Harry Skip Caray Jr died he was 69

Harry Christopher "Skip" Caray, Jr. died he was 69. Caray was an American sportscaster, best known for his long career as a radio and television play-by-play announcer for the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball. He was the son of baseball announcer Harry Caray, and the father of fellow Braves broadcaster Chip Caray; another son, Josh Caray, is an announcer for the Rome Braves.
(August 12, 1939 - August 3, 2008)

Skip Caray grew up in baseball as the son of Hall of Fame broadcaster Harry Caray, who would routinely refer to his son at 8:30pm during every broadcast by saying, "Good night, Skippy," a phrase for which Skip was teased throughout his adolescence.

He studied television and radio at the University of Missouri where he received a degree in journalism. He began his career in St. Louis calling Saint Louis University and St. Louis Hawks basketball. In 1968, Caray moved with the Hawks to Atlanta, where he also called Atlanta Flames hockey games.




Skip Caray's broadcasts were characterized by his witty and sarcastic sense of humor, a personality trait that endeared him to most fans, but alienated him from some.For example, during a particularly long losing streak in the 1980s, Skip declared at the start of a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, "And, like lambs to the slaughter, the Braves take the field". More recently, in a game against the Florida Marlins, the Braves had loaded the bases, to which Caray quipped, "The bases are loaded, just like (Marlins manager) Jack McKeon probably wishes he was." During the 2004 season, Caray frequently made fun of Braves relief pitcher, Jung Bong, declaring every time the opposing team got a hit against him, "that's another hit off of Bong". In 2008, a player popped a fly ball so high that Skip said "That wouldnt've been a home run in a phone booth." Other frequent targets of Skip's jokes included the Montreal Expos' mascot Youppi, New York Mets fans, professional wrestling, TBS baseball broadcast producer Glenn Diamond, and the post game B-movie frequently shown on TBS during the 1980s. In one celebrated instance, in order to get back at Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Ron Hudspeth for a critical column, Caray paid to have an airplane tow a banner above Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium during a Braves game which read, "For a good time, call Rona Hudspeth," and included Ron's actual phone number.

Among other memorable lines, Caray said of Braves pitcher Charlie Kerfeld, who was 6'4" and 245 lbs., "Boy, he is big enough to go to work." And during a losing streak, after talking about a promotion in which Braves fans could come on the field and meet the players, Caray commented, "The way things are going, we may make the fans go through a metal detector on the way to the field."

Skip was also known for his tendency to identify the hometowns of fans who catch foul balls during Braves games in jest. Fans who reside in the metro Atlanta area were identified by a random suburb, though there was no legitimacy behind these references. Similarly, when daytime home games went long, Caray would routinely give a "traffic report" at exactly 5 o'clock on radio broadcasts. It consisted of him rattling off a random list of major Atlanta arteries, and describing each one as hopelessly backed up.

In addition to his play-by-play duties, Caray also hosted a pre-game call in show, until 2004, during which he was notorious for insulting on-air fans with curt and sarcastic responses, particularly when asked baseball questions of the simplest order, such as "how do you calculate E.R.A.?" or "could you please explain the infield fly rule?"

Judging from his words over the air, Caray had a distaste for the sports entertainment empires ESPN and FOX.

Skip Caray's rather distinctive nasal voice has been parodied by former SportsCenter anchor Rich Eisen during highlights for Atlanta Braves games.



On August 3, 2008, the Atlanta Braves announced that Caray had died. His wife, Paula, reported to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that on Sunday afternoon when she thought her husband was napping, she looked out the window and saw a bird feeder not hanging where it should be and thought it had been blown down by the wind. When she stood up, she noticed her husband lying on the ground next to the bird feeder. He had been suffering from failing health for nearly a year prior, but returned to work for the 2008 season, calling a game on radio as recently as 3 days before his death. Tributes to Caray were given on all of the Atlanta television stations that evening and on WGST-AM the next morning.

Shortly after Caray's death, the Atlanta Braves began wearing a memorial patch on their uniforms that read "SKIP", which appeared on the sleeve opposite the "BEACH" patch honoring Jim Beauchamp that they had been wearing since the beginning of the 2008 season.

