Sports Disasters I Found While Doing Research
A reader sent me an e-mail Tuesday in which she expressed annoyance/outrage that area newspapers had no mention of a famous sports plane crash.
Here is the note:
"It was 50 years ago today that the greatest tragedy in soccer history occurred and yet there was no mention of it by any reporter. I find that to be reprehensible in this age of global communication. The team involved are Manchester United, not some unknown team from some unknown country. Is there any way you could mention this at some future time?"
"Greatest tragedy" and "Manchester United" ... sure, that sounds interesting, so I looked it up.
The basics are these: On Feb. 6, 1958, a commuter-sized airplane carrying 44 people crashed on takeoff from an airport in Munich, and 21 people onboard died -- including seven members of Manchester United, one of England's most famous soccer clubs.
A lengthy entry on the event can be found here.
Anyway, it turns it the Man U crash wasn't even the biggest in soccer history. Many more players died a few years earlier in a crash involving a team from Turin, Italy.
I came across this list, compiled in 2003, of air-travel deaths involving prominent athletes.
Active Athletes, coaches and officials who have died in plane crashes:
Oct. 18, 1925 -- Marvin Goodwin, Cincinnati Red pitcher, in Houston.
March 31, 1931 -- Knute Rockne, Notre Dame football coach, in Kansas.
May 4, 1949 -- 22 members of Torino, the Italian soccer champions, in Turin, Italy.
Oct. 27, 1949 -- Marcel Cerdan, former world middleweight champion, en route to fight Jake LaMotta in Spain.
July 1, 1954 -- John McBride, Alabama halfback, killed in ROTC training flight in Texas.
Oct. 30, 1954 -- Wilbur Shaw, President of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in Decatur, Ind.
Sept. 20, 1956 -- Tom Gastall, Baltimore Oriole catcher, in Maryland.
Nov. 27, 1956 -- Charlie Peete, St. Louis Cardinal outfielder, in Venezuela.
Feb. 6, 1958 -- Eight members of the English soccer champion Manchester United, in Munich.
Aug. 14, 1958 -- Six members of the Egyptian fencing team, in the Atlantic Ocean.
Oct. 30, 1958 -- Philip Scrutton, British Walker Cup golfer.
April 29, 1959 -- Joaquin Blume, Spain's European gymnastics champion, in Madrid.
Oct. 10, 1960 -- 16 members of the Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo football team, in Toledo, Ohio.
Feb. 16, 1961 -- 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team, in Belgium.
April 3, 1961 -- Green Cross, a first-division Chilean soccer team, in the Las Lastimas Mountains.
March 1, 1962 -- Johnny Dieckman, world fly-casting champion, in Chicago.
April 12, 1962 -- Ron Flockhart, Scottish racing driver, in Melbourne.
Feb. 15, 1964 -- Ken Hubbs, 22, Chicago Cub second baseman, in Utah.
July 24, 1966 -- Tony Lema, 1964 British Open champion, in Munster, Ind.
April 28, 1968 -- Six members of the Lamar Tech track team, in Beaumont, Texas.
Sept. 26, 1969 -- 25 members of Bolivian soccer team "The Strongest", in the Andes.
Oct. 2, 1970 -- 14 Wichita State football players, in Colorado.
Nov. 14, 1970 -- 37 Marshall University football players, in Huntington, W.Va.
Oct. 11, 1972 -- 30 members of a Uruguayan rugby club, in Chile.
Dec. 31, 1972 -- Roberto Clemente, Pittsburgh Pirate outfielder, from San Juan, Puerto Rico en route to Nicaragua to aid earthquake victims.
June 24, 1975 -- Wendell Ladner, New York Nets forward, in New York.
Dec. 13, 1977 -- 14 University of Evansville basketball players and coach Bobby Watson in Evansville, Ind.
Aug. 2, 1979 -- Thurman Munson, New York Yankee catcher, in Canton, Ohio.
Jan. 11, 1980 -- Bo Rein, LSU football coach, in the Atlantic Ocean.
March 14, 1980 -- 14 members of the U.S. amateur boxing team in Warsaw, Poland.
Aug. 16, 1987 -- Nick Vanos, Phoenix Suns center, in Romulus, Mich.
Dec. 8, 1987 -- 17 players of the Alianza Peruvian first-division soccer team in Lima, Peru.
Sept. 30, 1988 -- Al Holbert, six-time IMSA champion, near Columbus Ohio.
July 19, 1989 -- Jay Ramsdell, CBA Commissioner, in Sioux City, Iowa.
April 1, 1993 -- Alan Kulwicki, NASCAR's 1992 champion, in Blountville, Tenn.
April 28, 1993 -- 18 players and five team officials of Zambia's national soccer team in Libreville, Gabon.
July 13, 1993 -- Davey Allison, NASCAR driver, the day after a helicopter he was piloting crashed on the infield at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
April 18, 1996 -- Brook Berringer, Nebraska quarterback, two days before the NFL Draft, when the small plane he was piloting crashed in Raymond, Neb.
May 11, 1996 -- Rodney Culver, San Diego Chargers running back, in Florida Everglades.
Oct. 25, 1999 -- Payne Stewart, winner of the 1989 PGA Championship and a two-time U.S. Open winner, two miles west of Mina, S.D.
Jan. 27, 2001 -- Players Nate Fleming and Dan Lawson, and six officials associated with Oklahoma State's men's basketball team, in Beyers, Colo