Rant #2,514: Flying

People continue to talk and grieve about the death of Kobe Bryant and eight others, including his 13 year old daughter, in a helicopter crash during this past weekend.

And yes, as I warned, this was becoming something of a circus, with many people painting the basketball great as a god, and a false one at that, as far as I am concerned.

He was not a god in the true sense of the word. He was a basketball god, yes, but when we put godlike qualities on his shoulders as a person, I do believe we are defaming who that person really was: a human being, a person that was not perfect ... like all of us are.

But the idolatry goes on, and there really isn't much one can do if others choose to deify Bryant. You just have to go with the flow, and accept their ultra-reverence of him, and hopefully, they will understand when you don't jump on the deification bandwagon with them.

This whole incident made me think back on other celebrities who were taken from us way too soon, those whose short time on earth, like Bryant's, was cut short needlessly.

As I said yesterday, we had JFK, we had John Lennon, and we had RFK and Martin Luther King.

We also had Princess Di, and we had Robin Williams, who died at his own hand.

But the more I thought about it, the more I equated Kobe Bryant's way too soon death with the death of another athlete which touched me more personally than this latest tragedy.

On August 2, 1979, we lost Thurman Munson, the New York ¥ankees' All-Star, Most Valuable Player catcher, when his self-piloted plan crashed. The similarities are so similar between the Bryant and Munson incident that I am surprised that so few have brought this up.

Both Bryant and Munson were stars of another magnitude in their chosen sports. Both were far from being choir boys, but had softened and matured with age.

Both felt that family came first, and both had a need to be with their families for as long as possible during their respective playing seasons.

Both decided that using air transportation was the way to do it, and both had reached the point in their professional lives where they could afford such a way of transportation.

Bryant used helicopter transport because it was a quicker way to avoid driving in the Los Angeles area traffic, which takes no prisoners, and doesn't discriminate in your favor because you are a basketball superstar.

Munson decided to learn to become a pilot so he could rely on a relatively safe way of travel during the season on off days, where he could scoot home to Canton, Ohio, and then scoot back to the Bronx.

And both Bryant and Munson died using their transportation of choice; with Munson, it was clearly pilot error and inexperience that led to his death; for Bryant, we will learn in the coming days and months what exactly happened on that fateful flight.

Personally, I remember that when the news came out about Munson, I called my friend Howie, and we spoke for hours on the phone about the fallen Yankees catcher, one of our favorite players.

Look, Munson did not have the same international cache as Bryant did, but back 40 years ago, it really didn't matter. The world was different, and to these two life-long, young Yankees fans, losing Munson was like losing a close uncle or friend.

He was our guy, and to lose him at such a young age--Munson was just 32, and left behind a wife and children--was unconscionable.

I am sure that this is exactly what people are feeling about the loss of Bryant.

But funny, the idolatry that has followed Bryant after his untimely death never followed Munson after his death.

The baseball world was heartbroken about Munson's death, and he was honored as any fallen baseball hero could be honored. But making Munson into a god never surfaced during the mourning period; games went on, players played--if Bobby Murcer was alive today, he could tell you how much Munson's death affected him--but the game, and life, went on.

We live in a different age today, certainly fueled by social media and the Internet. People make their own beds and lie in it, and let the whole world know where they stand. And there appears to be little free space for discussion in that bed; if you are with us, fine, if you are not, you can't even approach my bed.

I think, in time, we will all step back from this latest tragedy, take a deep breath, and move on.

We did it with Munson, and we will do it with Bryant.

I mean, we have to do this, don't we?

And as a basketball fan, knowing Bryant, he probably would have said, "Get on the court and play ball," ...

And that would be the proper way to honor this fallen legend.

Stop the sulking, and do what Kobe did better than just about anybody else.