Chris “Flash” Richardson of the famous Harlem Globetrotters died he was 28

Chris “Flash” Richardson, a member of the famous Harlem Globetrotters has died in his sleep while on tour in Japan.
The cause of death was not yet confirmed, although a Harlem Globetrotters spokesman said he likely died of natural causes, which is interesting given he was 28 at the time of his death.
The Harlem Globetrotters were at a U.S. military base in Sasebo, Japan, as part of an annual tour.
Chris “Flash” Richardson previously played for University of Nevada Las Vegas and joined the Globetrotters shortly after his college career ended. He was best known for his dunking skills.

Carlos Manuel Santiago died he was 82

Carlos was born March 2, 1926 in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

(March 2, 1926 - December 21, 2008)

Santiago was selected in 1944 to play for the Puerto Rico All-Star team in the Caribbean World Series, played that season in Caracas, Venezuela. When he returned from Caracas, he signed a professional contract with the Mayaguez Indians for the 1944-45 season. Following the 1945 season, Santiago traveled to New York on a barnstorming trip with other Puerto Rican All-Stars. He was scouted by Negro League veteran John Beckwith who signed him to play for the Atlanta Black Crackers. Midway through the 1945 season, Santiago left the Black Crackers and signed with the New York Cubans of the Negro National League. He played second base and shortstop for the Cubans in 1945 and 1946.


In 1947, Santiago signed with the Stamford Bombers of the Class B Colonial League. This was the same season that Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers; Santiago was the first Afro-Caribbean Puerto Rican to break the color line in "organized" baseball. The Colonial League started in 1947 and folded on July 16, 1950. Santiago hit .341 during the abbreviated 1950 season.

In 1951 Bill Veeck and Lou Boudreau invited Santiago to Cleveland's spring training camp. However, Santiago was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Korea. Santiago served for 25 months and was honorably discharged as a sergeant. Santiago returned from Korea and continued playing professionally until 1960.


After his retirement as a player, Santiago held many positions in professional baseball. He was general manager of Mayaguez for three years. He served as National Instructor of Baseball in Columbia for four years. He scouted for the California Angels for three years.

Santiago was elected to the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993. Until his passing, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Negro League Baseball Players Association.

John Costelloe's (Johnny Cakes ) died he was 47

The Brooklyn actor who played Johnny Cakes - the gay-fireman lover of a mob capo on "The Sopranos" - killed himself in a holiday tragedy that has stunned family and friends.
The front door to John Costelloe's Sunset Park home was still sealed with police stickers yesterday, more than a week after the rugged 47-year-old actor committed suicide.
Costelloe, a former FDNY firefighter, shot himself in the head in his basement bedroom on Dec. 16, cops and pals said.
"It's beyond me. This is too much for me to handle right now," the actor's dad, Michael Costelloe, 77, said yesterday.
Firefighter and former colleague Matt Dwyer couldn't believe his friend was gone. more

Harold Pinter ( playwright/director)died he was 78

Harold Pinter died he was 78. Pinter was a world-renowned English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, poet, political activist, and president of the Central School of Speech and Drama. After publishing poetry as a teenager and acting in school plays, Pinter began his theatrical career in the mid-1950s as a rep actor using the stage name David Baron. During a writing career spanning over half a century, beginning with his first play, The Room (1957), Pinter wrote 29 stage plays; 26 screenplays; many dramatic sketches, radio and TV plays; poetry; some short fiction; a novel; and essays, speeches, and letters.


(10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008),

He is best known as a playwright and screenwriter, especially for The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), all of which he adapted to film, and for his screenplay adaptations of others' works, such as The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He also directed almost 50 stage, TV, and film productions of his own and others' works. Despite frail health since 2001, he continued to act on stage and screen, the last being the critically-acclaimed October 2006 production of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, during the 50th anniversary season of the Royal Court. In addition to continuing to write (mostly poetry), give interviews, speak about political issues, and attend theatrical and cinematic premieres of his own and others' works, he accepted the presidency of the Central School of Speech and Drama in October 2008.

