Hattip to pigpen51 for letting us know about the death of Chet Lemon, center fielder for the Detroit Tigers. ESPN.
Lemon played seven seasons with the Chicago White Sox from 1975 to ’81 and nine with the Tigers from 1982 to ’90. He batted .273 with 215 homers, 884 RBIs, 973 runs and 1,875 hits in 1,988 games.
Lemon set a still-standing American League record for outfielders with 512 putouts during the 1977 season.
He led the American League with 44 doubles in 1979 and made the All-Star teams in 1978, 1979 and 1984.
Johnny Rodriguez, musician. NYT (archived).
Terry Brunk, who used the professional name “Sabu” in his wrestling career. He mostly worked with Extreme Championship Wrestling, though he did spend one year with W.W.E.
Although widely remembered for his use of props and tables in the ring, Mr. Sabu was wary of professional wrestling’s spectacle. He would go on to criticize the larger-than-life stunts that would come to define later iterations of the W.W.E. and other wrestling promotion companies.
“In an Olympic match, you cannot stack a couple tables and then climb something and jump off. That’s a stunt,” Mr. Brunk told an interviewer with Covalent TV at Wrestlecade 2024. “I’m not a stuntman or an actor.”
Somewhat related: a NYT article about wrestlers who died young.
