Where Are They Buried? (16 page)

Ty was shrewd off the field as well; he invested heavily in General Motors and Coca-Cola and, when he died, was worth millions. But his death was emblematic of his life. Instead of having friends and family at his side, a handgun and a fortune in stock certificates were on the nightstand next to his hospital bed. Only three former baseball colleagues attended his funeral, and there was no national mourning.

Not long before his death, when asked if he had any regrets, Ty replied, “If I had my life to live over again, I’d have done it a little different. I’d have more friends.”

At 74, he was buried at the Royston Cemetery in Royston, Georgia.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From the intersection of Routes 29 and 17 in the center of Royston, follow Route 17 south for about a mile and the cemetery is on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
The big mausoleum in the center of the cemetery is Ty’s.

MARCH 25, 1918 – APRIL 23, 1995

America’s most outspoken sportscaster, Howard Cosell of bad toupee and garish sports jacket fame, epitomized a holier-than-thou “New Yawk” know-it-all attitude and became the catalyst of countless arguments around office water coolers as sports fans alternately loved or hated his brash, no-nonsense style and unqualified immodesty. Wordy harangues, punctuated by a signature catchphrase, “I just tell it like it is,” dripped with an intonation of a Brooklyn-bile accent never heard at the highest levels of network television before or since. A social phenomenon and crusading journalist who broke the pretty-face, perfect-hair, former-jock mold of network sports personalities with his unique style and delivery, Howard was a lightning rod for criticism.

From the early 1960s when he first began to attract national attention, Howard, a lawyer by training, frequently tackled the toughest issues in sport; he allied with the then-controversial heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali and was the first to stand by him after Ali was stripped of his title for refusing induction into the Army during the Vietnam War. He was a vocal critic of baseball’s reserve clause (which before the advent of free agency bound a player to one team), he railed over the corruption in boxing, the cheating and academic abuses of college sports, and the rampant commercialism of the Olympic movement.

At the height of his popularity, Howard was alleged to be the most valuable property in sports as he alone was capable of promoting, reporting, and criticizing an event packaged and merchandised by his own network. In a sense, Howard triumphed by building a franchise around himself; his second greatest triumph then, was
Monday Night Football
. In 1970 many believed putting a sports event on in prime time against entertainment programming
would be a disaster, but ABC gambled that Howard could draw viewers to the telecast. Forty years later
Monday Night Football
is still going strong, though the same can’t be said for Howard. Nonetheless, his diatribes remain: “Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a show-off, I have been called all of these. Of course, I am.”

At 77, Howard died of a heart embolism and was buried at Westhampton Cemetery in Westhampton, New York.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From Route 27, take Exit 63 for Route 31 south, proceed over the railroad tracks and make a left at the first light onto Montauk Highway. At the fourth block make a right on Station Road and enter the cemetery at the last entrance, which is the J entrance.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Stop at the end of the wooden stockade fence and, on your left, the Cosell plot is one row of graves from the drive in Section B.

JANUARY 16, 1911 – JULY 17, 1974

With a blazing Ozark fastball, Jay Hanna “Dizzy” Dean pitched himself right into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He did it by doing what came naturally, as he “was never taught to play baseball and never had to learn.”

After his playing days, Dizzy became an announcer and was revered as a folk hero for his great turns of the English language in the booth. One player looked “mighty hitterish” to Dizzy, another “slud into third,” and one team’s problem was that “they ain’t got enough spart.” Pressed for an explanation of that locution, Dizzy replied, “Spart is pretty much the same as fight or gumption. Like the Spart of St. Louis, that plane Lindbergh flowed to Europe in.”

At 63 he died of a heart attack, and was buried at Bond Cemetery in Bond, Mississippi.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From the intersection of Routes 26 and 49 in Wiggins, follow Route 49 north for 21 miles, then turn right onto Pump Branch Road. Go over the railroad tracks and take the second right onto Proston Avenue, then make a quick left onto Second Street and then a right onto Cemetery Road.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Dizzy’s grave is easy to find in the eleventh row from the road.

