Cold Hard Cash

(Props to Don for the headline and the heads up)
Scott Cashman, former goalie at Boston University who helped lead the team to the NCAA Frozen Four twice, helping to revive the program after two down years, has died of a heart attack at 39. Cashman was the 1989-90 Hockey East Rookie of the Year, three time team MVP, three time Eberly Award winner as outstanding goaltender in the Beanpot and in 2005 was inducted into both the Beanpot and Boston University Halls of Fame. After graduation, his pro career ended due to a spinal injury, but he still would have been the second best goalie wearing the Terriers red and white this season.

Hope Somebody Up There Likes Him

Or
The Fall Killed Him

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Cold Hand Luke

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When Time Ran Out

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The Hole in the Ground Gang
(Props to Phil)

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What We Have Here is a Failure to Respirate
(Additional accolades for Phil, with an assist)

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The Verdict....is Death
(Another tip o’ the cap for Phil)

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Raindrops Keep Falling on My Grave
(Phil strikes again)

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Nobody's Fooled...You're Dead
(Final frivolity from Phil)
Noted salad dressing mogul Paul Newman succumbed to cancer at the age of 83. Newman also served as the inspiration for Princeton’s 24 beers in 24 hours April 24 annual event. He also acted a little, scoring 9 Oscar nominations and 1 win while basically playing the same lovable rogue in every movie. If Butch Cassidy moves to Canada and learns how to play hockey instead of getting stuck in freeze frame limbo in Bolivia, he becomes Reg Dunlop. When Reg Dunlop trades skates for a pool cue, he’s Eddie Felson, before retiring as Donald Sullivan. Newman’s death likely means one of Hollywood’s great unsolved murders will forever remain a mystery. Newman and James Dean auditioned for different roles in East of Eden, with Dean winning his role, while Newman did not and instead went on to star in the turkey The Silver Chalice. A year later, Newman’s chief competition for pretty boy roles was dead, the result of a fiery car accident. Newman directly benefited, inheriting the starring role in a stage Hemingway adaptation The Battler, and star-making performances as heavyweight Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me and Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun. Newman’s expertise with cars later resulted in side career as a driver – finishing second at the 1979 24 Hours of LeMans – and co-owner of an Indy racing team. I’ve seen enough Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, Barnaby Jones, and Scooby Doo Mysteries to connect those dots. Other roles included parking meter hating jailbird Luke Jackson, crooked rancher Hud, drunk lawyer Frank Galvin in The Verdict, professional grifter Henry Gondorff in The Sting, the confused gangster John Rooney who hired the world’s most likable hitman in The Road to Perdition and the voice of cranky retired race car Doc Hudson in Cars.

Vernon’s Equinox

In the oxymoron category, former Washington Senators great Mickey Vernon has died at the age of 90. The two-time batting champ and seven-time All-Star was named on the Veterans Committee ballot for next year’s Hall of Fame induction, but he has already made his mark on the Hall. During a rain delay in Chicago in the 1940s, Vernon picked up a young fan attending his first major league game, brought him into the Senators dugout, introduced him to his teammates, gave him a baseball and sparked a lifelong love of baseball. That little boy grew up to be Harry Kalas, voice of the Phillies for more than 30 years and member of the Hall of Fame. Not quite the Winston Churchill getting cured by Alexander Fleming’s penicillin after his father paid for his education after Fleming saved his son’s life story my mom keeps forwarding me, but a good one nonetheless.

Out of the Pink

Richard Wright, a founding member of Pink Floyd, has died of cancer at the age of 65. A member of Pink Floyd through its huge successes with Dark Side of the Moon, writing The Great Gig In The Sky and Us And Them, while performing on such hits as Atom Heart Mother, Echoes and Shine On You Crazy Diamond, before getting fired by Roger Waters.

Greener Pastures

America narrowly avoided a Constitutional crisis, as 2004 Green Party vice presidential nominee Peter Camejo has died of lymphoma at the age of 68. Luckily, Camejo and running mate Ralph Nader fell 270 electoral votes short of the White House. Camejo had also run for governor in 2002, 2003 and 2006. A true political opportunist, Camejo only joined the Green Party after a previous presidential run with the Socialist Workers Party in 1976.

That's what you get for scheduling 8 a.m. classes

(Props to Jon)

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He’s Late, Far Too Early
Boston University professor, sportswriter and backyard hockey rink enthusiast Jack Falla has died at the age of 62. Having long since given up jocks for docs, I had fallen off his radar – a point embarrassingly brought home at a friend’s wedding a few years back – but his 8 a.m. classes – scheduled to weed out the weak – were among the few I looked forward to at BU, and the litany of tributes to sportswriters for whom he had been a mentor are testament to his influence as a professor. He loved sharing stories of the backyard hockey rink he had built – the Bacon Street Omni – which found its way into many classes, stories, books and even his recent novel. An inveterate name-dropper, he twice got to interview Wayne Gretzky, the second time getting to skate with the Great One in a passing drill. My favorite story, though, was when he visited the home of retired Hall of Fame goalie Gerry Cheevers, who had one of his trademark goalie masks, with stitches marking where pucks had hit, on display in the foyer. After Cheevers’ had answered the door and left to find Gerry, Falla was left alone with the mask. Unable to resist, he put it on, and as he turned to look at himself in the mirror, he found himself goalie masked face-to-face with Cheevers. Through it all, he was still a fan. Falla also was a stickler for punctuality, and one of his mantras was “If you’re on time, you’re late.” In his honor, I was not late for a meeting all week.

