June 1, 1926: Marilyn and Andy

June 1, 1926, 100 years ago: Norma Jeane Mortenson is born in Los Angeles. We knew her as Marilyn Monroe. Then again, we really didn't know her at all.

Some women have tried to copy her -- and some were hired with the intent to copy her. Jayne Mansfield. Mamie Van Doren. Sheree North. Anita Ekberg. None pulled it off. Anna Nicole Smith came closer than most, with hair bleaching, the name change, the troubled marriages, and, sadly, the too-soon death.

To paraphrase Elton John: I would've liked to have known her, but I wasn't born yet. Her candle may have burned out, but the world never will forget.

On the exact same day: Andy Samuel Griffith (not "Andrew") is born in Mount Airy, North Carolina, just south of the Virginia State Line. Mount Airy became the basis for the fictional town of Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show.

One of the statues commissioned by the nostalgia network TV Land is in Mount Airy, showing Griffith as the show's Sheriff Andy Taylor, and Ron Howard, then billed as "Ronny Howard," as his son, Opie, walking toward "the ol' fishin' hole."

While Andy and Marilyn were both acting at the same time, there is no record of them ever having met. There is, however, a record of Andy meeting Marilyn's ex-husband, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. They crossed paths at a celebrity golf tournament in the 1970s or early 1980s, where DiMaggio playfully complimented Griffith on his acting.

It would have been nice to turn on the TV in 1986, and see a 60-year-old Marilyn playing an innocent woman defended by Ben on Matlock -- or even to have her be the actual killer, and have Ben expose her as such.

Alas, Marilyn died on August 4, 1962, at the age of 36, at her home in Los Angeles, 18 miles west of her birthplace, from a barbiturate overdose that may or may not have been accidental. For 20 years after her death, DiMaggio left flowers at her grave 3 times a week, until he found out that people were stealing them and selling them.

Andy died on July 3, 2012, at 86, at his home -- in Manteo, North Carolina, in the Outer Banks, 325 miles east of Mount Airy, and a short drive from where the Wright Brothers first flew.

Crossing the Lines

Left to right: Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn and Don Ameche, in Cocoon

Today, I learned about The Brimley/Cocoon Line. A feed on BlueSky dedicated it said:

Born Nov. 11, 1974, Leonardo DiCaprio is 18,530 days old today, matching Wilford Brimley’s age on the day ‘Cocoon’ was released. Congrats Leo! You’ve reached the Brimley/Cocoon Line. 

The old people in the movie, released in 1985 and directed by Ron Howard, were Don Ameche, 77; Jack Gilford, about to turn 77; Hume Cronyn, 74; Jessica Tandy, Cronyn's wife, also 74; Herta Ware, 68; Maureen Stapleton, 60; Gwen Verdon, also 60; and Wilford Brimley, described in the film review written for Time magazine by Richard Corliss as "53, but he can pass for old," but, really, only 50. Brian Dennehy, about to turn 47, wasn't yet considered "old." Nor were Steve Guttenberg, 26; Tyrone Power Jr., Tyrone's son, also 26; or Latanee "Tahnee" Welch, Raquel's daughter, 23.

Brimley had become famous the year before, playing Pop Fisher, the manager of the New York Knights, in the film The Natural. He already had white receding hair and a bushy mustache, so he looked considerably older. Having to stand alongside a 45-year-old but still dashing Robert Redford, the Depression setting of the film, the baggy uniform, and the dilapidated condition of the main filming location, War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, didn't help how he looked.

He later became a spokesman for Quaker Oats, looking older than the old Quaker man on the container; and for diabetes awareness and an insurance company, and lived until 2020. It wasn't COVID that killed him, it was diabetes-aided kidney failure. He was 85, and looked it -- but he had looked 85 for years.

Seeing the words "Brimley/Cocoon Line" made me think of the various "age lines" I've crossed. I was born on December 18, 1969, so:

* I outlived every rock star in "The 27 Club," including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, on my 28th birthday, December 18, 1997 -- the day Chris Farley died.

* Thurman Munson died at 32 years, 1 month and 26 days. I outlived him on February 9, 2002.

* Farley's hero, John Belushi, died at 33 years, 1 month and 9 days. I outlived him on January 28, 2003.

* Farley died at 33 years, 10 months and 3 days. I outlived him on October 22, 2003.

* Diana Spencer, former Princess of Wales, died at 36 years, 1 month and 30 days. I outlived her on February 18, 2006.

* Marilyn Monroe died at 36 years, 2 months and 4 days. I outlived her on February 23, 2006. (Elton John wrote his most famous song about Marilyn, then rewrote it for Diana -- and they were almost the exact same age when they died!)

* Lou Gehrig died at 37 years, 11 months and 15 days. I outlived him on December 4, 2007.

* Roberto Clemente died at 38 years, 4 months and 13 days. I outlived him on May 1, 2008.

* Martin Luther King Jr. died at 39 years, 2 months and 20 days. I outlived him on March 7, 2009.

* Malcolm X died at 39 years, 9 months and 2 days. I outlived him on September 20, 2009.

* John Lennon died at 40 years, 1 month and 29 days. I outlived him on February 18, 2010.

* Robert F. Kennedy died at 42 years, 6 months and 16 days. I outlived him on July 7, 2012.

* Elvis Presley died at 42 years, 7 months and 8 days. I outlived him on July 27, 2012.

* Freddie Mercury died at 45 years, 2 months and 19 days. I outlived him on March 10, 2015.

* Walter Payton died at 46 years, 3 months and 7 days. I outlived him on March 25, 2016.

* John F. Kennedy died at 46 years, 5 months and 24 days. I outlived him on June 13, 2016.

* Jack Kerouac died at 47 years, 7 months and 9 days. I outlived him on July 28, 2017.