APRIL 29, 1951 – FEBRUARY 18, 2001

Dale Earnhardt never had any doubt about what he would do with his life. As a boy his weekends were spent watching his father, Ralph Earnhardt, race stock cars, and he later summed up his commitment to the sport thusly: “I can’t remember anything but racing. I didn’t want to go to school or anywhere else, I just wanted to be racing.”

Dale left school after the eighth grade, dreaming of making a living among cars. By eighteen he had succeeded; a service station attendant, he mounted tires and wielded wrenches to support himself and a young family. But that wasn’t exactly the script he had dreamed of, and the aspiring, self-financed racer plugged away at his passion. In 1973 his father died of heart failure while working on his race car, and Dale resolved to make it big on the professional circuit for both of them.

The following year he competed in the NASCAR Sportsman Division and in 1975 made his Winston Cup debut at the World 600 in Charlotte, North Carolina. By 1978 Dale was a part-time member of Rod Osterlund’s team and the next year the owner/manager took a chance on the 28-year-old and put him behind the wheel full-time. Dale’s dream had come true and he didn’t squander the opportunity, taking the 1979 Rookie of the Year award. The following year, Dale won the NASCAR Winston Cup Series title and became the only driver ever to win the rookie crown and the series’ championship in consecutive seasons.

Midway through the 1981 season, Osterlund sold his team. After a few years of musical chairs, Dale migrated to RCR, Richard Childress Racing. His next championship came in 1986 and it marked the beginning of his storybook wonder years; in an incredible run, Dale captured six championship titles in nine seasons. He became one of NASCAR’s winningest racers and claimed every major event at least once. He earned a total purse in excess of $40 million, and “the Intimidator” even promoted his own Dale Earnhardt team, which included his son, Dale Jr.

But Dale’s fortunes changed at the 2001 Daytona 500 in Florida. On the last lap of the prestigious race, Dale was running in an “interference” position while his son and Michael Waltrip, another member of the Earnhardt team, held the top two spots. As long as Dale could hold onto his third-place standing, the team would enjoy a podium sweep. However,
between the third and fourth turns of that final lap, just seconds from the finish, Dale inexplicably crashed his car into the wall at a speed approaching 200 miles per hour. Though it seems he was killed upon impact, Dale wasn’t pronounced dead until arriving at the Halifax medical facility less than a mile away. His was the first driver fatality in the 43-year history of the Daytona 500.

It was later determined that Dale’s seatbelt had failed which, of course, contributed to his death. But doctors also weighed in with their opinion that, had Dale been wearing a full-face helmet like that worn by virtually every other professional race-car driver, instead of the open-face helmet that his ego required, his injury pattern would’ve been different; Dale’s chin struck the steering column in such a way as to fracture the base of his skull, and a full-face helmet may have saved his life.

At 49, Dale was buried on the grounds of his estate in Mooresville, North Carolina.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
From I-77, take Exit 36 and follow Route 150 east for 2½ miles. Turn right on Route 136 and, after 4½ miles, you’ll see a building that looks somewhat out of place on the left. (There is no sign.) That’s the main workplace of Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, or DEI, as it’s locally known.

In the front of this building are a small museum and a large gift shop wherein the public is cordially invited to shop for $24 coffee mugs and fashionably hideous $450 coats. That’s as far as the public’s invitation extends, however, and as a member of such, you’ll not be allowed to cast your eyes upon Dale’s resting place; he lies in a mausoleum within the confines of the estate behind the main DEI building.

