You don't have to be a baseball fan to know who Phil Rizzuto was -- you just have to be from New York. The diminutive shortstop-turned-broadcaster passed away this morning at the rip old age of 89, and with his passing we've lost one of baseball's, and New York's, all-time characters.

Rizzuto wasn't an especially talented player, and as a play-by-play man for the Yankees, he was anything but polished. ("He's out! No, he's safe! Holy cow!") What distinguished The Scooter was his personality, and his perseverance. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he got rejected by the Dodgers' Casey Stengel, who told him he was so small he should become a shoeshine boy. Then he made the Yankees, and proceeded to help anchor one of the the greatest dynasties in pro sports, picking up an MVP (1950) and five all-star appearances along the way. When he started out calling games, Howard Cosell told him he looked like George Burns and sounded like Grouch Marx, and that he wouldn't last long. The result: Rizzuto was a fixture in the booth for 40 years.

So here's Rizzuto's hilarious acceptance speech at Cooperstown in 1994. It took 14 years of eligibility, but he finally got in. So here's to you, Scooter. As Big George said today, "Heaven must have needed a shortstop."

(Click here for one of Rizzuto's classic Money Store commercials.)

Two hours after the Mountain time zone chimed in the year 2007, Denver Bronco's 24 year-old cornerback Darrent Williams was shot and killed in his stretch Hummer outside of a nightclub in Denver. Williams was celebrating the birthday of Denver Nuggets basketball player Kenyon Martin when a vehicle pulled up alongside his limousine and fired several rounds. Espn.com reports that the police have "no motive and no indication the 24-year-old Williams, a former Oklahoma State star, was targeted in the drive-by shooting of the limousine."

Williams' death left his coach Mike Shanahan "speechless with sadness." The Bronco coach "cannot express how heartsick [he] feel[s] at this loss." In a statement, Bronco's owner Pat Bowlen aptly describes the loss: "To lose a young player, and more important, a great young man such as Darrent Williams, is incomprehensible. To lose him in such a senseless manner as this is beyond words."

Coincidently, the Broncos were eliminated from the playoffs only hours before the tragic incident. It seems doubtful that this is at all related to Denver's season's outcome, unlike the murder of Andrés Escobar of the Colombian soccer team, gunned down because of his play that ended in a loss to the United States during the 1994 World Cup.

To lose such an agile player in his prime is a tragedy indeed. Williams is the third NFL player to be shot in the past 12 months and the first to die. Here is a video of the late Williams talking with media after their win over the Baltimore Ravens on October 9, 2006. To watch the CNN report of his death, click here.