* The Brimley/Cocoon Line is 50 years, 8 months and 26 days. I reached it on September 13, 2020.

* Michael Jackson died at 50 years, 9 months and 27 days. I outlived him on October 16, 2020.

* Babe Ruth died at 53 years, 6 months and 10 days. I outlived him on July 29, 2023.

* Jackie Robinson died at 53 years, 8 months and 24 days. I outlived him on September 11, 2023. (Probably the 2 most important baseball players of all time -- and they were very close to the same age when they died!)

* Abraham Lincoln died at 56 years, 2 months and 3 days. I would outlive him if I make it to February 22, 2026.

* Humphrey Bogart died at 57 years and 20 days. I would outlive him if I make it to January 8, 2027.

To match my grandparents, I would have to make it to early 2027, early 2035, early 2048, and late 2051. To match my father, I would have to make it to early 2041. To match my mother's current age, I would have to make it to mid-2048.

To match Donald Trump's current age, I would have to make it to early 2049. But I was more mature than he was when I was 14.

January 14, 1954: Joe DiMaggio Marries Marilyn Monroe

January 14, 1954, 70 years ago: Joe DiMaggio marries Marilyn Monroe at City Hall in Joe's hometown of San Francisco.

Joe, the biggest baseball star of his generation, was 39 years old. Marilyn, one of the biggest actresses of the time, but not yet the biggest, was 27. Each became a much bigger public figure by marrying the other.

Each had been married once before. In 1937, after his great rookie season for the Yankees, DiMaggio was in demand, and was cast in the film Manhattan Merry-Go-Round. It was the only film in which he ever appeared. Also in it was a blonde actress named Dorothy Arnold. (I suppose you could say that Joe had a type.)

They got married in a Catholic ceremony in San Francisco in 1939, and their son Joe Jr. was born in 1941. The marriage began to fail during World War II, and when she left him, Joe enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was assigned to the Army Air Forces (the Air Force was not separated from the Army until 1947), and was still in the service in 1944 when the divorce was finalized.

Marilyn was born Norma Jeane Mortensen, in Los Angeles, but her family situation was every bit as messed-up as Joe's was stable. She grew up using her mother's maiden name for her last name, calling herself Norma Jeane Baker. At age 16, the family situation got worse, and she was threatened with being sent back to an orphanage. Rather than accept that, she married a 21-year-old neighbor, James Dougherty.

The Doughertys were not happy. Right after World War II ended, Marilyn got a modeling job offer, but was told they didn't accept married women. So she left him, and they were divorced in 1946. Jim Dougherty became a Los Angeles police officer, and later taught criminal justice at a college in Maine. He died in 2005, insisting to the end that if Marilyn had turned down the job offer and stayed married to him, she would have been happy.

She signed with Columbia Pictures, took her alliterative stage name, and, like the Mexican-American Margarita Cansino, a.k.a. Rita Hayworth, had her ordinary-blonde hair dyed platinum blonde. Her contract at Columbia was brief, and she moved on to 20th Century Fox. Her small roles in All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle led to bigger roles, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, pairing her up with a brunette with, to put it politely, a similar figure: Jane Russell. Jane had also married a sports legend, Los Angeles Rams quarterback Bob Waterfield. That marriage lasted from 1943 to 1968.

At first, Marilyn didn't want to meet Joe, thinking he would be just another arrogant athlete. But something clicked, and, since Joe was still recognized as married by the Roman Catholic Church, they had a civil ceremony at San Francisco's City Hall.

They honeymooned in Japan. While there, the USO asked Marilyn to make the short flight over to Korea, where, although the Korean War was over, there were still a lot of servicemen stationed. She went, and sang and posed for them. Upon returning to Tokyo, she told her husband, "Oh, Joe, you never heard such cheering!" Missing it, he sadly said, "Yes, I have."

They were a mismatch. She wanted to keep her star rising. He wanted her to stay at home and be a good little Italian housewife. (She was of Scandinavian descent.) The only thing they seemed to agree on was that they both wanted children. But Marilyn had endometriosis, and she couldn't carry a pregnancy to term.

On September 14, 1954, Marilyn stood in front of the Trans-Lux 52nd Street Theater (since demolished), and filmed a scene for the film The Seven Year Itch, in which she stood over a grate for the Lexington Avenue Subway, and a passing train billowed up her white dress. Director Billy Wilder, a known "dirty old man," filmed take after take, even though she got it right every time. Although what appeared on film turned out to be rather tame, especially by today's standards, the film poster was more revealing.

Joe was furious at this. But, rather than take his frustrations out on Wilder, he took them out on Marilyn. He took her into the lobby of the theater, and there was a shouting match. Depending on whose version of the story you believe, he may even have hit her. It has long been believed that he was physically abusive to her in private.

The following month, upon returning to Los Angeles, Marilyn filed for divorce. The following year, she began an affair with Arthur Miller, the playwright who wrote Death of a Salesman. They married in a Jewish ceremony in 1959, and Marilyn was 4 months pregnant when she filmed Some Like It Hot, also directed by Wilder, making her curvier and bouncier than ever: As Jack Lemmon said, in character, "Will you look at that! It's like Jell-O on springs!" But she lost the baby, and her marriage to Miller disintegrated.

They divorced in early 1961, and Marilyn was committed to a psychiatric clinic. Upon hearing this, Joe stepped back into her life, and got her out. They made some public appearances together, and it looked like they might remarry.

But on August 5, 1962, Marilyn was found dead in her Los Angeles house, only 36 years old. The cause was an overdose of barbiturates, though it is still debated as to whether it was intentional.

