Cleaning out the Inbox: Passings

   The 2024 year has barely started and it's already time to pay our respects to a few people that have left us.

Goodbye to Frank Ryan at the age of 87.

A three-time Pro Bowl selection , Frank Ryan remains the last quarterback to lead the Cleveland Browns to a World Championship as Ryan directed the Browns to an upset 27-0 win over the then-Baltimore Colts in 1964.

Never known for a strong throwing arm, Ryan suffered a shoulder injury in 1966 that would eventually change his throwing motion and cause his career to decline but led the Browns to the title game in 1965, where they lost to Green Bay and threw twenty-nine touchdowns in 1966 before the injury.

Arguably the most intelligent player in the NFL's history, Ryan's life outside of football may have been more interesting than his career in the game.

Ryan was a forerunner in computer development, held multiple degrees, taught mathematics at Rice (his alma mater) and Yale, and served as President and on boards of directors for many corporations.

Goodbye to David Soul at the age of 80.

Best known for his role as "Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson" in the 1970s cop drama "Starsky and Hutch",  Soul also was a star in "Here Come The Brides" in the later sixties and as the lead for the television mini-series "Salem's Lot", which was one of the first projects to reach television or film from author Stephen King.

Soul also had a number-one single during the peak of Starsky and Hutch with the love ballad "Don't Give Up On Us Baby" in 1977.

Goodbye to Tracy Torme at the age of 64.

The son of singer Mel Torme, Tracy Torme was a television producer and screenwriter with award nominations for "Fire in the Sky", and consulted on "Contact", the Jodie Foster award winner.

Torme worked for both SCTV and Saturday Night Live before being one of two creators of the 1990s television show Sliders, which for my money was one of the most creative programs ever during the first two seasons of its five-season run.

The show's decline paralleled Torme's departure from the series and I thought it never recovered from the loss of Torme as the show's premises changed from Torme's concept.

Goodbye to Norm Snead at the age of 84.

The vagabond passer played for five teams in the sixties and seventies after being the second overall pick in the 1961 NFL draft by Washington before being swapped for Sonny Jurgensen to the Eagles in 1964.

Snead had been named to two Pro Bowls in his three seasons in Washington and the Eagles were thought to have won the trade at the time while history shows that not to be the case, Snead wasn't awful for the Eagles (and others), Snead was interception-prone throughout his career on some mediocre teams, as Snead was the first quarterback to lose one hundred games.

Snead may be the only quarterback to be involved in two trades for Hall of Fame quarterbacks as Sbead was one of many pieces included in the trade that returned Fran Tarkenton to the Vikings from the New York Giants before the 1972 season.

Goodbye to Tom Shales at the age of 79.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning television critic for the Washington Post from 1977-2010, Shales also wrote four books including oral histories of Saturday Night Live and ESPN with James Miller of the Post.

Shales won his Pulitzer in 1988 for his coverage of the Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings.