Obituaries in the news

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Obituaries in the news

Monday 21 July 2008
By: The Associated Press

Hildy Beyeler

BASEL, Switzerland (AP) _ Hildy Beyeler, who joined her husband Ernst Beyeler in building one of Switzerland's biggest art collections, has died. She was 86.

A spokeswoman for the internationally renowned museum, Beyeler Foundation, said she died Friday.

Beyeler married in 1948 and became a constant companion in her husband's art business. They were involved in founding Art Basel in the 1970s. The exposition has since become the largest international fair of contemporary art.

The Beyelers opened their museum in 1997.

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David E. Cawood

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) _ David E. Cawood, a former high-ranking NCAA executive who helped run the Final Four for more than two decades, has died. He was 64.

Cawood died Sunday at his home in Louisville, according to the NCAA Web site. He collapsed after his morning run and was rushed to a hospital, where resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.

From 1975 to 1997, his NCAA responsibilities included the coordination of media and marketing for the men's Final Four. In that role, he helped negotiate the first $1 billion rights fee for a sporting event with CBS, and the subsequent $1.725 billion agreement.

Before joining the NCAA as director of public relations in 1974, Cawood was a sports information director at Morehead State, Eastern Kentucky, Baylor, his alma mater, Southern Methodist and Arkansas.

After leaving the NCAA in 1997, he joined Host Communications, an association management and athletics marketing company.

During his tenure at Host, he served as executive vice president of NCAA Football.

In April 2007, Cawood became president of FSA Group, an association management firm.

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Jerome Holtzman

CHICAGO (AP) _ Jerome Holtzman, a longtime baseball writer who made the Hall of Fame, created the saves rule and later became Major League Baseball's official historian, has died. He was 82.

Holtzman died Saturday in Evanston, according to a release from the Chicago White Sox.

Holtzman won the J.G. Spink Award, an award given annually to the one baseball writer who exhibited "meritorious contributions" to baseball writing, and a spot in the Hall of Fame in 1989.

Known as "The Dean," Holtzman worked at the Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Times, its predecessor, before joining the Chicago Tribune in 1981. He retired in 1999, when Selig named him MLB's official historian.

Holtzman began his career as a 17-year-old copy boy in 1942, and served two years in the Marine Corps during World War II before returning to journalism. He was assigned the baseball beat in 1957.

Feeling that earned run averages and won-lost records were not the most accurate reflection of relievers' effectiveness, Holtzman created the formula for "saves" in 1959. A decade later, in 1969, it was adopted by the game's Official Rules Committee.

Holtzman also wrote six books, including "No Cheering in the Press Box," in which he interviewed other well-known writers.

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Dinko Sakic

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) _ Dinko Sakic, the last known living commander of a World War II concentration camp who had been serving a 20-year sentence for war crimes, has died. He was 87.

Sakic, a former chief of Croatia's infamous Jasenovac camp, died Monday in a hospital in Zagreb, officials said.

Sakic had heart problems and had been receiving treatment.

Sakic fled Croatia at the end of the war, when the country's pro-Nazi regime was crushed. He had lived peacefully in Argentina for decades until 1998, when he was extradited to Croatia for a trial.

In 1999, Zagreb district court sentenced him to 20 years in prison _ the maximum penalty at the time _ for carrying out or condoning the torture and slayings of inmates while in charge of the Jasenovac camp in 1944.

Tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats were killed in Jasenovac, the worst of about 40 camps run by the then Nazi puppet state in Croatia.

Sakic never regretted his role in Jasenovac, defiantly claiming that all he did was for the good of Croatia and that "no harm was done" to the inmates.

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Artie Traum

WOODSTOCK, N.Y. (AP) _ Artie Traum, a veteran songwriter and guitarist who came out of the famous Greenwich Village folk music scene, has died. He was 65.

Traum died Sunday at his home in Woodstock from cancer that had spread to his liver, said manager Jeff Heiman.

Traum was born and raised in the Bronx and played around the seminal Greenwich Village scene of the 1960s along with his brother, Happy Traum. The brothers played together on and off for decades.

Traum also recorded a series of solo albums and produced or recorded with some of the biggest names in folk, rock and jazz, including Bela Fleck and Pete Seeger, according to his Web site. Traum began recording jazz albums in the 1990s.

Traum recorded dozens of albums in his long career and played shows around the world. He performed publicly until May, when melanoma in his eye spread, Happy Traum said.