Ashburn's Passing Was 10 Years Ago Today!

[philliesfiend55]

Richie Ashburn's death due to an apparent heart attack occured 10 years today. In New York to broadcast a series against the Mets, Ashburn suffered a masssive heart attack in the pre-dawn hours and was pronounced dead in his hotel room at the Grand Central Hilton on E.42nd ST. at 5:45 am, Sept. 9, 1997. Philadelphia newspapers have run tributes and rememberence stories of "Whitey" most of this week.
Ashburn was an avid photographer and videographer and his home movies will play an important part in a video biography of his life, that is now being prepared and should become available to the public in February or March of 2008.

[PlayJay]

I still miss Whitey. He was one of a kind.

Some of my fondest memories revolve around someone in that booth bringing up one particular subject: Tim McCarver. Whitey would spend the next three innings itemizing McCarver's pet hates, and punctuate several of them with "oh, brother!"

I always felt bad that Rich went to his grave without seeing anything better than the 1997 Phillies...a team that, up until the All-Star break that year, was the equal of the worst clubs in the franchise's history. A shame.

[philliesfiend55]

Noted Philadelphia sportswriter Bill Conlin was in the preliminary interviewing and research stages of a planned Ashburn biography at the time of Richie's death in Sept. 1997. They planned to do extenive interviews together that winter. The goal was to have a biography that was hard-hitting and aimed at an adult audience in bookstores by late '98 or early '99. When Ashburn died Conlin felt he would have to use too much second-hand material, such as interviews with Ashburn's family, friends, teammates and opponents to fashion a book out of so he abandoned the project. He wouldn't have the insight into Rich's life that spending a few months chronicling Richie's life, had Ashburn lived, would have given him.
There is one Ashburn biography in existence. It was published in 1959 and it was aimed at a children's or young adults' (adolescent) audience. It was PG-rated compared to the more mature, adult approach of Conlin's planned work.
The planned DVD of Rich's life due for release next year is the closest thing to an Ashburn biography that will be available to today's fans.

Dennis Orlandini
(phillies fiend 55)