Ted Williams

popular name: Helen Woodford Ruth

date_of_death: January 11, 1929

age: 31

cause_of_death: Suffocation from a house fire

claim_to_fame: Sports

best_know_for: Babe Ruth met Helen Woodford in 1914 when she served him breakfast while she worked as a waitress at Landers’ Coffee Shop in Boston. They were married in the fall, and Helen would make periodic public appearances with The Babe. Although Yankee (and former Red Sox) slugger Babe Ruth and Helen maintained publicly that they were still married, neighbors on Quincy Street knew her as Helen R. Kinder, the wife of Dr. Edward Kinder, a Tufts-educated dentist. Kinder told his family that they were married in Montreal, and Helen Kinder’s name appeared on the home’s deed and the mortgage taken out in 1927. Neighbors reported occasionally seeing a young girl, who turned out to be Helen and Babe’s daughter, Dorothy. However soon after moving in with Kinder, Dorothy was sent to live in a boarding school in Wellesley run by nuns. On Jan. 11, 1929, Babe’s wife, Helen, was killed in a house fire in Watertown, Massachusetts. Helen lived in the house with a dentist, Edward H. Kinder. Helen and Babe were separated, but not divorced. Neighbors knew Helen as Mrs. Kinder, and had no idea she was Babe’s wife until the Woodford family saw her picture in the newspaper and made a positive identification.

popular name: Joe DiMaggio

date_of_death: March 8, 1999

age: 84

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Sports

best_know_for: Joe DiMaggio was an professional baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees. Born to Italian immigrants in California, he is considered to be one of the greatest baseball players of all time and set the record for the longest hitting streak (56 games from May 15 – July 16, 1941). DiMaggio was a three-time American League (AL) Most Valuable Player Award winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons. During his tenure with the Yankees, the club won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships. His nine career World Series rings put him second only to his fellow Yankee Yogi Berra, who won 10. At the time of his retirement after the 1951 season, he ranked fifth in career home runs (361) and sixth in career slugging percentage (.579). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955 and was voted the sport's greatest living player in a poll taken during baseball's centennial year of 1969.[2] His brothers Vince (1912–1986) and Dom (1917–2009) also were major league center fielders. DiMaggio is also widely known for his marriage and lifelong devotion to Marilyn Monroe.

popular name: Eddie Bennett

date_of_death: 01/16/1935

age: 31

cause_of_death: Alcoholism

claim_to_fame: Sports

best_know_for: Eddie Bennett was an American batboy and mascot for several teams, most notably the New York Yankees during the 1920s and 1930s. At the time of his death, Bennett was considered to be the "most famous mascot in the world". Bennet had a spinal injury when he was very young which resulted in a hunchback. He was considered to be a "good luck charm" by the members of the club, and became a well-known celebrity in New York. On May 19, 1932, Bennett was hit by a taxi on a New York City street. He suffered a broken leg and other injuries from which he never recovered. To find relief from the pain he suffered from the injuries, Bennett started to abuse alcohol. He was forced to retire as the Yankees mascot in the middle of 1933 season, although Ruppert insisted he remain on the payroll all year. The New York Times reported that the "notoriously superstitious" ballplayers and fans blamed Bennett's absence on the Yankees' failure to win the pennant in 1933 and 1934. In January 1935, Bennett died penniless due to alcoholism.