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Athletes Who Died Young

March 16th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Baseball

I looked this up the other day. Athletes who died young, during what should have been their playing careers, but who did not die violently or in an accident.

I thought I might have to research this sport by sport, but someone is even more morbid than I am, and they compiled a list and turned it into this wiki entry.

Actually, the list at the link includes accidents. But we can cull out what I was really looking for, the things that once upon a time could kill athletes in their primes.

The topic popped into my head because I was writing a tennis piece (yes, tennis) on Serena Williams, and noting how we no longer consider the possibility of athletes being slowed by anything other than injury or violence.

Serena Williams, as I noted in my tennis column this week, has had her career put on hold by events that began after Wimbledon nine months ago, when she cut her foot.

She was the best player in the world, but she hasn’t played in more than eight months, and of late things have been more dire: blood clots in her legs and a pulmonary embolism.

That sort of thing is not supposed to happen to 29-year-old athletes.

But it wasn’t that long ago that athletes regularly missed time — or died — from illnesses that now could be cured or prevented entirely.

Examine the list.

We have guys dying, little more than a century ago, from tuberculosis — while in their 20s. Some died from burst appendixes.  A few died during the great influenza epidemic in the 1918-1919 period. Others succumbed to pneumonia, gangrene, Bright’s disease …

Most of these guys weren’t really well known, but some of them were solid players. One I see on the baseball list, Addie Joss, a future Hall-of-Famer who died of meningitis in 1911.

Another guy I had heard of is Urban Shocker, who pitched for the 1927 Yankees and was the last player in major-league history who could legally throw the spitball.

“Regular” things could kill a person, back then. Before antibiotics. Players could lose a year due to illness, not just injuries.

Anyway, it’s interesting to look at the list, at the guys who were murdered or committed suicide or were killed in war. Or died in a drunken stupor, apparently, like Ed Delahanty, who somehow went over Niagara Falls.

But what catches my interest are the guys who died of something that no longer scares much of anyone who is strong enough to play professional sports.

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1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Dylan // Mar 17, 2011 at 8:51 AM

    Shocker: last *Yankee* who could throw the spitter. Burleigh Grimes was the last major leaguer.

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