Cleaning out the Inbox:Passings

   I'm still working on finishing the inbox cleaning that has built up over the last month and this will be passings from the baseball world.

Editors note; The final two were noted after this post had started and why they are from the football world.

Goodbye to Bill Virdon at the age of 90.

The 1955 National League Rookie of the Year with the Cardinals, Virdon was traded to the Pirates the following season and would spend the following ten seasons with Pittsburgh before retiring after the 1965 season to go into managing.

Virdon managed four different teams (Pirates, Yankees, Astros, and Expos) in the 70s and 80s and twice managed teams to division titles (Pittsburgh 1972 and Houston 1980) that came down to the final inning of the NLCS before losing.

Virdon won the American League Manager of the Year award with the Yankees in 1974 and the National League version with Houston in 1980, where he still holds the Astros record for managerial wins.

Virdon finished his managing career with a winning percentage of .519.

Virdon never managed in the bigs after being fired by Montreal in 1984 but would spend most of the next two decades on various coaching staffs, mostly with Pittsburgh.

Goodbye to Doug Jones at the age of  64.

The well-traveled closer best known for his slow stuff and change-up, Jones made the All-Star team five times and finished his career with over 300 saves.

Jones was generally the closer for bad teams and could be acquired on the cheap by losing teams like the pre-John Hart Indians when he racked up 112 saves from 1988-90.

Goodbye to Jerry Remy at the age of 68.

A slap hitting second baseman for the Angels and Red Sox in the 70s and early 80s, Remy made one All-Star team in 1978 but was beloved by Red Sox fans as the color commentator for NESN on Boston's television games.

One of the better color commentators in the league, Remy worked for NESN from 1986 to last season when his lung cancer recurred.

Goodbye to Don Maynard at the age of 86.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver was the top target for the Joe Namath-led Jets of the 1960s and was the hero of the Jets AFL title victory over Oakland when Maynard finished with over 100 yards receiving and scored the final two touchdowns in the Jets 27-23 win.

Maynard would play in the Jets' historic Super Bowl III win over the Colts but was used as a decoy after suffering a hamstring pull in the win over Oakland.

Maynard was one of only twenty players to play in the AFL for the league's entire ten-year existence and one of only seven to spend all ten seasons with one team.

Maynard would finish his career with just under 12,000 yards receiving and would end his playing career in 1974 in the World Football League with the Houston Texans/Shreveport Steamer franchise that moved in the middle of the only completed season that the league would finish.

Goodbye to Don Sutherin at the age of 85.

Sutherin kicked the game-winning field in the 1958 Rose Bowl to give Ohio State a 10-7 win over Oregon and the 1957 national championship.

Sutherin played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 1958 before moving to the NFL for 1959 and 60, where he spent time with the Giants and Steelers before a return to the CFL for good late in the 1960 season.

Sutherin would win four Grey Cups with Hamilton playing defensive back and kicker, and also played for Toronto and Ottawa before retiring after the 1970 season and was voted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1992.

Sutherin also would serve as head coach of the Tiger-Cats from 1994-97 during the time that I was receiving tapes from Canada for Tiger-Cat games, compiling a record of 20 and 34 in Hamilton.