Former Steelers radio announcer Myron Cope is dead at 79. 

Cope is best known for the yellow cloth twirled by fans as a good luck charm at Steelers games since the mid-1970s… "His creation of The Terrible Towel has developed into a worldwide symbol that is synonymous with Steelers football," Steelers chairman Dan Rooney said Wednesday.

"You were really part of it," Dan Rooney told Cope in 2005. "You were part of the team. The Terrible Towel many times got us over the goal line."

Yeah, it's probably the greatest and most technologically complex invention in Pittsburgh's history.  "See, it's like a regular towel, but yellow."  And then the assembled crowd murmured things like, "Amazing!" and "Well I never!" before lining up to buy three.

But seriously, holy fuck, look out!  It's The Terrible Towel!  It's even more intimidating to the opposition than The Angry Bathmat or The Too-Coarse Loofah.

Chess prodigy and former world champion Bobby Fischer has died in Iceland of an undisclosed illness.  He was 64.

Fischer was a key cog in the competitive fury of the Cold War, when the U.S. and Soviet Union would compete in pretty much anything.  Chess, pick-up sticks, dice, you name it.  Sometimes the two nations' leaders would just call each other up and see who could hold their breath longer.  And it was a huge disgrace when Gerald Ford lost.  And the Olympics… don't get me started on the Olympics.  Watching the medal count was like the Cuban Missile Crisis. "Oh shit, if Sergei Bubka breaks another pole vault record, we're going to war!"

Anyway, Bobby Fischer.  Jewish anti-Semite, recluse, genius, world-class asshole.  And I mean that in an "I'm impressed" sort of way.  I would love to be remembered as a genius and world-class asshole.  Although I guess I'll settle for just the latter.

I'm gonna finish today with this highlight reel of some of Sean Taylor's best plays.  To be fair, it's probably a little too kind about his playmaking skills early in his career — the ferocity with which he went after the ball made for a fair share of blown coverages — but by all accounts he was just blossoming into a fully realized safety with a well-rounded game this season. 

After the jump, the most memorable hit of Taylor's tragically short career.

This is, of course, Bills punter Brian Moorman eating a load of Taylor's shoulder on an attempted fake punt at the Pro Bowl.  As Big Daddy Drew noted, "I remember some people got mad about it.  'Hey, you can't try hard in the Pro Bowl!'"  I don't think Taylor understood not trying, and that's why NFL fans — not to mention the Taylor family — have lost something special.  Godspeed, Sean.

Sean Taylor succumbed to the gunshot wound he suffered late Sunday night.  He was 24.

It's hard to write something that sounds sincere on a website that is generally anything but that, but — as a fan — I was genuinely interested in what Taylor did on and off the field.  For better and worse, he played with the utmost passion — from his punishing hits in the secondary to the spitting incident that marked him as a "bad guy."  He was perhaps not the best safety in the game, but it's likely he was the most feared.

Of course, I can only distill from Taylor what I saw on the playing field.  His life extended beyond the sidelines, and my heartfelt wishes go out to his girlfriend, his one-year-old daughter, and the Washington Redskins community.

Arthur Jones, the man who invented Nautilus equipment and revolutionized personal fitness in America, has passed away at the age of 80.  A Navy veteran of World War II, Jones lived his life eccentrically and enthusiastically.

Mr. Jones was a rough-and-tumble character who had six wives, a nearly lifelong smoking habit and an affection for exotic animals like rattlesnakes and crocodiles, which he kept at his farm… From early in his life, Mr. Jones was enamored of animals. He tracked big game in Africa and ran an import-export business for wild animals, flying the animals himself in old B-25 bombers, his son said.

The Nautilus business grew from its Florida home, and Mr. Jones eventually bought a sprawling farm near Ocala where he kept his airplanes and an assortment of wild animals, including elephants, snakes, alligators, crocodiles and a gorilla named Mickey…

Mr. Jones once said, according to his son, “I shot 630 elephants and 63 men, and I regret the elephants more.”

Fuck.  Yes.  I want to be Arthur Jones.  You know, except alive.  Godspeed, good sir.  Rest in gunshot-filled peace.

[FanHaus] 

Former Houston Rocket and Minnesota Timberwolf Eddie Griffin (not that Eddie Griffin) died last Friday night.  The delay in news results from the circumstances of his death:

Griffin ignored a railroad warning and drove his SUV through a barrier before striking a moving train around 1:30 a.m. Friday. His body was badly burned and he was not carrying any identification. Investigators used dental records to identify Griffin, 25, a Philadelphia product who was waived by the Minnesota Timberwolves last March.

In the world of the casual sports fan, Griffin will probably be remembered as a gifted but suspension-prone first-round bust who was constantly hounded by problems with alcohol.  In the more discerning eye of the sports blogosphere, Griffin will be fondly remembered for getting into a traffic accident in a parking lot because he was masturbating to porn on his SUV's DVD console.  I am greatly saddened by the thought of him never giving us such a story again.

I understand the tragedy of death, especially for someone so young (hence no "TOOT! TOOT!" headline), but I have to salute Griffin: that's a helluva way to go out.  I want nothing of the creeping, weakening melodrama of cancer or heart disease.  I can only hope that one day when I'm a bit older, death comes like a freight train from my blindside.  Godspeed, Eddie.