DiMaggio organized her funeral. He barred several of her friends from attending, including President John F. Kennedy, believing the rumor that Jack and Marilyn had had an affair. He also barred Frank Sinatra, although Marilyn always denied having fooled around with Frank.

Joe and Frank were not just the 2 most famous Americans of Italian descent, but had once been close friends. They even "raided" somebody's house, thinking that the owner was fooling around with Marilyn. They had the wrong house, and nearly got in legal trouble for what became known as "The Wrong Door Raid."

Joe ended their friendship over Marilyn. An attempt to reconcile them at a Los Angeles restaurant in 1995 fell through, and the feud lasted until Sinatra's death in 1998.

For 20 years, Joe left flowers at Marilyn's grave 3 times a week. He stopped when he found out they were being taken as souvenirs. When he attended sports memorabilia shows, the rules for getting Joe's autograph included not mentioning Marilyn or giving him anything to sign with her in it, even if the picture had both of them. At least once, when presented with such a picture, he got up and left without a word.

At memorabilia conventions, Joe flat-out refused to sign anything having to do with Marilyn. I have, however, seen a photograph of a baseball signed by Joe and Marilyn, except she signed it "Norma Jeane DiMaggio."

Despite having been linked with a few women over the years, including Miss Americas Lee Meriwether and Marian McKnight, actress Gloria DeHaven, and, as late as the 1980s, actress Morgan Fairchild, Joe DiMaggio never remarried after his divorce from Marilyn Monroe, or even publicly confirmed that he was dating anyone. Joe's last words prior to his death on March 8, 1999, according to his attorney Morris Engelberg, were, "I'll finally get to see Marilyn." Joe's brother Dom, himself a star center fielder, denied this.

Still, both Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe loom large in the American consciousness, partly due to their connection to each other. In 1989, with Joe still alive, Billy Joel wrote "We Didn't Start the Fire," rhyming "DiMaggio" with "Monroe." In 1990, Madonna did the same thing in her song "Vogue." Both songs hit Number 1. Madonna had previously copied Marilyn's performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes for the video for her hit "Material Girl."

49

December 18, 1969, 49 years ago: Yours truly entered this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in.

I am now well aware that I have more yesterdays than tomorrows. If the deaths of people I admired didn't prove it to me, my increasing arthritis would have done so.

I am also aware that I have accomplished very little in life, while the following people who did not live to the age of 49 -- living mostly within the 20th Century -- accomplished quite a bit more:

48: Harvey Milk, Whitney Houston
47: Judy Garland, Jack Kerouac
46: John F. Kennedy, Rocky Marciano, Freddie Mercury
45: Nat King Cole, Walter Payton
44: Michael Bennett, Steve Irwin
43: Natalie Wood, John Candy, Reggie White
42: Robert F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Gilda Radner, Gary Coleman
40: John Lennon, Terry Sawchuk, Pete Maravich, Paul Walker
39: Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John Coltrane, Gus Grissom
38: Roberto Clemente, Harry Chapin
37: Medgar Evers, Bobby Darin
36: Marilyn Monroe, Bob Marley, Princess Diana, Steve McNair
35: Patrice Lumumba, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jonathan Larson
34: Yuri Gagarin
33: Sam Cooke, John Belushi, Chris Farley, Derrick Thomas, David Rocastle
32: Bruce Lee, Cass Elliot, Keith Moon, Thurman Munson, Karen Carpenter, Bill Hicks
31: Keith Haring, Cory Monteith
30: Stephen Biko, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes
29: Hank Williams Sr.
28: Heath Ledger
27: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse
26: Otis Redding
25: Tupac Shakur
24: James Dean, Notorious B.I.G.
23: River Phoenix, Selena (Quintanilla-Perez, not Gomez -- she's already made it to 26)
22: Buddy Holly, Freddie Prinze Sr., Terry Fox, Aaliyah
21: Duncan Edwards
18: Ryan White

I didn't say all of these people were admirable, but they still accomplished more in their brief lives than I've done in my life.

*

The Number 49 has certain properties. It is 7 times 7, so it's a square number. It is 1 of only 2 numbers to be on the name of a major league team in North American sports, the San Francisco 49ers, named for the men who headed for California in the "Gold Rush" of 1849. The other is 76, for the Philadelphia 76ers, emblematic of the 1776 founding of the nation in that city, summarized as "the Spirit of '76."

Earl Cooper, Number 49 of the 49ers,

scoring a touchdown in Super Bowl XVI,

Silverdome, Detroit suburbs, January 24, 1982

It is also the number worn by football legends Tom Landry (yes, he played once) and Bobby Mitchell, and by many good pitchers: Yankee Legend Ron Guidry, Hoyt Wilhelm, Larry Dierker, Charlie Hough, Rob Dibble, Tim Wakefield and Jake Arrieta. If you consider auto racing a sport (I don't), Mark Green drives NASCAR's car Number 49.

It is also the number consecutive games unbeaten that Arsenal played in the Premier League from May 7, 2003 to October 16, 2004. As the song goes:

49, 49 undefeated!
49, 49, I say!
49, 49 undefeated
playing football the Arsenal way!

It should have been at least 50, but the opposition in the next game, being Manchester United, had to cheat.

This doesn't make me "undefeated," any more than it makes me a San Francisco 49er.

But it does mean I'm now 1 year away from 50, and all that that milestone means.

There's no guarantee that I'll see the end of my 50s -- or even the end of my 40s. I'm in reasonably good health in spite of all my aches and pains, but you never know. By my own count, I've come close to death at least 4 times.

But I also feel that I've got more reason to live than ever. I've got a new generation of Yankees, New Jersey Devils and Arsenal players to watch. A new generation of political activists, who are already showing my own generation how it should be done. And 3 amazing nieces, for whom 49 years old must seem an impossible number, one they could never reach.