Pinter's dramas often involve strong conflicts among ambivalent characters fighting for verbal and territorial dominance and for their own remembered versions of the past; stylistically, they are marked by theatrical pauses and silences, comedic timing, provocative imagery, witty dialogue, ambiguity, irony, and menace ("Biobibliographical Notes"). Thematically ambiguous, they raise complex issues of individual human identity oppressed by social forces, the power of language, and vicissitudes of memory. Like his work, Pinter has been considered complex and contradictory (Billington, Harold Pinter 388). Although Pinter publicly eschewed applying the term "political theatre" to his own work in 1981, he began writing overtly political plays in the mid-1980s, reflecting his own heightening political interests and changes in his personal life. This "new direction" in his work and his "Leftist" political activism stimulated additional critical debate about Pinter's politics. Pinter, his work, and his politics have been the subject of voluminous critical commentary .

Pinter was the recipient of nineteen honorary degrees and numerous other honors and awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the French Légion d'honneur. Academic institutions and performing arts organizations have devoted symposia, festivals, and celebrations to honouring him and his work, in recognition of his cultural influence and achievements across genres and media. In awarding Pinter the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005, instigating some public controversy and criticism, the Swedish Academy cited him for being "generally regarded as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century." He received his nineteenth honorary degree from the Central School of Speech and Drama in absentia due to illness on 10 December 2008. On 25 December, his wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, announced that he had died, from cancer, on 24 December 2008.


Pinter was born on 10 October 1930, in the London Borough of Hackney, to "very respectable, Jewish, lower middle class," native English parents of Eastern-European ancestry; his father, Jack Pinter (1902–1997), was a "ladies' tailor" and his mother, Frances (née Moskowitz; 1904–1992), "kept what is called an immaculate house" and was "a wonderful cook".

Although he was a "solitary" only child, he "discovered his true potential" as a student at Hackney Downs School, the London grammar school "where Pinter spent the formative years from 1944 to 1948. … Partly through the school and partly through the social life of Hackney Boys' Club … he formed an almost sacerdotal belief in the power of male friendship. The friends he made in those days—most particularly Henry Woolf, Michael (Mick) Goldstein and Morris (Moishe) Wernick—have always been a vital part of the emotional texture of his life" (Billington, Harold Pinter 11; cf. Woolf). Significantly "inspired" by his English teacher, mentor, and friend Joseph Brearley, "Pinter shone at English, wrote for the school magazine and discovered a gift for acting" (Billington, Harold Pinter 10–11). He wrote poetry frequently and published some of it as a teenager, as he has continued to do throughout his career. He played Romeo and Macbeth in 1947 and 1948, in productions directed by Brearley (Billington, Harold Pinter 13–14). He especially enjoyed running and broke the Hackney Downs School sprinting record.



From 1956 until 1980, Pinter was married to Vivien Merchant, a rep actress whom he met on tour, probably best known for her performance in the original film Alfie (1966); their son, Daniel, was born in 1958 (Billington, Harold Pinter 54, 75). Through the early '70s, Merchant appeared in many of Pinter's works, most notably The Homecoming on stage (1965) and screen (1973), but the marriage was turbulent and began disintegrating in the mid-1960s (252–56). For seven years, from 1962 to 1969, Pinter was engaged in a clandestine affair with Joan Bakewell, which informed his play Betrayal (1978) (264–66). Between 1975 and 1980, he lived with historian Lady Antonia Fraser, wife of Sir Hugh Fraser (272–76), and, in 1975, Merchant filed for divorce ("People").

After the Frasers' divorce became final in 1977 and the Pinters' in 1980, in the third week of October 1980, Pinter married Antonia Fraser. Due to a two-week delay in Merchant's signing the divorce papers, however, the reception had to precede the actual ceremony, originally scheduled "to coincide with Pinter's fiftieth birthday" on 10 October 1980 (271–72).

