T. Michael Stone
Reporter
He climbs alone, on the mountains of primal grief.
And not once do his footsteps sound from his silent fate.
Rainer Maria Rilke, The Tenth Duino Elegy With every sunrise, the stars and planets reorient themselves, every new square on the calendar corresponding to yet another unique alignment of the hurtling celestial bodies.
And for a while you and I get to ride on our infinitesimal speck of sand called Earth as it drifts among the vast wheels and gears of the cosmic orrery, all of us spinning and whirling and diving toward a preordained destination. But the trip is finite, and eventually the speck of sand moves on without us.
I was saddened to learn that 87-year-old Len Dawson entered hospice care last week. Dawson was the Patrick Mahomes of his generation and led the Kansas City Chiefs to a 23-7 win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. The Vikings were 14-point favorites.
I don’t remember much of Dawson’s playing career, but I watched him regularly on HBO’s Inside the NFL program in the 1980s with cohost Nick Buoniconti, a former Dolphins linebacker who played on the undefeated 1972 team. Buoniconti passed away in 2019.
In other sad news. . . Former Chicago Bears defensive tackle Steve McMichael announced that he had been diagnosed with ALS last April. His health has apparently deteriorated significantly since then.
McMichael played with the iconic 1985 Bears defense that trampled the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX. His nickname was Ming the Merciless.
I had 28 points and the Patriots in Super Bowl XX, so Ming helped dislodge $100 from my wallet – or $266.50 in 2022 dollars. Might be $500 next week if current trends continue.
But I should have known better. The NFC won Super Bowls XIX through XXXI.
I hope McMichael’s remaining days are as pleasant as possible.
And from the baseball obits. . .
Dwight Smith, who pinch hit for Tom Glavine in Game 2 of the 1995 World Series and got a base hit off Dennis Martinez, passed away July 22, of heart failure. He was only 58 years old.
I confess I did not remember Smith when I heard he had died. According to his biography on baseballreference.com, Smith sang the National Anthem at several Cubs games when he played for Chicago, and also sang it before a Braves game.
His Atlanta rendition earned him some notable attention.
“This time, his performance was noticed by Atlanta resident and Braves fan Elton John,” according to a biography of Smith on sabr.org written by Sam Gazdziak. “The singing legend was so impressed that he went to the ballpark days later and requested to speak with Smith during batting practice. He also gave him a business card and asked Smith to send him his demo tape.”
Ed Bauta, who played parts of five seasons in the major leagues with the St.
Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets, passed away at the age of 87 on July 6.
Bauta’s major league career didn’t amount to all that much – he only pitched in 97 games – but he did make some history. The native of Florida, Cuba, pitched in the final game at the Polo Grounds for the New York Mets and was also the losing pitcher in the first game the Mets played at Shea Stadium.
In 1962, Bauta played for the Atlanta Crackers and called the team’s catcher “the best I ever pitched to, no question.
He knew how to frame a pitch. . . very smart, easy to work with,” according to his sabr.org biography written by Thomas Van Hyning. That catcher was Tim McCarver.
The Crackers won the International League Title in 1962 and beat the Louisville Colonels in the Little World Series.
Coincidentally, the Louisville Colonels were a minor league affiliate of the Milwaukee Braves, and players on the losing Colonels team included Denny Lemaster and knuckleballer Phil Neikro, who was born in 1939 on April Fool’s Day. The HOFer and 300-game winner died at the age of 81 last December.
The world moved on as it always does, and we, the living, are left to remember those we have lost as we ride this speck of sand until we can ride it no more.
“Buy the ticket, take the ride” as Hunter S.
Thompson put it in “Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas.” To put it another way we might turn to poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “But because being here is much, and because all that’s here seems to need us, the ephemeral, that strangely concerns us.
We: the most ephemeral.
Once, for each thing, only once. Once and no more.
And we too, once. Never again. But this once, to have been, though only once, to have been an earthly thing – seems beyond undoing.”
Selah.