The estate seems to be surrounded by a high, wrought-iron fence, but that’s an illusion. Upon its descent into the woods, the iron fence is replaced by one that consists of a solitary wire. Still, I’m not recommending that anyone trespass; the Earnhardts are pretty serious about, and entitled to, their privacy. Besides, the estate spans 300 acres and you might be arrested—or shot—before you’re able to locate Dale’s large, blocky, porphyritic mausoleum emblazoned “Earnhardt” across the top, much less spend quality time with him. Sure, since his family continues to make more than a fair living from Dale’s legion of fans ($20 million in 2001, by Forbes’ count), it’d be nice if they’d share access with the public. But he is on private property (in fact, DEI employees won’t even admit he’s buried there), and that’s apparently where he’s going to stay.

JANUARY 12, 1944 – NOVEMBER 7, 2011

One of the sport’s fiercest competitors, “Smokin” Joe Frazier was the tough but underrated heavyweight boxing champion who, though he was the first man to defeat Muhammad Ali, spent a lifetime playing second fiddle to his nemesis.

Frazier won Olympic gold in Tokyo in 1964 and, after turning pro in 1965, knocked out his first eleven opponents, setting himself up as a possible challenger to Ali’s heavyweight crown. But in April 1967, having declared, “I ain’t got nothing against them Vietcong,” Ali refused to be drafted and claimed conscientious objector status, causing the boxing commission to strip him of his title. To fill the vacated position, heavyweight contenders participated in an eight-man elimination tournament. In February 1970, after eliminating such fierce contenders as Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis over the course of five bouts, Frazier stood alone as undisputed World Heavyweight Champion.

Just eight months later, though, after winding through the courts, Ali had his boxing license reinstated and the boxing world salivated at the prospect of Frazier and Ali—two of the world’s most brutal heavyweight fighters, each of whom had never lost a bout—squaring off in the ring. The stage was set for an Ali-Frazier showdown, a matchup touted as the “Fight of the Century” but the rivalry also was given a political and social cast. Ali, an adherent of the Nation of Islam, came to represent rising black anger
in America, while Frazier, who voiced no political views, was nonetheless depicted, to his consternation, as the favorite of the establishment. Ali called Frazier ignorant, likened him to a gorilla and said his black supporters were Uncle Toms. Unable to match Ali’s charisma or his gift for the provocative quote, Frazier stewed as he was publicly ridiculed in pre-bout banter and, ultimately, Frazier came to detest Ali.

On March 8, 1971, at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the time for talk ended. In a fight so big that Frank Sinatra was shooting pictures at ringside and each fighter earned a then-astonishing $2.5 million, one of the most epic ring battles of all time took place. In a ferocious brawling and slugging style, Frazier pummeled Ali’s body for thirteen rounds while ducking and weaving away from Ali’s jabs. In the next round Frazier landed what perhaps has become the most famous left hook in history, devastating Ali’s jaw and dropping the former champ to the canvas like a lead weight. Frazier left the ring as the undisputed champion declaring, “I always knew who the champ was.”

For Frazier, 1971 was truly triumphant. Lauded and celebrated, he bought a 368-acre estate called Brewton Plantation near his South Carolina boyhood home and became the first black man since Reconstruction to address that state’s legislature. But in 1973, George Foreman took his championship away, knocking him down six times in their Jamaican bout before the referee stopped it in the second round. The following year, Ali took the title from Foreman and the stage was set for a championship re-match with Frazier.

Regarded as one of the greatest fights in boxing history, the “Thrilla in Manila” was held just outside the Philippine capital in October 1975. Conditions were sweltering and hot lights overpowered the air-conditioning, but still Frazier and Ali traded punches with a fervor that seemed unimaginable among heavyweights. In this most brutal battle, Frazier took command in the middle rounds but Ali came back on weary legs, unleashing a flurry of punches to Frazier’s face in the twelfth. At one point during the slugfest, Ali whispered to Frazier during a clinch, “They told me Joe Frazier was through.” Frazier snorted back, “They lied, pretty boy,” before hitting Ali with a left hook. It ended when a battered Frazier, one eye swollen shut, did not come out to face Ali for the final round, his trainer telling him, “Sit down, son. It’s all over. Nobody will ever forget what you did here today.” Shortly after, Frazier hung up his gloves for good. He was 32.