One can hope that they will, and will one day look back on what they're doing now, and say, "Was I ever that young?"

You're only young once, but, if you do it right, once is enough.

I can't say that I did it right. But it got me to a point where I know what I'm doing, so maybe I did.

To paraphrase Lou Gehrig, only in far better circumstances, I might have been given some bad breaks, but I've got an awful lot to live for.

*

Days until Arsenal play again: 1, tomorrow afternoon, 2:45 PM New York time, home to North London arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur in the Quarterfinal of the League Cup. Given the annual Arsenal injury crisis, we can expect a very different team from the one that embarrassed "Spurs" 4-2 at the Emirates Stadium on December 9.

Days until the next North London Derby: See the previous answer.

Days until the Democratic-controlled Congress will convene, and the impeachment process can begin: 16, on Thursday, January 3, 2019. A little over 2 weeks.

Days until the New Jersey Devils next play a local rival: 25, on Saturday afternoon, January 12, 2019, against the Philadelphia Flyers, a.k.a. The Philth, at the Prudential Center. The next game against the New York Islanders will be on Thursday night, January 17, 2019, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The next game against the New York Rangers, a.k.a. The Scum, will be on Thursday night, January 31, 2019, at the Prudential Center.

Days until the Baseball Hall of Fame vote is announced, electing Mariano Rivera: 35, on January 22, 2019. Just 5 weeks. (I previously had this listed as January 23.)

Days until the U.S. national soccer team plays again: 46, on February 2, 2019, a friendly against Costa Rica at Avaya Stadium, home of the San Jose Earthquakes.

Days until the New York Red Bulls play again: 75, on Sunday, March 3, 2019, opponent and location as yet unknown, as the 2019 MLS schedule has yet to be released.

Days until the Red Bulls next play a "derby": Unknown. 

Days until the Yankees' 2019 Opening Day: 100, on Thursday, March 28, home to the Baltimore Orioles. A little over 3 months.

Days until the next Yankees-Red Sox series begins: 119, on Tuesday, April 16, 2019, at Yankee Stadium II. A little under 4 months.

Days until the next Women's World Cup kicks off: 171,  on June 7, 2019, in France. Under 6 months. The U.S. team is 3-time and defending Champions.

Days until the Yankees and Red Sox play each other in London: 193, on June 29, 2019. A little over 6 months.

Days until Rutgers University plays football again: 256, on August 31, 2019, home to the University of Massachusetts. Under 9 months.

Days until East Brunswick High School plays football again: Unknown, because the 2019 schedule hasn't been released yet. Usually, the next season begins on the 1st Friday in September, which would be September 6, 2019, which would be 262 days. The morning of the 10-0 loss to Old Bridge, it was announced that East Brunswick and Old Bridge would no longer play each other on Thanksgiving Day. The game will now be played earlier in the season, but we don't yet know when.

Days until the next Rutgers-Penn State game: 347, on Saturday, November 30, 2019, at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania. A little under a year, or a little under 12 months.

Days until my 50th Birthday, at which point I can join AARP and get discounts for travel and game tickets: 365, on December 18, 2019. Exactly 1 year, or exactly 12 months.

Days until the Baseball Hall of Fame vote is announced, electing Derek Jeter: 399, on January 21, 2020. A little over a year, or under 14 months.

Days until the next Summer Olympics begins in Tokyo, Japan: 584, on July 24, 2020. A little over a year and a half, or a little over 19 months.

Days until the next Presidential election, when we can dump the Trump-Pence regime and elect a real Administration: 686, on November 3, 2020. Now under 2 years, or under 23 months.

Days until Liberation Day: 764, at noon on January 20, 2021. A little over 2 years, or a little over 25 months. Note that this is liberation from the Republican Party, not just from Donald Trump. Having Mike Pence as President wouldn't be better, just differently bad, mixing theocracy with plutocracy, rather than mixing kleptocracy with plutocracy.

Days until the next Winter Olympics begins in Beijing, China: 1,144, on February 4, 2022. A little over 3 years, or a little under 38 months.

Days until the next World Cup is scheduled to kick off: 1,434, on November 21, 2022, in Qatar. Just under 4 years, or a little over 47 months. The charges of corruption against Qatar may yet mean that they will lose the tournament, in which case it will be moved to a nation where it would not be too hot to play it in June and July.

How Old Would They Be?

Elvis Presley on his 82nd birthday, January 8, 2017

If these people were still alive on January 1, 2017, having survived the Year of Hell, these are the ages they would be reaching this year.

Note that I am doing this only for people who famously died young, or young-seeming. I'm putting the cap at 50 (Michael Jackson, who so aggressively embraced youth), rather than at, say, 52 (Roy Orbison, who seemed older even when he was a new star in his mid-20s). And I'm cutting it off at 1917, so, even though they died young, you won't see Mozart, Van Gogh or Lou Gehrig on this list.

John F. Kennedy, 91, endorsing Barack Obama

at the 2008 Democratic Convention

100: John F. Kennedy, Oscar Romero, Elmer Gedeon, Harry O'Neill, Bob Neighbors (Gedeon and O'Neill were the only former MLB players to have died in action in World War II, Neigbhors the only one in the Korean War -- and all 3 were in the majors only briefly, all in the 1939 season)

