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Carmelo Rodriguez

Carmelo Rodriguez

Military Can't Be Sued For Malpractice.

About a year ago, CBS News reported on the story of a Marine, Carmelo Rodriguez, who died of skin cancer that military doctors noticed but left untreated.



Rodriguez's family cannot sue the government for malpractice - the law won't let them. A year later, CBS News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts has a follow-up on our exclusive investigation.

Today the Rodriguez family from upstate New York came to Washington for the very first time.

Yvette Rodriguez, sister of the fallen Marine Corps sergeant, and her family were there to keep a promise.

They were here to keep a promise to their brother.

CBS News was invited to the Rodriguez home 15 months ago when Carmelo's family was standing vigil at his bedside.

"He said, 'Don't let this be it. Don't let this be it. Fight,'" sister Elizabeth Rodriguez recalled. "That's what we're doing. We're going to fight for him."

They told us the story of a strong and healthy platoon leader in Iraq. They say a military doctor there misdiagnosed the sergeant's skin cancer, calling it instead "a wart."

But CBS News obtained Rodriguez's medical report from 10 years earlier when a military doctor had noted his skin as "abnormal." In further details, he describes it as a "melanoma" on the right buttocks. But doctors did not inform Rodriguez of the condition nor did they recommend any follow up.

Eight years later, the melanoma had spread. By time CBS News met Sgt. Rodriguez, the once fit, gung-ho Marine had lost nearly 100 pounds. As we were preparing to interview him, he died.

His death sparked a rush of e-mails, letters and calls to CBS News and members of Congress. Due to what's known as the Feres Doctrine, Rodriguez's family, including his 8-year-old son, cannot sue the military for medical malpractice.

The Feres Doctrine, a 1950 Supreme Court ruling, forbids active-duty military personnel and their families from suing the federal government for injuries incidental to their service. In other words, unlike every other U.S. citizen, people in the military cannot sue the federal government for medical malpractice. One argument - that allowing the lawsuits would disrupt military order and discipline.

Now, New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey has proposed a bill, named for Carmelo Rodriguez, to change the doctrine, which led to today's committee hearing.

"This bill is about holding our military accountable for its actions" Hinchey said on the floor of Congress last summer.

Committee members were shown the original CBS News report on Rodriguez's plight.

Still, the Feres Doctrine has its supporters, like Maj. Gen. John Altenburg, Jr. (Ret.). He said the doctrine should remain in place but added, "What should happen for people like Staff Sgt. Rodriguez and his family and others similarly situated is that the benefits system that we do have should be greatly enhanced."

The key testimony of the day came from Yvette Rodriguez.

"Carmelo wanted his story to be heard, even if his life couldn't be saved," she said. "He wanted to ensure that what happened to him could not happen to another service member."

Today's hearing was just the latest step in a long legislative progress. It could be months before the Carmelo Rodriguez bill ever reaches the floor of Congress for a vote. In nearly 60 years, no one has ever successfully challenged the Feres Doctrine. But no ever made it this far either.

Original Source : http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/24/eveningnews/main4890657.shtml



Infrared Sauna

Infrared Sauna
Infrared sauna use heats up.

The days of sweating it out in a traditional sauna, rife with bacteria, moisture, and crowds of nearly naked strangers are on the wane.

Instead, gyms, clinics, and even homeowners are investing in infrared sauna boxes to promote health, detoxification, and stress reduction.

Marjorie Letourneau's curiosity was tweaked by the infrared sauna installed in her family's recreational condo.

"My sister-in-law pointed it out and told me it benefited her as well as a friend with severe arthritis," she says. "I was beginning to experience joint pain, so I started to do some research."

Over two months, Letourneau learned that infrared saunas work differently than the dry or steam variety.

Instead of warming the body at the skin level, then inward, the radiant, short-range infrared heat aims about an inch and a half under the skin, heating the body safely from the inside. The result still creates sweat to loosen toxins trapped in muscle and fat cells, but it works more efficiently.

