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RIP Ernie Banks


TonySoprano

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Banks family attorney:

"The family will be holding a press conference Sunday in downtown Chicago at noon. We are working on the funeral arrangements right now.

He did not die of natural causes. His death was not expected. I'm not at liberty to say anything else right now until the press conference."

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CNN?src=hash">#CNN</a>: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/erniebanks?src=hash">#erniebanks</a> passes away-- his family attorney tells me "He did not die of natural causes. His death was not expected"</p>— AnneClaire Stapleton (@AnneClaireCNN) <a href="

">January 24, 2015</a></blockquote>

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Turns out it was a heart attack. Unfortunate, but really when you die of "natural causes," it's usually an organ failure.

Yeah, I'm not sure if was technically "natural causes" or not, but Banks was a few days short of his 84th birthday.

When an 84 year-old man dies of a heart attack, that seems fairly routine to me.

When the family made the statement that they did, I immediately thought that it was likely either homicide or suicide. I don't know why the Banks family felt compelled to do so (make the statement that they did) without elaborating.

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Yeah, I'm not sure if was technically "natural causes" or not, but Banks was a few days short of his 84th birthday.

When an 84 year-old man dies of a heart attack, that seems fairly routine to me.

When the family made the statement that they did, I immediately thought that it was likely either homicide or suicide. I don't know why the Banks family felt compelled to do so (make the statement that they did) without elaborating.

I think they were shock and confused with language. I think they meant to express their shock and grief at the suddenness.

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Former major league outfielder Dale Murphy, in a tweet Friday night, said: "Did a card show w Ernie Banks. He drove the promoter crazy! Spent time/talked with every person. After an hour had signed maybe 15."
source - ESPN

I can personally attest to this having met him at a card show in Baltimore a short walk from Camden Yards in late 1995. Ernie stood apart from the other attendees at the show with the time he spent with each fan, smiling, and simply happy to be there with them. His line moved slooow but we didn't care because he was so outgoing when it was your turn. By contrast, before Reggie Jackson sat down to sign, he took the microphone and for a couple minutes announced what he wouldn't sign, "no, Mr. October; no, HOF; no..." Willie Mays didn't want to look up to acknowledge you were there, let alone talk with you.

One story I heard about Willie was a man gave him Willie's rookie card to sign. Willie informed him that if he signed the card it would devalue it (which believe it or not is actually true). The man replied he didn't care, he wanted the autograph. Willie then tore the card up and said, "Well, it isn't worth anything now."

Over the years, I've met dozens of athletes, and they have their bad days like the rest of us. I really doubt Ernie Banks had one of those days. Our Brooks Robinson is another one.

ETA, My souvenir from that day

eb_zpsab37b512.jpg

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source - ESPN

I can personally attest to this having met him at a card show in Baltimore a short walk from Camden Yards in late 1995. Ernie stood apart from the other attendees at the show with the time he spent with each fan, smiling, and simply happy to be there with them. His line moved slooow but we didn't care because he was so outgoing when it was your turn. By contrast, before Reggie Jackson sat down to sign, he took the microphone and for a couple minutes announced what he wouldn't sign, "no, Mr. October; no, HOF; no..." Willie Mays didn't want to look up to acknowledge you were there, let alone talk with you.

One story I heard about Willie was a man gave him Willie's rookie card to sign. Willie informed him that if he signed the card it would devalue it (which believe it or not is actually true). The man replied he didn't care, he wanted the autograph. Willie then tore the card up and said, "Well, it isn't worth anything now."

Over the years, I've met dozens of athletes, and they have their bad days like the rest of us. I really doubt Ernie Banks had one of those days. Our Brooks Robinson is another one.

ETA, My souvenir from that day

eb_zpsab37b512.jpg

Thanks for that.

I love hearing stories about star athletes with this kind of personality.

I remember when we got what turned out to be his last baseball card in the spring of 1971, when I was in Kindergarten.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Wow. Banks apparently changed his will 3 months prior to his death leaving all his assets to his agent. Family is fighting it. Sounds like a mess.

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/02/16/ernie-banks-family-alleges-agent-trying-to-take-his-estate/21143297/

This sheds a different light on the earlier comment from the family attorney that Ernie didn't die of natural causes. Sounds like a mess, indeed. Hard to know who to believe.

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Yeah. Crazy stuff. Maybe we'll be looking at a murder investigation.

Yes, and that is what I was alluding to in one of my previous posts (#18.)

When the family of an 84 year-old man goes out of their way to publicly assert that he "did not die of natural causes," some type of foul play (such as homicide) or unusual circumstances (such as suicide), immediately comes to mind.

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