People
die every day, sometimes famous people that one respects or
admires. It can be a performer or athlete that one has followed
for years. It's always a melancholy moment. But there's something
different when it's a figure that was a icon of one's youth.
Young people tend to think of the world as a permanent place, where
certain things will always be around (at least until their generation
takes over!).
In the very earliest awareness I had of sports figures was this colorful character,
"
Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, a double All-Star for the Detroit Tigers whose colorful antics on the pitching mound created a sensation during the mid-1970s, has died aged 54."
http://news.yahoo.com/
"
A
21-year-old rookie who bopped around, talked to the baseball, got down
on his hands and knees to smooth out the mound and shook infielders'
hands after good plays? Now, that was out there. In Roger Angell's
essay on the 1976 season, Fidrych explains why he threw a baseball to
the umpire after a hit: "That ball had a hit in it, so I want to get it
back in the ball bag and goof around with the other balls there. Maybe
it'll learn some sense and come out as a popup next time."Fidrych
couldn't have seemed more out there if he had declared that he breathed
through his eyelids and pitched while wearing a garter belt."
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/He
might have dismissed as a cook, but his professional accomplishments in
a short career are simply amazing. Second in Cy Young voting, as
a _rookie_? Wow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_FidrychHe went on to retire and play with really big trucks, hauling gravel for kicks. That's cool.
The
second person we mention today I probably shouldn't have known about at
10 years old. Hurrah for free premium cable and sound sleeping
parents!
"Marilyn Chambers, the pretty Ivory Snow soap girl who helped bring
hard-core adult films into the mainstream consciousness when she
starred in the explicit 1972 movie "Behind the Green Door," has died at 56."
http://news.yahoo.com/
"
She was the first crossover adult star. She was the Ivory Snow girl
and when she decided to make an adult movie that was big news," Steven
Hirsch, co-CEO of adult filmmaker Vivid Entertainment Group, told The
Associated Press on Monday.
"It
was the first adult movie that was more than just a bunch of sex
scenes," Hirsch said of her breakthrough film. "She was an actress and
she brought that ability to the set of 'Behind the Green Door.' That's
part of what made
that movie so successful.""
I only
saw some of the tame stuff, which found an outlet when cable TV was new
and the rules were still being written. [shadow shows?
seriously??]
And she wasn't just stretching the rim of adult film -
"
Chambers had some chart success with the disco single "Benihana" in 1976, "
"
In the 2004 United States presidential election Chambers ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a quasi-libertarian party. She received a total of 946 votes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Chambers
