Losing Is a Disease

Claudell Washington

"Losing is a disease, as contagious as polio. Losing is a disease, as contagious as syphilis. Losing is a disease, as contagious as the bubonic plague. Ah, but curable."
-- the psychiatrist talking to the New York Knights, The Natural

It used to be that if someone's death was listed as being from "a long illness," it was code for "cancer." Later, once the word "cancer" stopped being so shocking, "a long illness" frequently meant "AIDS," especially if the deceased was an unmarried man, and especially especially if the obituary called him "flamboyant."

These days, if a cause of death is not listed, it's easy to presume it's from the Coronavirus, a.k.a. COVID-19. Though that hasn't been the case with everyone.

Just in the last 2 weeks, the world of sports has lost:

* Roy Steele, 87, from a longstanding digestive issue, on May 28. He was the public-address announcer for the Oakland Athletics from their arrival from Kansas City in 1968 to 2005,

* Curtis Cokes, 82, from heart failure, on May 29. He was the Welterweight Champion of the World from August 24, 1966 to April 18, 1969,

* Deibert Guzmán, 25, on May 30. He is believed to be the 1st soccer player to die from COVID-19, a native of the South American nation of Bolivia, who played for Beni in that country's 2nd division.

* Pat Dye, 80, from kidney problems made worse by COVID-19, on June 1. He coached Auburn to 3 Southeastern Conference Championships in the 1980s, and was also a college teammate of Fran Tarkenton at Georgia, but only played in the CFL, not in the NFL or the AFL;

* Lee Grosscup, 83, of undisclosed causes, on June 1. A career backup quarterback, he might have been the 1st player to play for both the Giants and the team that would become known as the Jets (originally the New York Titans), was on the Giants' roster for the 1959 and '61 NFL Championship Games, later broadcasting for the University of California,

* Wes Unseld, 74, of pneumonia, on June 2. A member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, he got the Baltimore/Washington Bullets into the NBA Finals in 1971, 1975, 1978 and 1979, winning in 1978, named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players.

* Johnny Majors, 85, of undisclosed causes, on June 3. A running back at the University of Tennessee, he finished 2nd in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1956, coached the University of Pittsburgh to the 1976 National Championship, before returning to Tennessee and leading them to 3 SEC Championships, nearly winning another National Championship in 1989.

* Pete Dademacher, 91, of undisclosed causes, on June 4. He won the Gold Medal in the Heavyweight boxing division at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and then carried the American flag in the Closing Ceremony. The next year, he faced fellow '56 Olympian Floyd Patterson for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, but lost. He also lost to notable fighters Zora Folley, Brian London, Archie Moore and Karl Mildenberger; but beat George Chuvalo and Carl "Bobo" Olson.

* Kurt Thomas, 64, from a stroke, on June 5. He was the men's World Gymnastics Champion in 1978 and '79, and was set to be one of the American stars at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, before President Carter's boycott. In 1985, he starred in Gymkata, a movie combining gymnastics and martial arts, becoming a cult favorite, a "so bad it's good" movie.

* Reche Caldwell, 41, shot during a robbery in Tampa, on June 6. A receiver, he had won the 2000 SEC Championship at Florida, then, played 6 seasons in the NFL, mostly for the San Diego Chargers.

* Ralph Wright, 72, of undisclosed causes, on June 7. A defender, he played for several teams in England, before coming to the North American Soccer League and playing for the New York Cosmos, the Miami Toros and the Dallas Tornado.

* Ken Riley, 72, of a heart attack, on June 7. One of the top cornerbacks in NFL history, he had 65 interceptions with the Cincinnati Bengals, and made 3 Pro Bowls. He should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He later won 2 Conference Championships as head coach at his alma mater, Florida A&M.

* Tony Dunne, 78, of undisclosed causes, on June 8. The left back helped Dublin soccer team Shelbourne win the FAI Cup, the Republic of Ireland's version of England's FA Cup, in 1960. He was signed by Manchester United, with whom he won the FA Cup in 1963, the Football League in 1965 and 1967, and the European Cup in 1968. He later helped Bolton Wanderers win the 2nd Division in 1978, and played the 1979 season with the Detroit Express in the NASL.

* Paul Rochester, 81, of undisclosed causes, on June 9. He played in all 10 seasons of the 1960s AFL, including as an All-Star with the 1961 Dallas Texans, an AFL Champion with the 1962 Texans and the 1968 Jets, and a winner of Super Bowl III with the Jets.

With his death, there are now 31 living players from the Jets' Super Bowl team: Joe Namath, Don Maynard, Bob Talamini, Matt Snell, Emerson Boozer, Jim Turner, Bake Turner, Pete Lammons, Mark Smolinski, Bill Mathis, Lee White, John Schmitt, Paul Crane, Randy Rasmussen, Dave Herman, Jeff Richardson, Gerry Philbin, Steve Thompson, Carl McAdams, Ralph Baker, Al Atkinson, John Neidert, Randy Beverly, John Dockery, Earl Christy, Jim Richards, Michael Stromberg, Bill Baird, Mike D'Amato, Cornell Gordon and Karl Henke.

* Lonnie Wheeler, 68, of a long-term illness, on June 9. A former sports columnist for the Cincinnati Post until that paper closed in 2007, he ghost-wrote the autobiographies of Baseball Hall-of-Famers Hank Aaron and Bob Gibson, and also wrote biographies of Hall-of-Famers Mike Piazza and, barely finished before his death, Negro League legend James "Cool Papa" Bell. With Gibson and Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson, he wrote Sixty Feet, Six Inches, as Mr. October and the closest thing to his pitching equivalent discussed various aspects of the game.

He also wrote Blue Yonder, about University of Kentucky basketball. Your required reading is Bleachers: A Summer at Wrigley Field, in which he covered the 1987 season, the last season of the Cubs' ballpark without lights.

* Harry Glickman, 96, of undisclosed causes, on June 10. A longtime sportswriter for Portland's paper The Oregonian, he was one of the founding owners of the Portland Trail Blazers, and was their general manager from 1987 to 1994, building a team that won 2 NBA Western Conference Championships.

* Claudell Washington, 65, of prostate cancer, on June 10. Known for good hitting, good fielding, and a rather long neck, the outfielder won the 1974 World Series as a rookie with the Oakland Athletics, and was an All-Star with them in 1975 and the Atlanta Braves in 1984. He never won another ring, but he did reach the postseason again with the A's in 1975 and the Braves in 1982.

Footage from a 1985 game at Wrigley Field was shown in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, with a foul ball hit by Claudell being edited so that it looked like Ferris caught it. He was in another movie, Taking Care of Business, in 1990, allowing one more World Series appearance, with a fictional version of the California Angels. He played for both the Mets (in 1980) and the Yankees (including in 1988, when an upper-deck shot he hit at the Metrodome made the Yankees the 1st MLB team to have hit 10,000 home runs in their history).