Those folks leaving us on this date include: William Shippen of Philadelphia. He helped found the school that became the University of Pennsylvania. His brother, by the way, helped found Princeton, and his grand-niece (same brother) was married to Benedict Arnold, and played a key role in his treason. Oh, and for good measure, he served in the Continental Congress during the American Revolution.
Also dying today was Felix Mendelssohn. He was okay, though he was no Liszt or Wagner. And his sister was named Fanny. Sorry. That's all I've got.
Also dying on this date, Grover Cleveland Alexander, widely regarded as the third best pitcher in the history of baseball. And do you wanna hear something really cool? 5 years after he died, he was followed by Cy Young, who was of course the best pitcher in baseball history, and namesake of the award that Justin Verlander is gonna be taking home in a few days, unless the people who vote for it are complete morons, which is always possible, but highly unlikely. Weird to think that Cy Young only died a few short years before I was born, since he played around the turn of the 20th century.
Fred "Sonic" Smith died on this date. He was part of the MC5 ("MC", by the way being short for "Motor City"), married Patti Smith, and allegedly babysat one of my college friends a couple times, since her parents were friends of his. (Allegedly). For those who don't know, the MC5 are pretty much the godfathers of Punk Rock, along with another person from the Detroit area, Iggy Pop, who doesn't have a birthday today. (Nor has he died. So I guess he's not really relevant.)
In 1995, Eddie Egan died. He's best known by his nickname "Popeye", and for being the subject of the movie "the French Connection". Surprisingly, he was also the slightly fictionalized subject of a couple more films and TV shows- and I'm not even counting "French Connection II"... That same day, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, and Morrie Schwartz died. As to the latter, Mitch Albom made a crap ton of money off the story, which got him deals to write lots of pretentious books that Oprah turned into best sellers. Wish I could find a link to the page that makes fun of his writing style (for columns- I've never read any of his non-fiction books) but I can't. Oh well. I guess we've spent enough time on him, since he did nothing of interest on this date. But RIP Morrie.
However, a good writer did die on this date, in 2008. Michael Crichton. Good stuff there. I personally like "State of Fear".
And in 2010, a very sad day for all Detroiters, as we lost our beloved Sparky Anderson. The rest of the world lost a much beloved George Anderson- two sides of the same coin. They say he could talk to anyone he met, and make them feel like his best friend. That's a quality not enough people have, and I dearly wish I were one of the few.
Goodbye Sparky, and all the rest.
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