Goodbye to Vida Blue at the age of 73.
Blue was one of the two aces with Catfish Hunter for the three World Championships that the Oakland Athletics won from 1972-74 and his first two seasons with Oakland resulted in a sensation that moved beyond baseball with Blue appearing on the cover of non-sports magazines such as Time, Ebony, and Jet.
Blue was a September 1970 callup and Blue would make two starts, throwing a one-hit complete game against Kansas City followed by a no-hitter against Minnesota.
Blue's 1971 season ranks with the best ever in the game at 24-8, 1.81 ERA (league leading) 24 complete games, eight shutouts (both league leading), and 301 strikeouts on his way to winning a Cy Young and the American League MVP.
Blue held out for much of the 1972 season and would only finish 6-10 but would win twenty games in 1973, seventeen in 1974, and twenty-two in 1975.
Blue was the subject of two deals that commissioner Bowie Kuhn would veto using the reasoning of "not in the best interests of baseball" as he denied a cash sale in June 1976 to the Yankees and denied another in the winter meetings before the 1978 season to the Reds for first baseman Dave Revering and $1.75 million.
Blue would finally be traded- to the Giants for six players and $300,000 and in his first season as a Giant, Blue would win eighteen games, start for the National League in the All-Star game, and win the Sporting News pitcher of the year award but struggled the following year with an ERA over five.
Blue was involved with the Pittsburgh drug trials, resulting in a suspension for the 1984 season and his career declined seemingly due to drug use with the Giants and Royals as his numbers dwindled.
Blue won his 200th game with the Giants as a reliever in his final season in 1986.
Goodbye to Denny Crum at the age of 86.
Crum won two national championships at Louisville (1980 and 86) and would take the Cardinals to four other Final Fours (1972,75,82, and 83) in his thirty seasons in Louisville.
Louisville would make the NCAA tournament twenty-three times under Crum and would win 675 games in his career, all spent with the Cardinals, who he took to the 1972 Final Four in his first season.
Crum was an assistant at UCLA under John Wooden, before being hired at Louisville and played a key role in the recruitments of the then-Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton to Westwood.
Crum was often rumored as the eventual successor to Wooden but never made the move.
Crum mentioned during his retirement season of 2001 that the opportunity to coach the Bruins was offered three times but Crum had fallen in love with Louisville and Kentucky and could never bring himself to leave.
Goodbye to Joe Kapp at the age of 85.
Kapp is most remembered as the quarterback of the first Minnesota Vikings team to reach the Super Bowl after the 1969 season as the Vikings finished 12-2 and lost as the heavy favorite in Super Bowl IV.
Kapp had led the Vikings to their first-ever playoff berth in 1968 but the Vikings declined to pick up his option before the 1969 season, which resulted in the Super Bowl being Kapp's final game as a Viking.
Kapp was signed by the then-Boston Patriots a few weeks into the 1970 season but Kapp played poorly in winning one of ten starts, throwing only three touchdowns against seventeen interceptions, and other than a 1971 training camp appearance, Kapp's career was completed.
Kapp started his career in the CFL with the British Columbia Lions, taking them to the Grey Cup twice and winning with the Lions in 1964 and would spend a portion of the 1990 season as the general manager, where he was the person that would sign Doug Flutie to his first contract in the league.
Kapp also was the head coach at California from 1982-86, compiled only one winning season (his first) but was the winning coach in the famous 1982 Cal-Stanford game where Cal used the lateral multiple times as they wound their way around the fans and band on the field.
Kapp made the news at a Grey Cup appearance in 2011 when he exchanged blows with former Hamilton defensive lineman and pro wrestler Angelo Mosca on stage during the event.
Goodbye to Claude Noel at the age of 74.
A generally undistinguished lightweight at the world-class level, Noel fought for the vacant WBA lightweight title against Ernesto Espana in 1979 for one of the two titles vacated by Roberto Duran and was knocked out in the thirteenth round.
Surprisingly, Noel would stay near the top of the WBA ratings and two years later had risen to number one despite a lack of a strong victory to become the mandatory challenger to new champion Sean O'Grady, who had recently upset Kronk Gym's Hilmer Kenty to win the title.
Rather than defend against Noel for little money in a fight with a lack of fan appeal, O'Grady dropped the title, placing Noel in line to fight for the vacant championship.
Noel was an underdog against the highly touted "Gato" Gonzalez, who had been a boxing magazine sensation on several covers for spectacular knockouts, including a two-round crunching of veteran contender Vilomar Fernandez, who had once decisioned the great Alexis Arguello and went the fifteen round distance with Roberto Duran.
Gonzalez then turned in an uninspiring effort which enabled Noel to pull off the upset to win the WBA title in a boring fight.
Noel was then scheduled to make his first defense against Gonzalo Montellano, who was replaced by Arturo Frias after a training injury.
Frias would knock Noel out in the seventh round and Noel would only appear on the world stage once more, losing to Alexis Arguello via third-round KO before returning to the British Commonwealth level for the remainder of his career.
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