Several historic characters departed the sporting world in 2002, but their deeds will always spring readily to mind. They had vivid nicknames that will live forever in sporting lore.
Golf lost Slammin' Sammy -- Sam Snead. Baseball said farewell to its Splendid Splinter -- Ted Williams. Bullet Bob ran to his last finish line -- sprinter Bob Hayes.
Other high-profile passings included football's hard-hitting Dick (Night Train) Lane, quarterback icon Johnny Unitas, pitcher Darryl Kile, producer Roone Arledge, who revolutionized sport on television, and Canadian Olympic Committee chief executive officer Jim Thompson.
Snead, who died May 23 at age 89, was synonymous with golf as the sweet-swinging winner of 81 sanctioned tournaments and as many as 160 events altogether. Most of his success came before the television age, and his many purses -- some paid in U.S. War Bonds -- never added up to the financial bonanza of a single PGA Tour triumph of today.
Slammin' Sammy was raised during the Depression in the backwoods of western Virginia. He learned how to play in bare feet and with clubs made from tree limbs. Snead was the only player who won sanctioned tournaments in six decades, from the 1936 West Virginia Closed Pro to the 1982 Legends of Golf. He drove west in 1937 with $300 in his pocket to join the tour.
Snead, famous for his straw hat, cocky grin and homespun humour, was the oldest winner on the regular PGA Tour, capturing the 1965 Greater Greensboro Open -- for a record eighth time -- at 52.
A three-time Masters champion, Snead had been an honorary starter since 1983. He won his first Masters in 1949, the year club members began awarding a green jacket. He won again in 1952 and earned his final Masters victory in 1954 after beating Ben Hogan by one stroke in an 18-hole playoff. He was a three-time winner of the PGA Championship during the match-play era, won the 1946 British Open at St. Andrews but never completed the slam with a U.S. Open. His biggest season was in 1950, when he won 11 times.
Ted Williams died July 5 at age 83 and his body was cryogenically frozen in a controversial and messy family dispute. A career .344 hitter, the Boston Red Sox legend remains baseball's last player to reach the hallowed .400 mark, batting .406 in 1941. He is tied for 11th with 521 career home runs and is 11th with 1,839 RBI.
Williams won two Triple Crowns and was inducted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1966. Remarkably, Williams achieved so much despite losing four seasons in his prime to military service. The patriotic Williams served as a navy pilot in the Second World War and the Korean War. Despite his heroics on and off the field, Williams was never fully embraced by the Boston media or Red Sox fans. That likely cost him two or three more MVP awards.
U.S. sprinter Tim Montgomery set a world record of 9.78 seconds for the 100 metres in September, making him the linear heir to the title of world's fastest human. Some believe that distinction belongs in perpetuity to Bullet Bob Hayes, who died Sept. 19 at age 59. Hayes was an Olympic gold medalist, former world record holder and later star receiver for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League.
Hayes retired in 1976 with the honour of being the only athlete to win an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl. Drug and alcohol problems off the field likely were the reasons he was not put in the Hall of Fame, and that disappointment haunted him.
"I feel like an outcast -- like I've been left out and forgotten throughout the nation," Hayes said in 1999.
Montgomery's 9.78 clocking was from a stationary start. But Hayes established the fastest locomotion of the human species when he ran the anchor leg for the U.S. relay team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Getting the baton in fifth place, he had a flying start and astonishing acceleration that saw him overhaul the field and win by three metres. Hand-timing of Hayes's 100-metre segment was an incredible 8.6 seconds -- on a cinder track, in an age before performance-enhancing drugs were common. At the same Games, he won the 100-metres gold medal, equalling the world record time of 10.0, jointly held by Canadian Harry Jerome and German Armin Hary.
Hayes was the first star track athlete to make a successful transition to NFL stardom and led all receivers in 1965, his rookie season, for average gain a catch (21.8 yards) and touchdowns (12).
Opposing teams could not find defenders fast enough for man-to-man coverage and introduced a new concept of zone defence to compensate. In his 11-year career, Hayes snared 371 catches (71 for TDs) gaining 7,414 yards.
Johnny Unitas, synonymous with the Baltimore Colts, died Sept. 11 at 69. The Hall of Fame member set 22 NFL passing records during his career, was named MVP of the NFL three times and was selected to the Pro Bowl 10 times. He led the Colts to an overtime victory over the Giants in the 1958 NFL championship game that catapulted the NFL to true major league status.
Unitas wore trademark black hightop cleats and flat-top crewcut. He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955, but was released before playing a game. The Colts signed him in 1956 and he stayed until 1972, then played a final season for the San Diego Chargers. Unitas threw touchdown passes in a record 47 consecutive games from 1956-60. He led the league in touchdown passes for four successive seasons, 1957 to 1960. Unitas's Colts won the 1959 NFL championship and the 1972 Super Bowl. Unitas ended his career as the NFL's leader with 5,186 pass attempts, 2,830 completions, 40,239 passing yards and 290 touchdown throws. He was on 10 Pro Bowl teams, and was a three-time player of the year. Farewell in 2002 Jan. 3 -- Al Smith, 73, played major-league baseball for 12 seasons, was twice an all-star and was a starter with two American League pennant winners. Smith was a utility man on the 1954 Cleveland Indians, who won the AL title with a then-record 111 victories, and he led the league in runs scored in 1955, with 123. Later played with the Chicago White Sox. Jan. 9 -- Harold (Mush) March, 93, scored 153 goals over 17 seasons in the National Hockey League, but three of them were historic. He was the first to score a goal at Chicago Stadium, Nov. 21, 1929, and at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, Nov. 12, 1931. And his overtime goal in the 1934 playoffs won Chicago its first Stanley Cup, on April, 10, 1934. Jan. 21 -- Jack Shea, 91, was a double speed-skating gold medalist at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympics. He was America's oldest living gold-medal winner when killed by an impaired driver. Patriarch of three-generation Olympic family. Son Jim Shea Sr. skied cross country in 1964 at Innsbruck. At the Salt Lake City Olympics, grandson Jim Jr. rocketed his skeleton sled to the gold medal, then pulled a picture of his grandfather from inside his helmet, saying: "He rode with me all the way." Jan. 29 -- Dick (Night Train) Lane, 73, was a soldier who became a National Football League defensive back, a record setter who was chosen to the NFL All-Time Team for its first 75 years. As a Los Angeles Ram rookie in 1952, Lane had 14 interceptions in a 12-game season, a mark that has stood for 50 years. He played 14 years with the Rams, Chicago Cardinals and Detroit Lions. He was selected to the Pro Bowl six times. Feb. 14 -- Frank Crosetti, 91, played shortstop on eight New York Yankee world championship teams from 1932 to 1948 and was their third-base coach on 14 other World Series teams. He was the Yankees' last living link to the Babe Ruth era. Crosetti spent a record 37 years with the Yankees and was in 23 World Series with them as a player and a coach. He was there for Ruth's famous "called shot," Lou Gehrig's "luckiest man" speech, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hit streak and Roger Maris's 61st homer. Feb. 21 -- Willie Thrower, 71, became the NFL's first black quarterback when he played in one game for the Chicago Bears on Oct. 18, 1953, against the San Francisco 49ers at Soldier Field. Thrower relieved George Blanda in a 35-28 loss. It would be 15 years until another black quarterback took a snap in a pro game -- Marlin Briscoe with Denver in 1968. Thrower was cut by the Bears in 1954, then played three years with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League. March 6 -- Bryan Fogarty, 32, was a record-setting junior hockey defenceman who lost a promising NHL career to anxiety about crowds and alcoholism. Started with the Quebec Nordiques in 1989-90 after being 1988-89 Canadian major-junior player of the year for Niagara Falls. His 47 goals and 155 points broke Bobby Orr's 23-year-old Ontario Hockey League record for goals by a defenceman and Cam Plante's Canadian junior record for points by a defenceman. He went from the Nordiques to the Pittsburgh Penguins, to the Montreal Canadiens and played in 156 NHL games, scoring 22 goals and 74 points. He slipped out of the NHL after 1994-95 and bounced around with 11 teams in North America and Europe. Died in his sleep of an enlarged heart. March 17 -- Paul Runyan, 93, pro golf's Little Poison, won two PGA Championships and 26 tournaments on the PGA Tour. Most memorable win came over Sam Snead in the 1938 PGA by the largest margin in history, 8 and 7. March 18 -- Brittanie Cecil, 13, was the first spectator killed by a shot at an NHL game. On March 16 in Columbus, Ohio, Blue Jacket forward Espen Knutsen's shot deflected off the stick of Calgary defenceman Derek Morris. The league subsequently installed netting at the ends of rinks. April 9 -- Pat Flaherty, 76, won the Indianapolis 500 in 1956. April 14 -- Buck Baker, 83, a two-time Winston Cup champion with 46 career wins and 44 poles. A former bus driver who learned his high-speed manoeuvres as a moonshine runner, Baker is on NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers list. April 18 -- Wayne Hightower, 62, was one of the highest-profile players to jump from the NBA to the American Basketball Association and give it credibility. Hightower was picked fifth overall by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1962. He jumped to the ABA with Denver, Los Angeles, Utah, Texas and Carolina. April 18 -- Jerry Heidenreich, 52, won four medals for the United States at the 1972 Munich Olympics, only to be overshadowed by the seven golds of Mark Spitz, and the terrorist attack against Israeli athletes. April 22 -- Ogden Phipps, 93, was a thoroughbred horse owner who raced stakes winners such as Buckpasser, Easy Goer and the undefeated Personal Ensign. He won Breeders' Cup races with Personal Ensign in 1988, Dancing Spree in 1989, and My Flag in 1995, and won Eclipse Awards as the leading U.S. breeder in 1988 and leading owner in 1989. April 28 -- Lou Thesz, 86, was one of professional wrestling's enduring performers. A world champion on six different occasions from 1937 to 1967, Thesz wrestled in seven different decades, performing in Japan at the age of 74 in 1990. May 7 -- Seattle Slew, 28, Triple Crown winner and one of racing's greatest sires, died on the 25th anniversary of his 1977 Kentucky Derby victory under the hand of jockey Jean Cruget. The big, black stallion was the only living Triple Crown winner. Slew won 14 of 17 races, earned $1,208,726 (U.S.) and sired 102 stakes winners. May 9 -- Dan Devine, 77, coached Notre Dame to a national college football championship and groomed Joe Montana for greatness. Devine had a record of 172-57-9 (.742 winning percentage) in 22 seasons at Notre Dame, Missouri and Arizona State. He also coached the Green Bay Packers for four seasons, going 25-27-4. Angry fans ran Devine out of town in 1974, and one even shot Devine's dog to death. His final and greatest coaching tenure occurred at Notre Dame, where he replaced Hall of Fame coach Ara Parseghian in 1975. In five seasons under Devine, the Fighting Irish were 53-16-1 and won three bowl games. May 12 -- Ed Curd, 98, was credited with developing point-spread betting. Curd was famous in the 1940s for his Mayfair Bar on East Main Street, where an upstairs phone room handled high rollers. Among his friends were actor George Raft, oddsmaker and television sports commentator Jimmy (The Greek) Snyder, and former Kentucky governor and baseball executive A.B. (Happy) Chandler. May 22 -- Faye Dancer, 77, starred in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League in the 1940s that inspired the 1992 movie A League of Their Own. The character, All the Way Mae, played by Madonna, was inspired by Dancer. In 1948, she stole 108 bases and there's a picture in a Cooperstown exhibit of her stealing a base. May 24 -- James (Big Stick) McCurine, 81, was a Negro League slugger who turned down an offer to play on a Boston Braves farm team. With fellow American Giants star John (Mule) Miles, McCurine formed one of the Negro Leagues' top batting duos. May 26 -- Mamo Wolde, 71, was one of Ethiopia's Olympic marathon heroes, winning gold in 1968 at Mexico City and bronze in 1972 at Munich. Wolde also won the 10,000-metre silver medal in Mexico. His health had been ruined by nine years in prison, accused in the beating death of a young Ethiopian. He always denied the charge. May 26 -- Sir Arthur Gold, 85, was one of track and field's most influential officials, as head of British athletics for more than a decade. May 28 -- Wes Westrum, 79, was a two-time all-star catcher and former manager of the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants. He caught every game for the Giants in the 1951 and 1954 World Series, and played in the 1952 and 1953 all-star games. June 1 -- Hansie Cronje, 32, was South Africa's cricket captain but his career was overshadowed by a ban from the sport for match fixing. Died in a plane crash. Teammates told a government commission that Cronje conveyed to them a bookmaker's offer in 1996 of up to $350,000 (U.S.) to lose a one-day game against India. June 12 -- Count Jean de Beaumont, 98, International Olympic Committee vice-president 1970-74, boosted sport in developing Asian and African countries. June 14 -- Georgia Ridder, 87, thoroughbred race-horse owner with her newspaper publisher husband Ben Ridder. Their biggest win came in 1996, when Alphabet Soup, a long-shot grey colt, beat Cigar, the reigning horse of the year, in the $4-million Breeders' Cup Classic in Toronto. June 17 -- Fritz Walter, 81, played midfield and captained the West German soccer team that won the country's first World Cup title in 1954. June 17 -- Willie Davenport, 59, won the gold medal in the 110-metre hurdles in 1968 and competed in a total of five Summer and Winter Olympics. Davenport equalled the Olympic record when he ran the hurdles in 13.3 seconds at Mexico City in 1968. He won a bronze in the event at the 1976 Games. In 1980, Davenport was a member of the U.S. four-man bobsleigh team that finished 12th at the Winter Olympics. June 18 -- Jack Buck, 77, was a St. Louis sports institution as a gravel-voiced broadcaster, starting in 1954. Buck called everything from pro bowling to Super Bowls to the World Series for CBS, ABC and NBC. June 20 -- Irene MacDonald, 70, learned to dive while at a Hamilton orphanage and became Canada's first Olympic diving medalist, with a springboard bronze at Melbourne in 1956. She later coached, broadcast for CBC and was executive director of Dive B.C. June 22 -- Darryl Kile, 33, the 6-foot-5 St. Louis Cardinals pitcher died from a blocked coronary artery. June 30 -- Pete Gray, 87, became a major-league player despite losing his right arm in a childhood accident. Born Peter Wyshner, he played the 1945 season with the St. Louis Browns, hitting .218 in 77 games. He lost his right arm as a boy when he fell off the running board of a truck and it was crushed. July 4 -- Lou Lefaive, 74, served twice as the director of Sport Canada and was also an executive director of the Canadian Figure Skating Association and president of the Sport Marketing Council. Aug. 16 -- John Roseboro, 69, catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, succeeded Roy Campanella as the Dodgers' full-time catcher. Played for Los Angeles from 1957 to 1967 and was a four-time all-star. He was the starting catcher in the 1959, 1963, 1965 and 1966 World Series, with the Dodgers winning the championship the first three times. Aug. 19 -- Sunday Silence, 16, won the first two Triple Crown races in 1989 and earned almost $5-million (U.S.) in his career after going unsold as an ugly duckling yearling and again as a two-year-old. Aug. 29 -- Terence Tootoo, 22, was the first Inuk to play professional hockey. Tootoo, from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, committed suicide in the bush near Brandon the day after an arrest for drunk driving. Tootoo played for the East Coast Hockey League's Roanoke Express. Sept. 2 -- Claude Larochelle, 71, sports editor of Quebec City's Le Soleil, who was Guy Lafleur's biographer and led a campaign trying to save the Nordiques franchise. Sept. 9 -- Fred Foot, 85, was a keystone of Canadian track and field coaching during more than 40 years at East York Track Club and the University of Toronto. Head coach of the 1956 Olympic and 1962 British Empire Games teams, he was known for directing such athletes as Bill Crothers and Bruce Kidd to the medals podium at the Olympic and Empire Games. Sept. 19 -- Vern Escoe, 81, was a Canadian and British Empire heavyweight boxing champion. Escoe, born in Toronto, held national and empire titles from 1948 to 1953 and fought most of the top heavyweights and light heavyweights of the day, including Archie Moore, Rocky Marciano, Ezzard Charles and Jack Gardiner. He defeated former world champ Charles with a third-round knockout on April 11, 1955, in Edmonton. Enshrined in the national Boxing Hall of Fame in 1978. Sept. 19 -- Mike Reasor, 60, was a one-time caddy for Arnold Palmer who became a PGA Tour golfer himself from 1969 to 1978 with 10 top-10 finishes. Sept. 24 -- Mike Webster, 50, was a Hall of Fame centre who helped the Pittsburgh Steelers win four Super Bowls in six seasons, but suffered brain damage from so many impacts on his head. His life sadly spiralled into drug use and homelessness. He was voted in 2000 to the All-Time NFL Team. During his career from 1974 to 1990, he made the Pro Bowl nine times. Sept. 24 -- Leon Hart, 73, won the 1949 Heisman Trophy after helping Notre Dame win three national titles in 1946, 1947 and 1949. A two-way end and fullback, he was a member of three NFL championship teams in eight seasons with the Detroit Lions, champions in 1952, 1953 and 1957. Sept. 25 -- Ray Hayworth, 98, was one of the last surviving teammates of Ty Cobb and a member of the Detroit Tigers' 1934 and 1935 World Series teams. Hayworth, who worked in the Montreal Expos organization in the 1970s, set a record for chances without an error, with 429. His catcher's mitt is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. At his death he was the oldest ex-major leaguer. Sept. 30 -- Hartland de Montarville Molson, 95, headed a brewing dynasty, served as a senator and was president of the Montreal Canadiens from 1957-68. He was instrumental in signing Jean Béliveau to the Canadiens in 1953. Oct. 6 -- Chuck Rayner, 82, was a three-time all-star goalie who played eight seasons with the New York Rangers and two with the Brooklyn/New York Americans. He had a career goals-against average of 3.05 with 25 shutouts. During the Second World War, while playing for a touring Royal Canadian Armed Forces all-star team, Rayner became the first goalie to skate the length of the ice and score a goal. In 1950, he won the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1973. Oct. 8 -- Jacques Richard, 50, a former Quebec Nordique who retired in 1983 after 10 NHL seasons, in a car accident. Played with Atlanta Flames, Buffalo Sabres before the Nordiques. Richard's best NHL season was 1980-81 with the Nordiques, when he scored 52 goals with 51 assists. He still holds the franchise record -- the Nordiques are now the Colorado Avalanche -- for most goals (52) and points (103) in a season by a right winger. Richard was arrested at Mirabel Airport in February, 1989, when he returned from Colombia with more than five pounds of cocaine in the bottom of a golf bag. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Oct. 9 -- Arnie Boehm, 69, was heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis's amateur boxing coach, a father figure who took him from age 12 to the 1988 Olympic gold-medal podium for Canada. Oct. 9 -- Jim (Jughead) Martin, 78, was a defensive lineman and kicker who won four NFL championships with Cleveland and Detroit. Nov. 5 -- Ross (Lefty) Wilson, 83, was the Detroit Red Wings' trainer 1950 to 1982, and gained fame with trivia buffs for playing in three NHL games as an injury-replacement goalie. He filled in not only for Terry Sawchuk but for the Wings' opponents, Boston and Toronto. Nov. 16 -- Steve Durbano, 50, notorious hockey fighter. A first-round draft pick (13th) in 1971, his life spiralled downward after his NHL career ended in 1979. He served jail time for being part of a cocaine smuggling scheme, for offering an undercover female officer a job as an escort/prostitute and for shoplifting. Played defence for St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Colorado and Birmingham. In 220 NHL games, he had 73 points and 1,127 penalty minutes. Nov. 17 -- Ben Plucknett, 48, twice set the world record for discus in 1981, but was caught that same year as a steroid cheat and banned internationally. Died of a brain aneurysm. His throw of 72.34 was allowed to stand as a U.S. record. Nov. 19 -- Alexandre de Merode, 68, the flip, chain-smoking Belgian prince who ran the International Olympic Committee campaign against banned performance-enhancing drugs since 1967. Oversaw the creation of the list of banned substances, accredited labs and test procedures. Yet on de Merode's watch, East Germany's systematic doping regime flourished, positive drug tests were shredded at the 1984 Olympics before guilty athletes could be exposed, and at the 1996 Olympics more potential positives were not followed up. Canada's Ben Johnson was the big trophy catch of his tenure. Nov. 19 -- Harry Watson, 79, a Hockey Hall of Fame member who won four Stanley Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs and one with the Detroit Red Wings during a 14-season NHL career from 1941 to 1957. Fast and powerful at 6-foot-1, Watson had 236 goals and 207 assists in 809 games plus 16 playoff goals in 62 games. Dec. 1 -- Dave McNally, 60, a three-time all-star whose landmark victory in an arbitration case opened baseball's free-agent era and led to multimillion-dollar salaries. McNally won 20 or more games for the Baltimore Orioles in four consecutive seasons from 1968 to 1971. Traded to Montreal on Dec, 4 1974, he quit baseball the following June after starting the season 3-6 with Montreal. McNally, a lefty, had a 184-119 record and a 3.24 ERA in 14 major-league seasons. He was an all-star in 1969, 1970 and 1972 and is the only pitcher to hit a grand slam in the World Series (1970). Dec. 5 -- Roone Arledge, 71, pioneering ABC producer, changed television's presentation of sport with replays, freeze frames, new camera angles, profiles and a focus on human dramas. Made sport a cornerstone of TV programming. ABC's Wide World of Sports and Monday Night Football in prime time were among his inventions -- as was bigmouth broadcaster Howard Cosell. Supervised coverage of 10 Olympics from 1964 to 1988, including the terrorist-stricken 1972 Munich Games. Dec. 10 -- Les Costello, 74, won a 1948 Stanley Cup with the Toronto Maple Leafs before leaving the NHL to become a priest. He helped found the Flying Fathers hockey team that raised more than $4-million for charities. Dec. 16 -- "Wild" Bill Hunter, 82, founded the Edmonton Oilers, took on the NHL with the rival World Hockey Association and nearly brought the NHL to his home town of Saskatoon. Dec. 25 -- Larry Uteck, 50, former CFL star and Saint Mary's Huskies football coach.