The Stars of My Youth Are Dying in Droves

[Can_of_corn]

 

[Frobby]

39 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

 

That is very sad.  

[Sports Guy]

Gerald Williams and now Jeremy Giambi.  Crazy.  Who will be #3?

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

RIP Bruce Sutter. 

 

[Frobby]

Not too get to macabre here, but the reason I started this thread in 2020 was it seemed there had just been an unusual stretch of great players passing away.   And believe it or not, BB-ref tracks who died each year and even sums up the WAR totals of all the players who died.

In 2020, 116 former major leaguers died, including 7 Hall of Famers.   The deceased players accumulated 1104.3 rWAR in their careers.  

In 2021, 106 former players died who accrued 664.8 rWAR.  Two Hall of Famers were included.

This year, to date 74 former major leaguers have passed away, who accrued 282.5 rWAR.  Bruce Sutter is the first Hall of Famer to die this year.  

So, as you can see, 2020 was an awful year in term of losing former players, especially Hall of Fame level guys.   Of course, 2020 was a very high mortality year in general, due to COVID.   But even so, losing 7 HOFers was way out of whack.  

 

[SteveA]

Gaylord Perry has passed away.   He was 88.

He played baseball for Campbell University in South Carolina, just as Cedric Mullins did.

[BRobinsonfan]

On 12/1/2022 at 10:03 AM, SteveA said:

Gaylord Perry has passed away.   He was 88.

He played baseball for Campbell University in South Carolina, just as Cedric Mullins did.

Campbell University is in Buies Creek, North Carolina.  Both he and his brother Jim Perry went there.  

[backwardsk]

Mr. Perfect Tom Browning passed away at 62.  Only pitcher to toss a perfect game against that season’s World Series champion.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 hour ago, backwardsk said:

Mr. Perfect Tom Browning passed away at 62.  Only pitcher to toss a perfect game against that season’s World Series champion.

I really got a kick out of the 1990 Reds team sweeping the Oakland A's when everyone thought the A's would steamroll the Reds. I even won a bet at school taking the Reds to win the World Series. 

[Orioles4Life21]

I met Tom Browning very briefly a few years ago. Very nice man.

 

Also, RIP Franco Harris 

[mrbig1]

Fred Valentine died today he was 87. Played for the Washington Senators and the O's. R.I.P.

[SteveA]

Sal Bando, 3 time world champ with the 70s Oakland A's, passes away of cancer at 78.

You know, it's odd... the Orioles lost to those A's in back to back ALCS's in '73 and '74, and no one ever talks about it.   We have never forgotten, or gotten over, the loss to the Mets in 1969, the two World Series losses to Pittsburgh, the 1982 season finale loss to the Brewers, the ALCS losses to the Yankees (Jeffrey Maier), Cleveland (Tony Fernandez/Armando Benitez), and Kansas City (all those bloop its), the 2012 loss to the Yankees (that ball hit the foul pole!), the 2016 wild card game, etc.   All those losses are remembered vividly and ingrained into the lore of Oriole fanhood.

The two ALCS losses to the A's don't seem to be the same.   I don't think most Oriole fans have anywhere the hatred for those two A's teams than we do for every other team mentioned in the last paragraph.   There are no villains or momentous events we remember and rehash over and over again forever from those games.   Honestly, it's like we don't remember them at all.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, SteveA said:

Sal Bando, 3 time world champ with the 70s Oakland A's, passes away of cancer at 78.

You know, it's odd... the Orioles lost to those A's in back to back ALCS's in '73 and '74, and no one ever talks about it.   We have never forgotten, or gotten over, the loss to the Mets in 1969, the two World Series losses to Pittsburgh, the 1982 season finale loss to the Brewers, the ALCS losses to the Yankees (Jeffrey Maier), Cleveland (Tony Fernandez/Armando Benitez), and Kansas City (all those bloop its), the 2012 loss to the Yankees (that ball hit the foul pole!), the 2016 wild card game, etc.   All those losses are remembered vividly and ingrained into the lore of Oriole fanhood.

The two ALCS losses to the A's don't seem to be the same.   I don't think most Oriole fans have anywhere the hatred for those two A's teams than we do for every other team mentioned in the last paragraph.   There are no villains or momentous events we remember and rehash over and over again forever from those games.   Honestly, it's like we don't remember them at all.

It does annoy me that the ‘72-74 A’s did what the ‘69-71 O’s could not, despite being not nearly as good a team.  But I never felt the ‘73-74 O’s were dramatically better than the A’s teams that beat them in the postseason, so those didn’t sting me too badly by comparison to the losses in the WS to inferior teams.

[SpOkane]

21 hours ago, SteveA said:

Sal Bando, 3 time world champ with the 70s Oakland A's, passes away of cancer at 78.

You know, it's odd... the Orioles lost to those A's in back to back ALCS's in '73 and '74, and no one ever talks about it.   We have never forgotten, or gotten over, the loss to the Mets in 1969, the two World Series losses to Pittsburgh, the 1982 season finale loss to the Brewers, the ALCS losses to the Yankees (Jeffrey Maier), Cleveland (Tony Fernandez/Armando Benitez), and Kansas City (all those bloop its), the 2012 loss to the Yankees (that ball hit the foul pole!), the 2016 wild card game, etc.   All those losses are remembered vividly and ingrained into the lore of Oriole fanhood.

The two ALCS losses to the A's don't seem to be the same.   I don't think most Oriole fans have anywhere the hatred for those two A's teams than we do for every other team mentioned in the last paragraph.   There are no villains or momentous events we remember and rehash over and over again forever from those games.   Honestly, it's like we don't remember them at all.

I grew up in MD and I remember my first day of first grade in September of '74. In the hallway, one kid was wearing an A's cap.  I wanted to clean his clock b/c he was a traitor b/c of the '73 playoffs. Maybe I was the exception?

[SteveA]

Tim McCarver passes away at age 81.