The idea that bad things happen in numbers three probably comes from the tendency to stop counting at some point when those things start to happen for a short period of time. Then, after taking care of those three bad things, the counting can start all over again.
So much for my change in the field of social psychology.
At least three bad things have happened in the past week, involving permanent loss, that have befallen the typist where I live. Willie Mays is dead. Donald Sutherland passed away. And so does Toby Sheets, who probably never thought he would be mentioned in the same breath, but in his own world deserves no less.
Willie Mays died on June 18. He was 93 years old, which means that for the past 51 years, fans of the baseball great haven’t had the delirious joy of watching Mays play the game like never before. ever before or since. At age 20, he was the youngest black player called up to the majors in 1951. His first hit for the New York Giants was a home run, off of all-time great Warren Spahn. Mays last played in 1973, at age 42, after hitting 660 home runs.
“When Mays walked into the clubhouse, the waters parted,” Bob Costas said.
“He was amazing,” Ted Williams said. “If there was a guy born to play baseball, it was Willie Mays.”
“He’s probably the most talented player ever,” Reggie Jackson said. “I’d call him an ‘and/or’ on any list of all-time greats. Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and/or Willie Mays.”
Growing up, there were only two sports that counted, at least for this young fan, and only two guys stood taller than the rest. In horse racing, it’s Willie Shoemaker. In baseball, it was Willie Mays, and to Mays, it didn’t matter that he played for the Giants, then in San Francisco. This die-hard Dodgers fan, scoring home runs on his living room couch while listening to Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett call games, will always put aside his hometown stereotypes whenever Mays came to bat. If he hits you, what can you do? He is Willie Mays.
I later learned about Mays’ impact on the civil rights movement, and how his steady, persistent journey through a previously segregated sport made a difference. during each of his stops along the way. When he arrived in San Francisco in the late 1950s, he had difficulty buying a house in a white neighborhood. Now his statue sits on a street corner named after him.
Donald Sutherland, with 200 film and television credits to his name, died June 20 at the age of 88. Sutherland was an anti-war activist in the 1960s before becoming a universally beloved movie star. demand for many generations to come. His diverse cast of characters is unmatched by any contemporary actor, from the wisecracking Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H to the bereaved father in “Ordinary People,” to his His more recent performance for modern audiences is in “Pride & Prejudice.” and “The Hunger Games.” Gather a room full of movie lovers and you can take a gander at your favorite Sutherland performances without repeating the titles.
Like Mays, Sutherland was generous to his colleagues, dedicated to his craft, and humble to a fault. When accepting the Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 2017, Sutherland admitted that he was uncertain about his worthiness of the honor before accepting the moment.
“In that difficult situation,” he said, “I finally found peace through the words of the great Benjamin Kubelsky, who was also known as Jack Benny, when he said, as I was telling you now, ‘I don’t deserve this. But I have arthritis and I don’t deserve it either.”
There is no particular horse racing connection with Mays or Sutherland, although the actor has spent some time sharing roles in any number of period dramas. For his part, Mays played during the baseball era and was paranoid about any connection to gambling, even the legal kind.
Around the same time Mays began lighting up the Bay Area at Candlestick Park, Sutherland was an aspiring young actor in London, far from his Canadian roots. In a 2005 interview for The Guardian, he recalled the article:
“I read it in the late 50s, when the paper was still the Manchester Guardian. You know, there was a guy – I can’t remember his name – on the sports pages and he used to give the names of two horses. every day and I made so much money from his tips that my bookie eventually refused to take my bets!”
Talent and luck. What a guy.
A moment of silence was observed for Toby Sheets at Aqueduct Raceway on June 20
From everything I have learned about Toby Sheets, from his mourning friends and racetrack colleagues, he was talented, lucky, dedicated, generous of spirit and a role model. the person you can trust with your best horse or newborn child. . He got his own stable in the late 1990s and recently made his mark running the company. Belmont Park split of Steve Asmussen’s empire, bringing him closer to some of the best horses of the era.
On June 16, Sheets was found dead on the shore of a Greek island in the Adriatic. He was there on what was supposed to be a holiday, and the cause was believed to be drowning. The news spread across the sport in a wave of confusion and sadness, as 55 Sheets was far from getting the whole story.
Assistant coaches are often seen and not often heard. However, without them, the game will stop. There’s no point in making assumptions about what Sheets would do next or why he was on that beach at that fateful moment. Just knowing that he leaves behind friends and family whose lives are better than when he was alive is enough. And by the end of the week, Willie Mays and Donald Sutherland were gone too.