99: Nile Kinnick, John Birch
98: Jackie Robinson (made an exception for him, he was 53), Nat King Cole, Al Blozis (New York Giants player killed in World War II -- another, Jack Lummus, would be 102), Valentino Mazzola (best-known of the Torino soccer players killed in the 1949 Superga plane crash, father of Inter Milan star Sandro Mazzola)
97: Montgomery Clift, Stan Mauldin
96: Tommy Cooper
95: Judy Garland, Jack Kerouac
94: Hank Williams Sr., Rocky Marciano, Sam Sheppard and Marilyn Reese Sheppard (defendant and victim in 1954 murder case that inspired The Fugitive)
93: Rod Serling, Elizabeth Short ("the Black Dahlia," sensationally murdered in Los Angeles in 1947), J.D. Tippit (Dallas policeman, Lee Harvey Oswald's other murder victim)
92: Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Patrice Lumumba, Lenny Bruce
91: Marilyn Monroe, John Coltrane, Jeffrey Hunter, Gus Grissom (Mercury 7 astronaut, killed in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967)

Marilyn Monroe at age 85, 2011

90: Bill Barilko
89: Bob Crane
88: Martin Luther King, Anne Frank, Terry Sawchuk, Harry Agganis, Gary Powers (U-2 pilot from 1960 incident, killed in helicopter crash at age 47), George Moscone (Mayor of San Francisco, assassinated with Harvey Milk)
87: Harvey Milk, Steve McQueen, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, Tim Horton, Ed White (1st American to make a spacewalk, killed in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967), Charles Lindbergh Jr. ("the Lindbergh Baby")
86: James Dean, Sam Cooke, Gene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb

James Dean, 84, at the 60th Anniversary

screening of Rebel Without a Cause,

Grauman's Chinese Theatre, October 27, 2015

85: Benigno Aquino, Dian Fossey, Don Steinbrunner (NFL player killed in Vietnam War)
84: Joe Orton, Bob Laraba
83: Roberto Clemente, Yuri Gagarin, Jackie Wilson, Howard Glenn (New York Jets -- actually, Titans -- player who died from a broken neck in a 1960 game)
82: Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Willie Galimore, Roger Chaffee (astronaut, killed in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967), Kitty Genovese (sensationally murdered in New York in 1964)
81: Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin, Duncan Edwards (the other Manchester United players who died in the 1958 Munich Air Disaster would be around this age as well), Bo Farrington (killed in the same 1964 car crash as his Chicago Bears teammate Galimore)
80: Benny "the Kid" Paret
79: Natalie Wood, Victor Buono, Eddie Cochran, Bill Masterton
78: Marvin Gaye, Sal Mineo, Ernie Davis, Barry Ashbee, Mickey Schwerner (civil rights worker murdered in Mississippi in 1964)
77: John Lennon, Bruce Lee, Mary Jo Kopechne, Stone Johnson, Mack Lee Hill, average age of the victims of the 1960 Cal Poly football team crash

John Lennon on his 76th birthday,

October 9, 2016

76: Cass Elliott, Otis Redding, Tim Hardin, Ritchie Valens, Ken Hubbs, Barclay Plager, Emmett Till (sensationally murdered in Mississippi in 1955, a spark for the Civil Rights Movement)
75: Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Bobby Fuller, Harry Chapin, Frankie Lymon, Huey Newton
74: Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Michael Bennett, Sharon Tate, Brian Piccolo, Chuck Hughes (currently the last athlete to die during a North American major league sporting event, a heart attack with the 1971 Detroit Lions), Gigi Meroni (Torino soccer star killed in 1967 car crash), James Chaney, Andrew Goodman (the last 2 were civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964)
73: Wayne Maki, Laurence Owen (most famous of the U.S. figure skaters killed in a 1961 plane crash), Alan Berg (talk show host murdered in Denver in 1984, inspired film Talk Radio), Christine Chubbuck (newscaster who committed suicide on the air in 1974)
72: Bob Marley, Tammi Terrell, Tony Conigliaro, Bob Kalsu (AFL player killed in Vietnam War)
71: Freddie Mercury, Keith Moon, Duane Allman, Gianni Versace, Karen Silkwood, Gilda Radner, George Best, Stephen Biko
70: Thurman Munson, Pete Maravich, Bashir Gemayel, Tim Buckley

69: Christa McAuliffe, Ronnie Van Zant, John Bonham, Valeri Kharlamov
68: John Belushi, Andy Kaufman, Michel Briere, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley (3 of the "4 Little Girls" killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing), Sandra Scheuer (Kent State victim)
67: John Candy, Karen Carpenter, Lyman Bostock, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder (the last 2, Kent State victims), average age of the victims of the 1970 Marshall and Wichita State football team crashes
66: J.V. Cain, Allison Krause (Kent State victim)
65: Carol McNair (the youngest victim of the Birmingham church bombing)

64: Bob Gassoff, Sam Kinison
63: Walter Payton, Freddie Prinze Sr., Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bobby Sands
62: Daniel Faulkner (Philadelphia policeman, murdered, allegedly by Mumia Abu-Jamal)
61: Ian Curtis, Randy Rhoads
60: Jon-Erik Hexum, Payne Stewart, average age of the victims of the 1977 University of Evansville basketball team crash, Stacey Moskowitz (last and most shocking victim of the Son of Sam)
59: Michael Jackson, Joe Delaney, Terry Fox, Keith Haring, Veronica Guerin
58: Nicole Brown Simpson, Pelle Lindbergh
57: John F. Kennedy Jr., Gia Carangi, Jonathan Larson
56: Princess Diana, Reggie White, Bill Hicks

