Check out my tribute to Negro league legend Buck O'Neil at Corpus Obscura.

Walter E. Jagiello, also known as "Lil' Wally the Polka King," died of heart failure in Miami Beach on August 17. Jagiello recorded 110 albums as "Lil' Wally," but gained his greatest fame as co-writer of the Chicago White Sox fight song. Jagiello is also credited with creating the slower, more deliberate "Chicago-style" polka and was the first musician inducted into the Polka Hall of Fame in Chicago. Jagiello hit Billboard's charts with "Polish Polka Twist" and "I Wish I Was Single Again," and appeared on The Lawrence Welk Show several times. "Let's Go Go Go White Sox" was written in 1959 and recorded by Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers with the Lil' Wally Orchestra. "Let's Go Go Go White Sox" went away for a bit, but has been used again by the White Sox since last year. Jagiello often mentioned the hightlight of his musical career was performing his song "God Bless Our Polish Pope" at the Vatican in 1984 for then-Pope John Paul II. Jagiello was 76.

Sister Mary Luke Tobin, the only American woman to participate in the Second Vatican Council, died at the Sisters of Loretto motherhouse in Nerinx, Kentucky on Thursday, August 24. Tobin had been president of the order from 1958 to 1970. Tobin was invited to attend the third and final session of the Second Vatican Council in Rome in 1964 and 1965. She was president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious at the time, and was one of only three women in the world to participate in policymaking. Tobin's work took her to her native Denver, as well as Saigon, Paris, El Salvador, and Northern Ireland. She retired in Nerinx in 1999. Tobin was 98.

Majure Blanks "Bill" Stribling Sr., who played six seasons in the NFL, died at his Arkansas home on Monday, August 21. Stribling's pro football tenure included three years with the New York Giants (1951-53) and three with the Philadelphia Eagles (1954-57). On Nov. 30, 1952, in the Giants' 63-7 loss at Pittsburgh, Stribling caught a 70-yard touchdown pass from Tom Landry. It was to be Landry's only touchdown pass as an NFL quarterback. Landry went on to become a Hall of Fame coach with the Dallas Cowboys (1960-1988). Stribling played college football at the University of Mississippi, and has been inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. He was 78.

Robert K. Hoffman, one of the three founders of the irreverent National Lampoon magazine, died Sunday at a Dallas hospital. He had suffered from leukemia since December. Hoffman, Henry Beard, and Doug Kenney co-founded the humor magazine spawned from the Harvard Lampoon while Hoffman was still a student. The magazine spun off successful films, the best known being Animal House. The trio sold their interest in National Lampoon in 1975. Later in life, Hoffman became known for his philanthropy, and was lauded in Business Week as one of the top 50 philanthropists for 2005. "He had an exceptional pair of talents," Beard recalled in the Tuesday edition of The Dallas Morning News, "he was extremely smart, and utterly fearless." Hoffman was 59.

Japan's richest man, Yasuo Takei, who gained fame and fortune as the founder of the consumer credit company Takefuji Corp., died Thursday, August 10, of liver failure at his home in Tokyo. In Forbes magazine's listing of the world's billionaires, Takei was ranked number one with $5.4 billion in assets. Takei founded Fuji Shoji, in 1966, and renamed it Takefuji in 1974. During Takei's tenure, Takefuji became the country's consumer loan industry leader. His reputation was tarnished, however, in 2004 by his conviction on charges he ordered the wiretapping of a journalist who had written articles criticizing the company. Takei was 76.

Lt. Col. Besby Frank Holmes, a World War II fighter pilot who took part in the successful mission to kill the Japanese admiral who planned the Pearl Harbor attack, died of a stroke July 23 at Marin General Hospital. Holmes was a member of the 67th Pursuit Squadron, and his most famous mission came after American cryptographers cracked a Japanese naval code that revealed the itinerary of Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Holmes's was among the 16 fighter planes that ambushed Yamamoto in early 1943. Holmes's career included service in the U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Air Force from 1941 to 1968, serving in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, earning the Navy Cross, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Legion of Merit, and the Air Medal. He was 88.

Robert McCullough, who led a group of black students in a landmark civil rights protest 45 years ago, died Monday, August 7. In February 1961, McCullough, along with eight other black students from Friendship Junior College, had demanded service at the whites-only McCrory's lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and were charged with trespassing and breach of peace. The group, which became known as the Friendship Nine, chose to serve 30 days in jail on a chain gang instead of paying the $100 fine. The protest came around the first anniversary of a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, by four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, that helped galvanize the civil rights movement. McCullough was 64.

Bob Thaves, the writer and illustrator of the nationally syndicated comic strip "Frank & Ernest," died Tuesday, August 1, of respiratory failure at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, California. The strip, which was syndicated in 1972, features a pair of disheveled punsters who comment on science, world politics, and current events, sometimes travelling through time and space to achieve the inevitable punchline. "Frank & Ernest" is distributed to 1,300 newspapers worldwide and is read by more than 25 million people a day. According to its syndicator, United Media, "Frank & Ernest" was the first newspaper cartoon to use block lettering; the first single panel strip; the first to use comic book-style digital coloring for the Sunday pages; and one of the first to have its own website, launched in 1997. Thaves's son, Tom, who has collaborated on the strip for the past nine years, will continue to produce it. Bob Thaves was 81.

Vincent J. Fuller, the famed Washington attorney who successfully defended would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley, died last week of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Hinckley shot President Reagan, press secretary James Brady and two law enforcers, outside a Washington hotel on March 30, 1981. Retained within hours of the shooting, the lawyer centered his defense on Hinckley's mental state, maintaining the gunman was delusional, insane, and obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster. During Fuller's career he also defended boxer Mike Tyson and Teamster union boss Jimmy Hoffa. He was 75.