Unable to overcome her bitterness and grief at the loss of her husband, Vivien Merchant died of acute alcoholism in the first week of October 1982 at the age of 53 (Billington, Harold Pinter 276). According to Billington, who cites Merchant's close friends and Pinter's associates, Pinter "did everything possible to support" her until her death and regrets that he became estranged from their son, Daniel, after their separation and Pinter's remarriage (276, 345). A reclusive gifted musician and writer (345), Daniel no longer uses the surname Pinter, having adopted instead "his maternal grandmother's maiden name,"

Pinter stated publicly in interviews that he was "very happy" in his second marriage and enjoyed family life with his six adult stepchildren and 17 step-grandchildren (Billington, Harold Pinter 388, 429–30; Dougary), and, after battling cancer for a long period, considered himself "a very lucky man in every respect" . According to Lyall, who interviewed him in London for her Sunday New York Times preview of Sleuth, Pinter's "latest work, a slim pamphlet called 'Six Poems for A.,' comprises poems written over 32 years, with 'A' being Lady Antonia. The first of the poems was written in Paris, where she and Mr. Pinter traveled soon after they met. More than three decades later the two are rarely apart, and Mr. Pinter turns soft, even cozy, when he talks about his wife" ("Still Pinteresque" 16). In his interview with Lyall, Pinter "acknowledged that his plays––full of infidelity, cruelty, inhumanity, the lot––seem at odds with his domestic contentment. 'How can you write a happy play?' he said. 'Drama is about conflict and degrees of perturbation, disarray. I've never been able to write a happy play, but I've been able to enjoy a happy life' ".

Pinter died, from cancer, on 24 December 2008.more

Eartha Kitt (Singer, actress) died she was 81

Eartha Kitt (Singer, actress) died, she was 81. Eartha Mae Kitt was an American actress, singer, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her role as Catwoman in the 1960s TV series Batman, and for her 1953 Christmas song "Santa Baby". Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the world".
(January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008)

Kitt was born Eartha Mae Keith on a cotton plantation in the tiny town of North, South Carolina. She had stated that her mother was of Cherokee and African-American descent, and her father, German and Dutch descent. She claimed she was conceived of rape. Kitt was raised by Anna Mae Riley, a black woman whom she believed to be her mother, but after Riley's death, she was sent to live in New York City with Mamie Kitt, reportedly Riley's sister. Eartha Kitt believed that Mamie Kitt was her biological mother; she had no knowledge of her father's identity, except that his surname was Kitt and that he was the son of the owner of the plantation on which she had been born. Kitt suffered terrible abuse and neglect at the hands of a family to whom Anna Mae Riley entrusted her, or "given away for slavery" as Kitt described in many interviews.


Kitt started her career as a member of the Katherine Dunham Company and made her film debut with them in Casbah (1948). A talented singer with a distinctive voice, her hits include "Let's Do It", "C'est si bon", "Just an Old Fashioned Girl", "Monotonous", "Je cherche un homme", "Love for Sale", "I'd Rather Be Burned as a Witch", "Uska Dara", "Mink, Schmink", "Under the Bridges of Paris", and her most recognizable hit, "Santa Baby". Kitt's unique style was enhanced as she became fluent in the French language during her years performing in Europe. She had some skill in other languages too, which she demonstrates with finesse in many of the live recordings of her cabaret performances.


In 1950, Orson Welles gave her her first starring role, as Helen of Troy in his staging of Dr. Faustus. A few years later, she was cast in the revue New Faces of 1952 introducing "Monotonous" and "Bal, Petit Bal," two songs with which she continues to be identified. In 1954, 20th Century Fox filmed a version of the revue simply titled New Faces. Welles and Kitt allegedly had a torrid affair during her run in Shinbone Alley, which earned her the nickname by Welles as "the most exciting woman in the world." In 1958, Kitt made her feature film debut opposite Sidney Poitier in The Mark of the Hawk. Throughout the rest of the 1950s and early 1960s, Kitt would work on and off in film, television and on nightclub stages. In 1964, Kitt helped open the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, California. Also in the 1960s, the television series Batman, featured her as Catwoman after Julie Newmar left the role.

In 1968, however, Kitt encountered a substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon. It was reported that she made First Lady Lady Bird Johnson cry. The public reaction to Kitt's statements was much more extreme, both for and against her statements. Professionally exiled from the U.S., she devoted her energies to overseas performances.