Princess Diana of Wales, 52,

about to meet her newborn grandson,

Prince George of Cambridge, July 22, 2013

55: Steve Irwin
54: Whitney Houston, Len Bias, Daniel Pearl
53: Eazy-E, Drazen Petrovic
52: Reggie Lewis, Jerome Brown, Steve Olin, Brandon Lee, Jam Master Jay
51: Jeff Buckley
50: Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, Rebecca Schaeffer, David Rocastle, Hank Gathers, Derrick Thomas
49: Gary Coleman, Darryl Kile, Ron Goldman (murdered along with Nicole Brown Simpson)
48: Bobby Phills, Gary Speed
47: River Phoenix, Malik Sealy, Eric Garner (2014 NYPD "I cant breathe" murder victim)
46: Ryan White, Tupac Shakur, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Selena Quintanilla-Perez (I had to list her full name. You know you're old when you see "Selena" trending on Twitter, and you think of her before you think of fellow Texan singer Selena Gomez.)
45: Notorious B.I.G., Cory Lidle, Samantha Smith (unofficial Cold War ambassador, killed in a 1985 plane crash)
44: Steve McNair, Paul Walker
43: Korey Stringer, Adam Walsh (sensationally murdered in Florida in 1981, inspiring his father John Walsh to become an advocate for crime victims)
42: Marc-Vivien Foe, Amadou Diallo (1999 NYPD murder victim)
41: Matthew Shepard, Merlin Santana, Jonathan Brandis
40: Jason Collier, Robert Enke, Chandra Levy (aide to Congressman Gary Condit, murdered in 2001)
39: Dan Snyder, Krissy Taylor
38: Aaliyah, Heath Ledger, Miklos Feher

Aaliyah, 37, pointing to Justin Bieber

and telling him how wack he is, Grammy Awards,

Staples Center, February 15, 2016

37: Azariah Chamberlain (the Australian baby allegedly eaten by a dingo)
36: Polly Klaas (sensationally murdered in California in 1993)
35: Cory Monteith
34: Amy Winehouse, Sean Taylor, Sean Bell (2006 NYPD murder victim)
33: Lee Thompson Young
32: Timothy Wiltsey (sensationally murdered by his mother in New Jersey in in 1991)
31: Megan Kanka (murdered in New Jersey in 1994, namesake of Megan's Law), Amber Hagerman (murdered in Texas in 1996, namesake of the AMBER Alert), Natalee Holloway (disappeared in Aruba in 2005)
30: Luc Bourdon, Sandra Bland (murdered in custody by Texas police in 2015)
29: Jessica Dubroff (child pilot)
28: Peaches Geldof, Anton Yelchin
27: JonBenet Ramsey

One suggestion for what JonBenet Ramsey would look like at 27,

looking more like Reese Witherspoon Love than Katy Perry

26: Michelle Monkhouse
25: Oscar Taveras
24: Bobbi Kristina Brown
23: Baylee Almon (the baby killed in the Oklahoma City bombing)
22: Trayvon Martin
16: Christina Taylor-Green (born on 9/11, granddaughter of baseball figure Dallas Green, killed in the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords)
14: Madeleine McCann (disappeared in Portugal in 2007)

Top 10 Joe DiMaggio Moments: A 75th Anniversary Appreciation

May 3, 1936, 75 years ago today: Joe DiMaggio plays his 1st major league game. The man who would eventually be known as Joltin' Joe and the Yankee Clipper, then just 21 years old and fresh from his hometown team, the San Francisco Seals of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, started the season late due to injury. At the original Yankee Stadium, the Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns (the team now known as the Baltimore Orioles), 14-5. Joe wore Number 9 (switching to the familiar 5 the next season), batted 3rd, played left field instead of his usual center field, and went 3-for-6, including an RBI triple. Only 25,000 were on hand.

If they only knew.

Since his death in 1999, Joe's reputation has taken a beating, for his rudeness, for his cheapness, for his treatment of his wives (actresses Dorothy Arnold and, later, Marilyn Monroe), for his apparent association with organized crime figures, and for his ego, insisting upon being introduced as what a 1969 poll chose him as: "Baseball's Greatest Living Player."

But for an entire generation of fans, the ones who grew up in the Great Depression of the 1930s (and thus did not see Babe Ruth, or see Lou Gehrig at his best), and went off to World War II in the 1940s, he was The Guy.

"Joe DiMaggio played his last game in 1951. I was born in 1952. And my father, and every guy I ever met in my father's generation, said the same thing: 'Willie Mays? Great. Mickey Mantle? Hit the ball out of sight. You never saw DiMaggio, kid. You never saw the real thing.'"
-- Bob Costas

In 1967, Paul Simon, also a native New Yorker (born in Newark but grew up in Forest Hills, Queens) and similarly short, tried to address the turbulence of the times by thinking of someone who represented reliability, someone who could be counted on. He made his choice in the song "Mrs. Robinson":

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Woo woo woo.
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away.
Hey hey hey.
Hey hey hey.

My generation, the generation of the children of the one that produced Costas and Simon, knew DiMaggio as an old Yankee coming out of the dugout on Old-Timers' Day in a navy blue suit (or, if you're a little older, maybe an updated version of his old Number 5 Yankee uniform), or as the commercial spokesman for Mr. Coffee coffeemakers and The Bowery Savings Bank of New York. 

Subsequent buyouts have The Bowery's assets under the ownership of Capital One Bank. I'm not sure whether Joe would have liked those ads with the Vikings -- or are they Visigoths? or Huns? -- but my mother says she can definitely see Joe asking the Capital One tagline: "What's in your wallet?"

And yet, in 1999, right after his death, The Sporting News ignored the fact that Joe played only 13 seasons (missing 3 due to The War and maybe 3 more due to an early retirement due to injury), and selected him at Number 11 on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players -- not first among the then-living, trailing Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron and Mays, who was Number 2 overall behind Babe Ruth.

And in fan balloting done by MasterCard, baseball fans of all generations -- including those who, like me, had never seen him play, this nearly half a century after his last game -- voted him to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He finished 5th among outfielders, behind Ruth, Aaron, Williams and Mays, and right ahead of Mantle, generally considered the most popular (if not necessarily the greatest) of the following era.