Finite Jest

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Infinite Rest
(Props to Joe)

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A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
(Additional accolades for Joe)
David Foster Wallace, author of books you really had to want to get through in order to finish, apparently did not feel the same was true of life and took the early exit, hanging himself at the age of 46. Infinite Jest, his 1,079-page magnum opus earned him a MacArthur Foundation, so called genius award.

Greg McDonald Bought the Farm

(Kudos to Monty)
Gregory Mcdonald, author of the best-selling "Fletch" mystery novels, has died of prostate cancer at age of 71. The former reporter created the sardonic reporter and later globetrotting biographer of Edgar Arthur Tharp, in 1974 and was lucky to find Chevy Chase when he was still funny for the 1985 hit film. He was not as lucky in 1988 with Fletch Lives.

Down in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell into a six-foot hole

(Props to Phil)
Don Haskins, who gave up a promising college coaching career and ended up in the Basketball Hall of Fame anyway, has died at the age of 78. In 1966, as head coach of Texas Western in the thriving metropolis of El Paso, Texas, Haskins rode an all-black starting 5 all the way to the NCAA Championship Game, where he defeated the all-white University of Kentucky squad coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp. While the enlightened media and bitter honky Rupp characterized Haskins’ squad as a bunch of thugs, 4 of 5 starters (and 10 of the 12 overall) (earned their degrees, and all were successful in their careers, compared to only 1 of Rupp’s starting squad, which included noted miscreant Pat Riley. The victory opened the doors to scholarships for blacks at colleges throughout the South. The doors were closed to Haskins however, and he got blacklisted from other potential jobs, instead spending 38 years at the University of Texas – El Paso, as the history conscious Texans later renamed the school, winning 719 games, 13 more trips to the Big Dance and 7 trips to the little one.

Hitch Hike to Heaven

Or
Anita Pulse

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Page Turner
Anita Page, one of the biggest actresses in the world a half century before I was born and a leading player in the escalation toward World War II, has died at the age of 98. The last leading lady of the silents, Page had starred opposite Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, Robert Montgomery and Clark Gable, then took a 60-year hiatus from the movies before resurfacing in 1996 and appearing as the crazy old lady in several B horror films, including Frankenstein Rising, due out later this year. She claimed that she spurned the advances of MGM head of production Irving Thalberg, and giving him the blue balls got her blackballed at all the major studios. A cautionary tale for young actresses who don’t want to give it up. At the height of her popularity, she was getting more fan mail than any actress except Greta Garbo. Included in that mail were several marriage proposals from Benito Mussolini. His heart broken, he turned to developing Italy into a military power and slapping Ethiopia and Albania around to release his pent-up frustration.

In a World Where Movie Trailers Just Got a Little Less Interesting

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In a World Where Don LaFontaine is Dead
(Props to Don)

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Voiceover and Out
(Additional Accolades for Don)
Don LaFontaine, the ominous Voice of God on more than 5,000 movie trailers, has died of complications from a collapsed lung at the age of 68. Often opening with his oft-parodied catchphrase, “In a world where…” he was one of the most recognizable voices in the movies, peppering many of his voice-overs with such sound bites as “a one-man army,” “one man, one destiny,” “from the bedroom to the boardroom,” and “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no way out.” LaFontaine’s ability to talk into a microphone made him a millionaire, and for the last few decades, he did all of his recordings at a studio in his palatial estate in the Hollywood Hills.

Good Grief

Or
Inanimated
Bill Melendez, who animated for Walt Disney, Charles Schulz, and Dr. Seuss in a lengthy career, has died at the age of 91. One of the few Hispanics in the animation game, Melendez worked on Pinocchio, Fantasia and Mickey Mouse shorts, then moved over to the Schlesinger Studio to animate Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. He then animated the Peanuts gang in a commercial, and Peanuts creator Charles Schulz was so impressed, he decreed Melendez was the only man he would allow to bring Charlie Brown et al to the screen, producing more than 50 specials, including the Emmy-winning holiday staple “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” four movies, Saturday morning cartoons and a litany of commercials. Schulz was adamant that Snoopy’s active fantasy life not be sullied by having him speak in the specials, so Melendez recited gibberish into a tape recorder, sped up the audio and the resulting squeaks and squawks have been used ever since. Melendez also animated the TV special “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Garfield on the Town” and “Cathy,” both of which won Emmys, bringing his lifetime total to 6.