Willie Hernández, relief pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. ESPN.
The left-handed Hernández had a 13-year career but is mostly known for his role as the closer on one of the most dominant teams in the past 40 years. The 1984 Tigers, led by Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker and Jack Morris, opened 35-5 and cruised to the AL East title with a 104-58 mark before sweeping Kansas City in the AL Championship Series and beating San Diego in a five-games World Series.
Hernández had a 9-3 record and 32 saves in 33 chances in 1984, with a 1.92 ERA over 80 games and 140⅓ innings. He is among just 11 pitchers to win the Cy Young and MVP in the same year, edging Kansas City’s Dan Quisenberry for Cy Young in 1984 and Minnesota’s Kent Hrbek for MVP.
(Thanks to pigpen51 for the tip.)
Herbert Gold, novelist.
Carlton Pearson. I had not heard of him previously, but I find his story interesting. He was a prominent evangelist who ran a megachurch in Tulsa. He was a board member of Oral Roberts University. And then…
While watching a TV report in the 1990s on children starving during the Rwanda genocide, Bishop Pearson had an epiphany. He could not believe that God would consign innocent souls to hell who had not accepted Jesus Christ as savior before their deaths. He concluded that hell does not exist, except as earthly misery created by human beings; that God loves all mankind; and that everyone is already saved.
It was a view he shared in interviews and preached at his church, the Higher Dimensions Family Church, which he co-founded in 1981 and which grew into one of the largest in Tulsa, known for its multiracial pews in a city and a faith, evangelical Christianity, that was largely segregated.
“I believe that most people on planet Earth will go to heaven, because of Calvary, because of the unconditional love of God and the redemptive work of the cross, which is already accomplished,” Bishop Pearson told The Tulsa World in 2002, adding that he included Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists among the loved. “I’m re-evaluating everything,” he said.
This led to him being branded a heretic, leaving the denomination he’d been ordained in, and losing his megachurch.
Mr. Bogle, Bishop Pearson’s agent, said he often asked him about whether he regretted the loss of prestige, income and worshipers that followed his turning away from Pentecostal Christian orthodoxy.
“I said, ‘You’ve lost a lot of money, don’t you think you should have just shut up?’” Mr. Bogle said. “He would always say, ‘No, I don’t believe I made a mistake.’”