Dan Issel from Kentucky before that final season of the league.
The Nuggets would win the Midwest Division in their first season in the NBA under the guidance of Scheer from the front office and Brown from the bench.
Scheer and his staff are also credited with the idea for the first slam-dunk contest and rules for the event at the final ABA All-Star game that was held in Denver.
Scheer would also be heavily involved with the expansion Charlotte Hornets and those teal uniforms in 1988, which would become the rage for new teams in all sports of that time, were his idea.
That catches up on recent passings for now and I'm starting to see the bottom of the inbox with only a few general articles are remaining to clean up.
I'll be watching the Saints home game against the Vikings today and time allowing, I'm hoping to knock out a post on that game tonight or tomorrow.
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