Merv Griffin, creator of the game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, has died at age 82.Bloomberg News quotes a spokesperson as saying Griffin died of “prostate cancer that spread to other organs in an ‘unexpected and immediate’ manner.”
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Rick Ankiel was a sad figure when we profiled him back in 2000. The 21-year-old had suddenly, shockingly lost his ability to pitch during the third inning of a playoff game against the Atlanta Braves. He threw five wild pitches before being pulled from the game. The Cardinals started him in another playoff game a few days later, and Ankiel didn’t even make it out of the first inning.
With Roberto Clemente in the books (see below), this seems like a good time to salute those who made 3000 profiles possible: managing editor (since 1998!) and First Lady aficionado Paul Hehn, religion and show tunes editor Hans Holznagel, and the indispensable boys in the boiler room: Mike Duffy and Adam DuVander. Thanks, fellahs!
Our 3000th profile is up, and the subject is a fitting one: baseball’s Roberto Clemente.Clemente had exactly 3000 hits in his major league career; the last was a double in his final game on 30 September 1972. That made him one of only 27 players in major league history to collect 3000 hits.
Who2 is very close to the magical round number of 3000 profiles. The profiles leading up to 3000 have been the usual marvelous jumble of types. 2997 was Mel Blanc, the voice of cartoon icon Bugs Bunny. 2998 was Mary Todd Lincoln, the troubled wife of President Abraham Lincoln. And 2999, just published, is of clergyman and anti-war activist William Sloane Coffin.
Yup, he did it. Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run on Tuesday night to become American baseball’s all-time home run leader. He did the trick with a homer off of Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik.The San Francisco Chronicle is a good place to read all about it.
Religion and antiquities editor Hans Holznagel has just come up with two new profiles of juicy Biblical villains: King Herod and Herod Antipas.Herod #1 is the ruler who, in the famous story, ordered the murder of all Bethlehem boys under age 2. (The toddler Jesus of Nazareth escaped just in time.) Herod #2, Herod Antipas, is the dude who beheaded John the Baptist.
Matt Damon returns this weekend in The Bourne Ultimatum, his third film as the heroic amnesiac Jason Bourne.
It’s an old gag, but in this case it held true: Soon after Ingmar Bergman comes news of the deaths of two other celebrities: iconoclastic late-night TV host Tom Snyder and San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh.
Film director Ingmar Bergman, dead at 89.