Top 10 Joe DiMaggio Moments

Honorable Mention. Date unknown, 1943, 1944 or 1945, and the story may be apocryphal, so I can't count it in the Top 10, but I do have to mention it. Joe served in the Army Air Force (forerunner of the U.S. Air Force) during World War II, although not in combat. He also played for a USAAF baseball team, and supposedly it played a Marine Corps team that featured Chicago White Sox pitcher Ted Lyons, a fellow future Hall-of-Famer. Seeing Joe, Lyons allegedly said, "I enlisted to get away from DiMaggio, and now here he is!"

As I said, the story may be apocryphal, and, as a result, I have no record of what happened when they faced each other in this wartime game.

10. January 14, 1954. Joe marries Marilyn. It didn't last the year. But when the most popular living athlete married one of the biggest (and still very much rising) actresses in the world, it sent the popularity, and indeed the legacy, of each of them soaring.

Even though Joe's entire career was done before they met, and Marilyn's best work probably came after they divorced, it is now hard to think of either without the subject of the other coming up.

And unlike a lot of people who knew Marilyn (or say they knew her well), Joe never cashed in on her reputation. His own, sure: He made more money in a year on the memorabilia circuit than in his entire career (though he was the 2nd ballplayer, after Hank Greenberg, to get paid $100,000 a season).

But if someone gave him a picture of Marilyn to sign, even if he was also in the picture, he would refuse, maybe even get up and leave. Right after Joe died, comedian Bill Maher, who normally enjoys lasciviousness, said he wanted salute Joe, "for living to be 84 years old, and never writing a book about banging Marilyn Monroe."

9. October 8, 1939. Game 4 of the World Series. The Yankees were readying a sweep of the Cincinnati Reds. In the top of the 10th inning, Joe got a hit, and Reds outfielder Ival Goodman bobbled the ball. Charlie Keller came around to score, and he crashed into the Reds' future Hall of Fame catcher, Ernie Lombardi.

Lombardi was stunned, and lost the ball for a few seconds. Seeing this, Bill Dickey, the on-deck hitter, yelled for Joe to try to come all the way around and score as well.

On the film -- which doesn't make the Keller-Lombardi collision look all that bad, but apparently Keller, not sliding, had kneed Lombardi in the groin -- Dickey can be seen gesturing for Joe to slide. Whatever he was yelling, it apparently "woke up" Lombardi, who finally grabbed the ball, and moved to tag Joe, who executed a perfect hook slide, throwing his entire body away from the plate, except his right foot, which just sort of brushed the plate. The run meant nothing, as Keller had already scored the go-ahead run. But it was still the best slide I've ever seen.

8. August 8, 1941. Following the streak, a song commemorating it, titled "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio" was written by Alan Courtney (words) and Ben Homer (music), and recorded on this date by Les Brown & His Band of Renown (one of the most popular of the "Big Bands"), with Betty Bonney singing lead. It was released after the season, on November 10. It's not a great song, but it's a great baseball song.

7. October 3, 1937. The Yankees beat the Red Sox, 6-1 at the old Yankee Stadium, and Joe completes perhaps the best season any righthanded hitter has ever had for the Yankees. He batted .346, had 215 hits, 35 doubles, 15 triples, 46 home runs (a record for Yankee righthanders until 2005), and 167 RBIs (a record for Yankee righthanders that still stands).

His OPS+ was 166 -- and as amazing as that was, he didn't even lead the team: Lou Gehrig had a 176! And the Yanks went on to beat the Giants in the World Series. And, by the way, he was still a few weeks away from turning 23 years old.

6. September 30, 1939. Again, the Yankees close the season with a game with the Red Sox, only this time, they lose, 4-2. It doesn't matter: In the season that concluded with the aforementioned incident with Ernie Lombardi, the Yankees lost 1st baseman and Captain Gehrig to a fatal illness, yet still won 106 games, the most they (or any of the New York teams) would win between 1927 and 1961.

This was because the leadership slack was picked up by catcher Bill Dickey (Gehrig's best friend on the team served as a kind of unofficial captain thereafter), and the hitting slack was picked up by DiMaggio, whose .381 batting average that season remains the 2nd-highest in Yankee history, behind Babe Ruth's .393 in 1923; no player for any New York team (Yankees, Dodgers, Giants or Mets) has topped it since. This was also the 1st of Joe's 2 batting titles and the 1st of his 3 Most Valuable Player awards. And he wasn't yet 25.

5. October 5, 1950. Game 2 of the World Series. Robin Roberts, exhausted from so much pitching down the stretch, has gone 9 innings for the Philadelphia Phillies. But, having thrown Roberts out for the regular-season finale just 3 days earlier, and having desperately started his usual reliever, Jim Konstanty, in Game 1 (it almost worked, the Yanks won, 1-0), Phils manager Eddie Sawyer sends Roberts out for the 10th inning.

DiMaggio takes advantage of the valiant Roberts' fatigue, and sends a home run into the long bleachers that extended from left to center field at Shibe Park (later known as Connie Mack Stadium), to give the Yanks a 2-1 win and a 2-0 lead in the Series. The Yanks completed the sweep 2 days later.

4. July 2, 1941. When Joe started his hitting streak on May 15, the Yankees were .500, 14-14, and in 4th place, 5 1/2 games behind the League-leading Cleveland Indians. Having surpassed the American League record of 41 straight games set by George Sisler in 1922, and having tied the overall major league mark of 44 set by Willie Keeler in 1897, Joe walked onto the field at a broiling hot Yankee Stadium (95 degrees), and the Yanks were 45-26, .634, 3 games ahead of the Indians.

