Sports icons, a running list

A fucking horse.

 

A FUCIN" HOUSRE!!?!?!?!?!??!

 

Add...

Art Rooney
Jerome Bettis
Hines Ward

 

To many, Mantle is only third-most iconic..... Yankee.

 

This is all generational.

I knew a man who cried at Mantle's death, but he was about Mantle's age. When you see one of your peer heroes pass away, it gives you a sense of your own mortality.

So when Bettis and Ward move on, it will strike a closer chord than Lambert and Greene.

 

For a lot of white guys of a certain age who grew up in and around the five boroughs . . . absolutely.

Feel bad for the guy, but dissipation doesn't deserve full-blown sympathy.

 

True story...

A few friends and I were staying at a place in the Poconos when Mantle's body rejected the liver transplant, and it was obvious that he was not going to make it for much longer. We had the local news on in the background.

The Scranton/WB kid at the anchor desk, you know how the younger talking heads cut their teeth in the smaller markets, delivered one of the classic lines I have ever heard.

"Tough break for the Mick."

We were amazed at the line. It was delivered like he dropped a fly ball or got a called third on a pitch off of the plate.

I can only imagine the phones lines lighting up after that classically glib comment.

 

The day Mantle died, my younger brother wrote it on the refridgerator dry-erase board for my dad to see when he got home from work.

It's never been erased. It's still on there: "Mickey Mantle Died" stuck to the side of the refridgerator. Like he can't bring himself to erase it.

 

Thoroughbred horses are magnificent athletes and many have been loved by millions of people, like say, Barbaro. They count.
Has anybody mentioned the others besides the Babe who led the so-called Golden Age of Sports. Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones, Red Grange, Bill Tilden. It is easier to be an icon in an individual sport.
PS: Bird, Larry.

 

PPS: Willie Mays, John Unitas

 

Did I miss a Joe Montana mention?

 

Two Jewish sports icons: