CHICAGO (AP) — Kevin Huigens wipes away tears as he gazes upon the statue of Cubs’ legend Ryne Sandberg outdoors Chicago’s famed Wrigley Area. Flowers, Cubs caps, American flags and — after all — baseballs, litter the bottom and the bottom beneath.
“I believed in him,” stated Huigens, 68, of close by Berwyn. “He made being a Cubs fan enjoyable.”
Sandberg, who had most cancers, died Monday.
“But he’s here in sprit, and he’s going to lift up our Cubs even if he’s not here physically,” Jessie Hill, 44, stated, carrying a Cubs cap and jersey.
Social media is swamped with outpourings of affection, remorse and disappointment on the loss of life of Sandberg and different cherished celebrities who died this month.
The Cosby Present star Malcolm-Jamal Warner, 54, drowned in Costa Rica on July 20. Two days later, legendary heavy metallic and actuality present star Ozzy Osbourne, who had Parkinson’s illness, died at age 76. Jazz musician Chuck Mangione additionally died July 22 in his sleep at age 84. Then, on Thursday, former skilled wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose actual identify was Terry Bollea, was pronounced useless at a hospital after a cardiac arrest. He was 71.
‘A loss you can share with everybody’
When movie star deaths are available fast succession, “if nothing else, it reminds people of their own mortality,” stated Robert Thompson, a professor of tv and popular culture at Syracuse College.
“The people who were a central part of the culture of the 1980s are getting to that age when biology has its way,” stated Thompson, 65. “When it happens in these big chunks, it becomes even more powerful.”
Hogan, Warner and Sandberg have been launched to thousands and thousands of individuals as tv’s recognition exploded throughout the Nineteen Eighties. Mangione’s trumpet and flügelhorn have been staples on easy jazz radio stations throughout the Seventies and into the Nineteen Eighties.
Osbourne’s profession spanned a number of a long time, from the Seventies, when his band, Black Sabbath, dominated the heavy metallic scene, by means of the 2000s, when his household dominated actuality TV with “The Osbournes.”
“The silver lining about celebrities is they continue to exist for us exactly as they did before” Thompson stated, as a result of we are able to proceed to take heed to their music or watch their TV reveals even after they die.
“When you lose a grandparent or an uncle it’s sad and you grieve with your family,” he continued. “But it’s a private kind of thing. When a celebrity dies, it’s a loss you can share with everybody.”
Everlasting followers
Robert Livernois, 59, stated he grew up an Osbourne fan. He lives in Birmingham — not the gritty metropolis within the English Midlands the place Ozzy was born and raised, however a tony metropolis in suburban Detroit.
“I loved his music. I never subscribed to any of the theatrics,” stated Livernois, a radio present host. Osbourne famously bit off the pinnacle of a bat throughout a stay efficiency.
Robert West, 40, produces content material for The Wrestling Store in San Antonio. He stated he misplaced two icons inside days when Osbourne and Hogan died.
He realized of Hogan’s loss of life by means of a textual content from a pal.
“It’s almost like the last bits of my childhood is almost gone,” West stated. “I think he was part of everyone’s life.”
Hogan was a pioneer within the wrestling and leisure industries, having an analogous impression to that of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson in music, West added.
Twenty-three-year-old Indigo Watts is a Black Sabbath and heavy metallic fan who was working at Flipside Data, a retailer in Berkley simply north of Detroit, when he realized his hero had died.
“Some guy came in and before he left he asked ‘Have you heard about Ozzy?’” Watts stated. “As soon as he said, it my heart just sank.”
He stated the current movie star deaths remind him of a darkish interval in 2016 when the world misplaced music legends Prince and David Bowie.
“I was still young, but that hit me like a truck,” Watts stated. “When you’re a celebrity and you die, you leave an impact on the world.”