The Yanks' opponents that day were the Boston Red Sox, in 3rd place, 8 games back, and it didn't matter that the Sox' Ted Williams was batting .401 and Joe "only" .348: Anybody who thinks that Ted was "robbed" of the MVP that year is an idiot. Even if it were "Most Outstanding" rather than "Most Valuable," Ted might not have deserved it.

Anyway, Joe hit a 3-run homer off Sox starter Dick Newsome, to give him the record of 45 straight, eventually reaching 56 straight. Lefty Gomez, the Yanks' Hall of Fame pitcher and Joe's best friend on the team, who not only started this game but also the last one in which Joe didn't get a hit, told him, "You not only broke Keeler's record, but you did it by following his advice: You hit 'em where they ain't!" Oh yeah, the Yanks won the game, 8-4.

3. June 28, 29 & 30, 1949. Joe missed the first 2 months of the season with bone spurs in his heel. Then one day he got out of bed, put his weight on his foot, and felt no pain. He played in an exhibition game against the cross-river New York Giants and felt no pain. He traveled with the team to Boston to play the Red Sox.

In the 1st game of the series, he went 2-for-3 with a home run. In the 2nd game, he went 2-for-4, both hits being home runs, and 4 RBIs. In the 3rd game, a plane flew overhead, trailing a banner that read, "THE GREAT DIMAGGIO." Now, Joe's younger brother Dom was the center fielder for the Red Sox, but he was just a really good DiMaggio. The Great DiMaggio helped the Yankees complete the sweep of the Sox by going 1-for-3 with a 3-run homer.

Three games, 5-for-10, 4 homers, 8 RBIs. Remember, he hadn't played at all until that series started. He ended up playing in just 76 games, but batted .346 with 67 RBIs -- in what amounted to half a season.

2. October 1 & 2, 1949. In spite of Joe's return, the Yanks blew a 12-game lead over the Sox, and it came down to the last 2 days of the season, and the schedulemaker nailed it: Sox vs. Yanks at the original Yankee Stadium. The Sox led by 1 game. If they won either, they would win the Pennant. The Yanks had to take both to do it.

The Yankees had scheduled the opener as Joe DiMaggio Day. Joe wanted to cancel it, and not play, as he was sick with pneumonia. But he maintained the attitude he had when he was quoted as saying, "There might be somebody out there who's never seen me play before. He deserves my best." He came out, accepted the cheers and the gifts, and thanked the team, his teammates, and the fans, and closed with, "I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee."

He did play that day, and got 2 hits, and the Yanks came from 4-0 down to win, 5-4, on an 8th inning home run by Johnny Lindell. The next day, the Yanks led 5-1 in the 9th, ready to clinch, but Joe, still sick, dropped an easy fly ball, to make it 5-3. He walked off the field, knowing he was now a liability. The Yankees got the last out and won the Pennant. (Funny, Red Sox fans never mention how Ted Williams got that year's MVP instead of a deserving Yankee.)

1. July 27, 1991. What's this, the Number 1 Yankee Clipper moment coming nearly 40 years after he played his last game? This will take some explaining, because it's personal.

It was Old-Timers' Day, and I was sitting at the back of Main Level Section 8 at the old (but post-renovation) Yankee Stadium. The subject of the day's ceremony was the 50th Anniversary of Joe's 56-game hitting streak.

Of his 1941 teammates, 7 were still alive, and 5 showed up: Phil Rizzuto, Tommy Henrich, pitcher Marius Russo, first baseman Johnny Sturm (who only played that 1 year in the majors, went off to war and never regained his batting eye), and Stanley "Frenchy" Bordagaray, who played for several teams and won Pennants with the '39 Reds and '41 Yankees.

The 2 who did not return were Bill Dickey, who was too old, frail and sick to travel, and would be dead within 2 years; and Frank Crosetti, who had a policy of never returning for Old-Timers' Day. After Henrich's death last year, they're all gone now.

The ceremony closed with Joe doing something he rarely did: Public speaking. He may have spoken more in those 7 minutes than he did in the 13 years he played. He mentioned that, in Game 3 of the 1941 World Series, Russo pitched a complete game: "The reason I mention this is that, today, that's considered a great achievement."

He mentioned that Henrich had loaned him a bat, after the bat Joe had used for the first 41 games of the streak had been stolen. And of the Scooter, not yet having received his rightful election to Cooperstown, he said, "Nobody had a better view than I did of him playing shortstop... And, Phil, I just want to tell you that you're my Hall-of-Famer. And I mean that."

That was the biggest ovation of the day, even bigger than those for Joe himself, Mickey Mantle, and, in what turned out to be his 1st Old-Timers' Day back with the Yankees, Reggie Jackson.

I had also seen Joe on Old-Timers' Day in 1987 and 1994, and I saw him throw out the first ball on Opening Day 1995. (A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had been to Opening Day in 1990, but mistakenly called that my only Opening Day visit.) But this Old-Timers' Day 1991 was special. We got to see and hear Joe DiMaggio, not as a flickering image on black-and-white film, and not as a man telling us how good his bank or his coffeemaker was, but being what he was: The defining baseball player of his era... and a real, live human being.

Joe is gone now, and while he was alive, he wasn't the easiest person to get to know, and if you got on his bad side, you were out, permanently. It seems the only person he ever tried to reconcile with was Marilyn.

But when the old Yankee Stadium was closing in 2008, they asked the current Yankee players what item they would like to keep. Derek Jeter made his choice, and it was kept secret for a while. Eventually, it got out that he wanted, and got, a sign in the tunnel that led from the Yankee clubhouse to the dugout, the sign with Joe's quote, "I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee."

I hope Hank & Hal Steinbrenner had a new sign made up. Or, at least, one with another of Joe's quotes, either the one about the fan that's never seen you play before and he deserves your best effort, or the one where he said, "Just putting on the Yankee uniform was the highlight of my career."