MrWonderful

You have 9 hits already, and one of them isn't even Nolan. Damn!

I sincerely appreciate it, thank you!

Same.

Still only about 6:40 PM in California, so I hope I can still get this entry in. So, without further ado... Georg Koch (Joker) Ricky "Black Bart" Harris Michael Tilson Thomas James Whale Noam Chomsky Randy Jackson Yoko Ono Joanne Woodward Linda Tirado Linda Nolan Michael Schumacher Nigel Starmer-Smith Eva Marie Saint Linda Ronstadt Sonny Rollins Norman Tebbit Steve Gleason Randy Moss Stanley Baxter Steve McMichael John Williams Ted Turner Esther Rantzen Fay Vincent Buzz Aldrin Frankie Valli Harvey Weinstein Denis Law Jose Mujica Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain Liza Minnelli Tippi Hedren Dick Cheney Asma Al-Assad Samu Donald Sterling Roberta Flack Dennis Skinner Tom Brokaw Bruce Willis Mike Ditka Ayanna Mackins Khaleda Zia Michael Bolton Victoria Jackson George Mitchell Sam Neill Ron Jeremy Mika Immonen Scott Hamilton Subs: Brian Wilson Noddy Holder Ion Iliescu Raul Castro Prunella Scales

Struck down in his prime. OK, I kid, I kid. Truly remarkable that he made it this long. It was a life very well-lived. RIP.

I've had a decent 2024, with 21 hits if no one else kicks the bucket before New Year's Day. Of the names on my signature, the ones I might consider dropping are Redgrave and Willis. Yeah, some of these names are names that the committee won't pick because they aren't "big" enough, but here are some names that I may add to my list (obvious choices for me in bold), with comments included. (And some of them may already be on the main DL.) I'm probably missing some names so I'll keep checking the threads between now and the new year. Anyway, skewer away! Ricky "Black Bart" Harris (the former wrestler is, unfortunately, low-hanging fruit if he makes it to Jan. 1) Randy Moss (a top-3 wide receiver in NFL history, his situation appears grim and I think he's 50/50 to go in '25, and extremely unlikely to see 2027) John Williams (the legendary 92-year-old composer has had to cancel recent performances due to an "acute health problem") Buzz Aldrin (now 94, wheelchair-bound, and on oxygen, it's time to get him on) Dick Van Dyke (I've avoided him up until now, but he may finally be showing real slippage) Mathahir Mohamad (the 99-year-old has had a few hospitalizations in 2024) Jose Mujica (esophageal cancer, kidney failure, recent hospitalizations, and his age of 89 add up to a good pick) Michael Tilson Thomas (the 80-year-old conductor has a glioblastoma so it appears extremely unlikely that he will make 2026) Johnnie Walker (British radio presenter has terminal pulmonary fibrosis; docs gave him 2-5 years and the 5-year mark was in August 2024) Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt (at 105, the Loyola-Chicago team chaplain might be a good theme team pick) Georg Koch (with terminal pan-can, a must-add) Tippi Hedren (would turn 95 on Jan. 19, has advanced dementia) Ion Iliescu (94-year-old former Romanian president has been in failing health for at least 3 years) Khaleda Zia (the 79-year-old has about a thousand different afflictions and has been hospitalized frequently) Ayanna Mackins (the 46-year-old former MTV Road Rules and The Challenge contestant had metastasized breast cancer, and if it advanced further than the lymph nodes, she's in trouble) Frankie Valli (the singing legend, 90, looked visibly frail when trying to perform in August) Victoria Jackson (the SNL alum has terminal cancer in her windpipe and was given less than 3 years to live) Michael Bolton (if his January surgery for a brain tumor was for a glioblastoma, he'd be a great pick, so might be worth a play, and he's certainly a big-enough name) Harvey Weinstein (really does appear to be in failing health and if he has acute leukemia, he'd be a good add) Vivian Ayers-Allen (the 101-year-old mother of Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated artist/poet and scholar) Noddy Holder (when does the treatment stop working?) Linda Nolan (just a few days away from shepherding her through 2024 successfully, but feel it's time to get her back on) George Mitchell (the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader has battled leukemia for more than 4 years) Louis Farrakhan (now 91, has had various health problems for decades) Sam Neill (underdoing aggressive chemo to combat his blood cancer, it's basically just a matter of when it stops working) Imelda Marcos (a DL mainstay, might be time to put her on my own list) Duchess of Kent (frail and certainly has a low profile now) Katherine Jackson (the Jackson family matriarch is now 94 and was wheelchair-bound and frail-looking in an August 2023 photo) La Toya Jackson (just 68, but looks alarmingly thin in a recent social media post) Raul Castro (now 93, apparently in ill health for years) Empress Michiko (Akihito appears to be doing well, but Michiko is frail and had a fall this year, breaking her femur)

I can't remember if it was 2 or 3 years ago, but at a certain point, he looked much more thin/gaunt than he ever had been before. In this shot, he at least looks like his face is full so I wouldn't say he looks sickly from that alone, but if the hands are trembling, yeah, that's interesting.

Could he be on steroids or something similar as part of treatment for cancer or another disease? I recall that in the last couple of years of Norm Macdonald's life, it seemed like he had that bloated/heavier look in his face for a while, and then was obviously more gaunt near the end, and he died of cancer. I think that Alex Trebek had that happen as well. The sold stakes thing is another wrinkle here. However, he just looks fat in a natural way to me, not necessarily like it's from drugs.

Yeah he's been someone that I've debated adding to my lists. It might be time in 2025.

I've had Steve Gleason on my personal top 50 for longer than I've posted on this site, but you have to admire this guy's spirit. He had an accident but is still ticking.

Undoubtedly most famous here in the U.S. for carrying an injured Kerri Strug off the mat, after she completed what she believed to be the gold medal-clinching vault for Team USA at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

Hit #21 for me this year, which is the best "performance" I've had since I started doing Top 50 Lists. I had a great aunt who lived to be two weeks shy of her 105th birthday, and Ms. Spencer even surpassed that. That's a damn good run. RIP.

I got a hit with Teri Garr.

Hit #20 for me. Loved her in Young Frankenstein and Let It Ride. RIP.

Wish I had been wrong about this. But I thought the language was revealing. As Vin Scully said to cap off his only no-hitter, if you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky. RIP.

Tick tock.

Found this update; he's attending a charity event on Saturday and expecting that this is the final time that he will see many of his friends/ex-colleagues.

The committee wouldn't consider this person for next year's DL because she's too obscure, but I think she would obit and would make sense for certain pools: Vivian Ayers-Allen. (My apologies if anyone else has suggested her.) The mother of Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen, Ayers-Allen is 101 years old. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the 1950's for poetry, and she was recently honored back in July by NASA. You can see that Debbie Allen has an Instagram post about this event, although I don't see Ayers-Allen herself in this post. Anyway, at 101, she might make a lot of sense.

I had never heard of him, but the guy has a Wikipedia page so I'm sure he would obit. And it sounds like he may not make it to '25 but if he does, that's low-hanging fruit.

I thought she was a good pick for this year, but of course I'd say that because she was on my top 50 list, becoming my 19th hit. RIP.

This is nothing but opinion, but here's mine. I don't know that Biden is suffering from dementia or anything like that. But I think he's probably senile. So when you have a man who is senile, can they do the job behind the scenes, with a lot of advisors in place and the like? Yeah, I think that's not unreasonable. But you put a man in his early 80's who is senile through the rigors of a presidential campaign, which in the U.S. goes on forever, and in front of cameras and doing campaign events and traveling and talking to the press and debates and interviews...and it is going to show. He's not up for that, which the debate so sadly showed. Take that pressure off him, and now on the occasions where he does go in front of the press, he doesn't look as bad.

All they said was that he "aims to return" in 2025. As a huge Dodger fan, I hope it's nothing serious, but I feel like it might be.

Dikembe Mutombo is a hit for me.

Hit #17 for me this year. Sadly, this was the outcome I feared for him back when it was reported that he was diagnosed with a brain tumor in October 2022; it sounded like a glioblastoma situation and that's probably what it was. So he made it for just about 2 years after that, and that's on the long end of the typical spectrum for this horrible cancer. RIP, Dikembe.

I've resisted adding him to my list and did so again for this year, but he's for sure going on my 2025 list if he makes it that far. He does look like he's slipping a bit and at this age, it can fall off the proverbial cliff really, really fast. Kind of like Betty White. I thought there were obvious signs of decline in her final 12-18 months, whatever it was.