Ted Williams

popular name: Curt Gowdy

date_of_death: February 20, 2006

age: 86

cause_of_death: Leukemia

claim_to_fame: Sports

best_know_for: In the history of sports broadcasting, few figures have had the power to legitimize an event simply by attending it. For 40 years, Curt Gowdy was that figure. Over the course of a career that spanned five decades and all three broadcast networks, the “Cowboy at the Mic” called hundreds of football, basketball, baseball, Olympic, and outdoorsman events on his way to becoming one of the most heralded sportscasters of all time.

popular name: Catfish Hunter

date_of_death: September 9, 1999

age: 53

cause_of_death: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease)

claim_to_fame: Sports

best_know_for: Jim "Catfish" Hunter, whose pitching prowess earned him five World Series rings, 224 victories, a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame and made him the game's first big-money free agent. Recruited right out of high school at age 18, Hunter won his first major-league game, and a year after that, at 20, he made the American League All-Star team in a season in which he finished 9-11. He reached 20 wins for the first time in 1971 with a 21-11 record and won at least 20 games the next four seasons. In 1974, he was 25-12 and won the Cy Young Award. In 1968, he pitched a perfect game against the Minnesota Twins, the seventh perfect game in modern baseball history at the time. And the Athletics, by then in Oakland, dominated baseball in the early '70s with the likes of Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Gene Tenace, Rollie Fingers and a group that played hard, on and off the field. "We were the long-haired, mustached gang from Oakland," Hunter said. "We were lucky just to be there, was what they said." After the Oakland A's, Hunter signed with the New York Yankees not because they offered the most money, but rather it was close to his home in North Carolina. Hunter's first season with the Yankees was his last of five consecutive 20-win years. He was 23-14 for the 1975 Yankees and pitched for them until 1979, when he retired at 33, with a 224-166 record and a 3.26 ERA. He was on World Series-winning teams with Oakland in 1972-74 and New York in 1977-78. At age 52 he was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and passed away the following year.

popular name: Arthur Ashe

date_of_death: February 6, 1993

age: 49

cause_of_death: AIDS-related pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Sports

best_know_for: Arthur Ashe was an American professional tennis player. He won three Grand Slam titles in singles and two in doubles and was the first Black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team, and the only Black man ever to win the singles titles at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open. At the height of his career Ashe was ranked world No. 1 by Rex Bellamy, Bud Collins, Judith Elian, Lance Tingay, World Tennis and Tennis Magazine (U.S.) in 1975. That year, Ashe was awarded the 'Martini and Rossi' Award, voted for by a panel of journalists, and the ATP Player of the Year award. In the ATP computer rankings, he peaked at No. 2 in May 1976. He retired in 1980. In 1983 Ashe acquired HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart bypass surgery. In 1993 Ashe died from AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49. His funeral was held at the Arthur Ashe Athletic Center in Richmond, Virginia. Governor Douglas Wilder, who was a friend of Ashe's, allowed his body to lie in state at the Governor's Mansion in Richmond as more than 5,000 people lined up to walk past the casket.