In the late 1990s she appeared as the Wicked Witch of the West in the North American national touring company of The Wizard of Oz. Kitt had a supporting role as Lady Eloise in the hit movie Boomerang co-starring Eddie Murphy. In 2000, Kitt again returned to Broadway in the short-lived run of Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party opposite Mandy Patinkin and Toni Collette. Beginning in late 2000, she starred as the Fairy Godmother in the National tour of Cinderella alongside Deborah Gibson and then Jamie-Lynn Sigler. In 2003, she replaced Chita Rivera in Nine. She reprised her role of the Fairy Godmother at a special engagement of Cinderella which took place at Lincoln Center during the holiday season of 2004.

One of her more unusual roles was as Kaa the python in a 1994 BBC Radio adaptation of The Jungle Book. Kitt lent her distinctive voice to the role of Yzma in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove and returned to the role in the straight to video sequel Kronk's New Groove and the spin-off TV series The Emperor's New School, for which she has won an Emmy Award and two Annie Awards for Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production. She had a voiceover as the voice of Queen Vexus on the animated TV series My Life as a Teenage Robot.

In recent years, Kitt's annual appearances in New York made her a fixture on the Manhattan cabaret scene. She would take the stage at venues such as The Ballroom and the Café Carlyle to explore and define her highly stylized image, alternating between signature songs (such as Old Fashioned Millionaire), which emphasized a witty, mercenary world-weariness, and less familiar repertoire, much of which she performed with an unexpected ferocity and bite that presented her as a survivor with a seemingly bottomless reservoir of resilience her version of "Here's to Life", frequently used as a closing number, was a sterling example of the latter. This side of her later performances was reflected in at least one of her recordings, Thinking Jazz, which preserved a series of performances with a small jazz combo that took place in the early 1990s in Germany and which included both standards ("Smoke Gets in Your Eyes") and numbers (such as "Something May Go Wrong") that seemed more specifically tailored to her talents; one version of the CD includes as bonus performances a fierce, angry Yesterdays and a live rendering "C'est Si Bon" that good-humoredly satirized her sex-kitten persona.

From October to early December, 2006, Kitt co-starred in the Off-Broadway musical Mimi le duck. She also appeared in the 2007 independent film And Then Came Love opposite Vanessa L. Williams.


After romances with the cosmetics magnate Charles Revson and banking heir John Barry Ryan III, she was married to Bill McDonald from June 6, 1960, to 1965. They had one child, a daughter, Kitt Shapiro (b. 1962). Eartha had two grandchildren, Jason and Rachel. Kitt lived in the Merryall section of New Milford, Connecticut for many years as well as Pound Ridge, New York, but had recently moved to Weston, Connecticut to be near her daughter's family. In 2007, she performed at the Hotel Carlyle in New York.

Kitt wrote three autobiographies – Thursday's Child (1956), Alone with Me (1976), and I'm Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten (1989).

Kitt was the spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics Smoke Signals collection in August 2007. She re-recorded "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" for the occasion, was showcased on the MAC website and the song was played at all MAC locations carrying the collection for the month.

Eartha Kitt died of asthma on December 25, 2008. more

Ralph Young Singer died he was 90

Ralph Young died he was 90. Ralph was an American singer and actor. He was best known as the partner of Tony Sandler in the singing duo of Sandler and Young.

Ralph Young, one half of the celebrated international singing duo "Sandler & Young," passed away August 22, 2008. Young is on the right. The New York-born and raised Young died of unspecified causes at his home in Palm Springs, CA after a brief illness. From the 1960s through the early 90s, the tuxedo-clad duo released 22 albums, headlined major hotel and casino showrooms in both the U.S. and abroad, and made countless guest appearances on top-rated television variety shows. Young is survived by his wife, Arlene; his children, Neil, Arleen, Ron (Lisa), Guy (Bobbi), Lauren, Rachel (Jose); and his eight grand-daughters, Allison, Caitie, Darcy, Morgan, Riley, Jordan, Allie and Piper.

(July 1, 1918 – August 22, 2008)