View Full Version : baseball players who died with airplanes
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10-12-2006, 07:40 PM
Posted By: <b>Frank Wakefield</b><p>The untimely passing of Cory Lidle has me thinking about baseball players who died with aircraft. I can think of a few... any others?<br /><br />Cory Lidle - plane crash in New York 10-11-06.<br /><br />Thurman Munson - crashed his Cessna Citation while landing 8-2-79.<br /><br />Roberto Clemente - died in flight crash taking aid to Nicaragua 12-31-72, his remains were not recovered.<br /><br />Len Koenecke - was beaten to death by a fire extinguisher weilding pilot after fighting on flight, 9-17-35.
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10-12-2006, 07:45 PM
Posted By: <b>Bob Pomilla</b><p>Ken Hubbs, Tommy Gastall.<br />
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10-12-2006, 07:57 PM
Posted By: <b>Frank Wakefield</b><p>Thank you, I recall Hubbs. But Gastall is totally new to me. At age 24 the plane he's flying crashes in to Chesapeake Bay, 9-20-56.
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10-12-2006, 08:08 PM
Posted By: <b>Bob Pomilla</b><p>Just as there are the parallels between Munson and Lidle's fates, so too were there between Gastall and Harry Agannis. Gastall succeeded Agannis as a star quarterback at Boston College. Both then went on to very short careers in the majors, only to die tragically. In succeeding years, I believe.
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10-12-2006, 08:13 PM
Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>Wow, the deadballera.com site already has a picture of Cory Lidle on the main page:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thedeadballera.com/" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.thedeadballera.com/</a>
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10-13-2006, 04:55 AM
Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>The back of Ken Hubbs' 1964 Topps card has his obituary. Other than the T205 Addie Joss, those are the only two cards I can think of like that.
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10-13-2006, 06:56 AM
Posted By: <b>Frank Wakefield</b><p>There are a few more, and I'll work on a list.<br /><br />The first was:<br /><br />Marv Goodwin - Cardinals righthander, one of the "legal" spitball pitchers, who was traded to Cincinnati at the end of the 1925 season. I think he's the first active player to die from an aircraft crash. He was piloting Air Reserve airplane that crashed October 22, 1925.
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10-13-2006, 07:06 AM
Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>In the sports section of today's New York Times there is a complete list of every athlete who has died in a plane crash.
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10-13-2006, 07:56 AM
Posted By: <b>Bob Pomilla</b><p>Barry,<br />It's football, but in the early sixties a Brown defensive back named Don Fleming died from touching a downed power line. His next year card came out with a line added that said something like, "electrocuted in off season".
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10-13-2006, 08:42 AM
Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>I guess football counts too. Strange way to perish.
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10-13-2006, 08:45 AM
Posted By: <b>Scott M</b><p>Since players from other sports have been mentioned and, being the hockey fanatic that I am, Bill Barilko deserves a mention in this thread.<br /><br />Barilko scored the stanley cup winning goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1951 and was at the top of his career only to disappear 4 months later as a passenger on a small plane coming back from a fishing trip in Northern Canada.<br /><br />It took over 10 years before the wreckage of the plane was finally discovered and his fate confirmed.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Barilko" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Barilko</a><br /><br />
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10-13-2006, 08:47 AM
Posted By: <b>cmoking</b><p>Does it seem there were a lot of athletes than died in airplane crashes? It seems a higher percentage - more than the regular population. This could very well be just perception since an athlete's death (especially when active) are reported, but most people's aren't.
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10-13-2006, 09:03 AM
Posted By: <b>dd</b><p>I believe Mike Miley of the Angels died in a plane crash in the 1970's.
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10-13-2006, 09:59 AM
Posted By: <b>Jon Canfield</b><p>Two that come to mind for me are Knute Rockne and Payne Stewart. Also, I believe Marvin Goodwin died in a plane accident - he was a pitcher I think.
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10-13-2006, 10:01 AM
Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>Scott,<br /><br />I'm not a hockey fan but that was pretty neat reading. Thanks!
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10-13-2006, 10:33 AM
Posted By: <b>James Feagin</b><p>Allow me to diverge off the baseball path. I've always been surprised that a professional team has never been lost in a plane crash. I have to believe that one day, the unthinkable will. There is a precedent when the 1970 Marshall football team lost their lives in West Virginia...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.marshall.edu/LIBRARY/speccoll/virtual_museum/Memorial/" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.marshall.edu/LIBRARY/speccoll/virtual_museum/Memorial/</a>
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10-13-2006, 10:34 AM
Posted By: <b>Glenn</b><p>cmoking,<br /><br />There are three things going on. Indeed the percentage of professional athletes that die in plane crashes is higher than the rate in the general population. The same is true of rock stars and most other celebrities and is due to the fact that they simply fly more frequently and therefore have more opportunities to perish in a plane crash than those of us who only fly a handful of times per year. However, what you're suggesting (the perception being out of proportion to reality) is true as well. The more memorable cases (in this case, professional athletes) tend to bias our subjective estimates of the probabilities. This is termed "the availability heuristic" and is the same phenomenon underlying people's mistaken impression that the number of homicide victims in our country is greater than the number of people who dying from falling in the shower or down the stairs at their home. Disproportionate media coverage of the events that are inherently more memorable adds further to the inaccuracies of people's subjective estimates.<br /><br />
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10-14-2006, 05:47 AM
Posted By: <b>howard</b><p>Elmer Gedeon, one of two men with major league experience killed in WWII, died over France in 1944. He was piloting a bomber on its way to attack a German factory in France when his cockpit was hit by flak. According to the one survivor (out of six) it seems that Gedeon was killed even before the plane went down. <br /><br />Gedeon had only a cup of coffee with Washington in 1939 and was just twenty-seven when he died.
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10-14-2006, 06:47 AM
Posted By: <b>Peter Thomas</b><p>Only undefeated HW champ, died in a small plane crash in midwest he was about 45 years old. Walked into high school english class and saw note written by Mr. Rice on blackboard. RIP Big Bopper and Buddy Holly.
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10-14-2006, 07:48 AM
Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Mr. Rice left out Richie Valens.
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10-15-2006, 10:12 AM
Posted By: <b>stella</b><p>Clemente
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10-16-2006, 04:21 AM
Posted By: <b>MINE'S MINT</b><p>not sure if you guys saw on the news but A-Rod's plane almost crashed while landing in Burbank CA the other day because the pilot over shot the runway..<br /><br />a similar incedent happend there a few years back so the airport invested four million dollars to have a weight absorbing collapsible extention installed.. if they had not done so, we would have seen two yank's lost in the same week instead of one..<br><br>psa/dna authenticated signature -> Richard M.