By CHRISTINE FERNANDO and COREY WILLIAMS, Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) — Kevin Huigens wipes away tears as he gazes upon the statue of Cubs’ legend Ryne Sandberg outside Chicago’s famed Wrigley Field. Flowers, Cubs caps, American flags and — of course — baseballs, litter the base and the ground beneath.
“I believed in him,” said Huigens, 68, of nearby Berwyn. “He made being a Cubs fan enjoyable.”
Sandberg, who had cancer, 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, said, wearing a Cubs cap and jersey.
Social media is swamped with outpourings of love, regret and sadness at the death of Sandberg and other cherished celebrities who died this month.
The Cosby Show star Malcolm-Jamal Warner, 54, drowned in Costa Rica on July 20. Two days later, legendary heavy metal and reality show star Ozzy Osbourne, who had Parkinson’s disease, died at age 76. Jazz musician Chuck Mangione also died July 22 in his sleep at age 84. Then, on Thursday, former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, was pronounced dead at a hospital after a cardiac arrest. He was 71.
‘A loss you can share with everybody’
When celebrity deaths come in quick succession, “if nothing else, it reminds people of their own mortality,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University.
“The people who were a central part of the culture of the 1980s are getting to that age when biology has its way,” said Thompson, 65. “When it happens in these big chunks, it becomes even more powerful.”
Hogan, Warner and Sandberg were introduced to millions of people as television’s popularity exploded during the 1980s. Mangione’s trumpet and flügelhorn were staples on smooth jazz radio stations during the 1970s and into the 1980s.
Osbourne’s career spanned multiple decades, from the 1970s, when his band, Black Sabbath, dominated the heavy metal scene, through the 2000s, when his family dominated reality TV with “The Osbournes.”
“The silver lining about celebrities is they continue to exist for us exactly as they did before” Thompson said, because we can continue to listen to their music or watch their TV shows 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.”
Eternal fans
Robert Livernois, 59, said he grew up an Osbourne fan. He lives in Birmingham — not the gritty city in the English Midlands where Ozzy was born and raised, but a tony city in suburban Detroit.
“I loved his music. I never subscribed to any of the theatrics,” said Livernois, a radio show host. Osbourne famously bit off the head of a bat during a live performance.
Robert West, 40, produces content for The Wrestling Shop in San Antonio. He said he lost two icons within days when Osbourne and Hogan died.
He learned of Hogan’s death through a text from a friend.
“It’s almost like the last bits of my childhood is almost gone,” West said. “I think he was part of everyone’s life.”
Hogan was a pioneer in the wrestling and entertainment industries, having a similar impact to that of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson in music, West added.
Twenty-three-year-old Indigo Watts is a Black Sabbath and heavy metal fan who was working at Flipside Records, a store in Berkley just north of Detroit, when he learned his hero had died.
“Some guy came in and before he left he asked ‘Have you heard about Ozzy?’” Watts said. “As soon as he said, it my heart just sank.”
He said the recent celebrity deaths remind him of a dark period in 2016 when the world lost music legends Prince and David Bowie.
“I was still young, but that hit me like a truck,” Watts said. “When you’re a celebrity and you die, you leave an impact on the world.”
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