"I was a massage practitioner at one point, and I have a sensitivity to looking after oneself," she says. "With all the pollution and chemicals, it was easy to convince me to try it."

While attending a home show, Letourneau ran into Jason Quiring, owner of Bodo, an online health technology store with a flagship shop in Calgary. Once Quiring answered her questions regarding quality, safety, and even manufacturers' factory working conditions, she purchased a two-person model that she shares with her husband.

"It was giving me a sense of well-being and my joints started to feel much better after two months," she says. "I even had a better disposition according to my husband."

Quiring says Letourneau is among a growing trend of baby boomers investing in their health at home. He says most people don't quite understand the difference between the old style sauna, and the infrared, but they do know of the benefits.

Before the company opened its doors, they conducted 16 months of testing, ripped apart various models, building their own prototypes, and investigating manufacturers worldwide. Their criteria was tough.

They checked 18 plants for quality, non-toxic materials, warranty, safety and effectiveness of the heating system, and how the employees are treated and compensated. Only one, Goldenwave of Taiwan, passed all tests.

Quiring says many people who receive infrared therapy or purchase a booth say that the heat is easier to deal with.

"Many people can't stay in a regular sauna very long because they're so hot," he says." The infrared type can become quite addictive because they work and you don't feel uncomfortable."

Marnie Wachtler, a naturopathic doctor and owner of Gaia Health Clinic in Calgary, recommends infrared sauna treatments for various ailments.

"It's really important for adjunctive therapy for medically necessary ailments including cancer," she says, noting cancer cells can't handle radiant heat. "It can also give relief to certain chronic conditions."

There are some precautions though. Pregnant women and small children are cautioned to avoid the sauna, period. Those who take diuretic medications may also have difficulty maintaining hydration and patients who experience neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis, should also refrain from the treatment.

"Many will simply use it for detox and a feeling of overall wellness," she says. "Since the sauna isn't overly hot, you don't have that exhausted feeling. It's more rejuvenating."

Wachtler prescribed her patient "Colleen," a fortysomething professional, to jump in the sauna regularly before and after her breast cancer surgery last August. Colleen says it was helpful in more ways than one.

"I had to do what I could to make myself as healthy as possible and prepare for surgery," she says. "I used the sauna about six weeks to detox and build my immune system. It also helped against the effects of the anesthesia."

It also helped her attitude, despite the lack of control over her body in a diseased state.

"Mentally it helped," says Colleen, who is now in remission and getting back to a daily work schedule. "It gave me strength in preparing for every step. It gives you control over something --your well-being."

For more information about infrared sauna treatments for health prevention, contact Marnie Wachtler in Calgary at 403-475-2120 or www.gaiahealthcare.com. Bodo is located online at www. at www.bodo.ca and at 1207 11th Avenue S. W., Calgary, 403-265-2636.

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Infrared Sauna Facts:

- Infrared saunas use a safe electromagnetic radiation to create an invisible wave of energy, then converting heat to cells inside the body up to a depth of three inches, instead of simply heating the air.

- Infrared is touted to be more effective, promoting sweat, which flushes out toxins, although some researchers dismiss this claim.

- The temperature of an infrared sauna is lower than a traditional sauna, which makes it easier for some to remain in the heat longer.

- If purchasing a sauna, check for quality and off gassing of the wood material, potential for buckling, as well as any toxic materials used for components.

- Make sure the infrared heating plates are well positioned to not come in contact with skin.

- If your skin is sensitive to heat, consider turning the heat level down.

- Those with pre-existing health conditions should consult a physician before trying a demonstration.

Original Source : http://www.canada.com/health/Infrared+sauna+heats/1410745/story.html

Liberty And Tyranny

Liberty And TyrannyMark Levin on New Book, Conservative Movement.

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," March 23, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Now the American people are looking for leadership, and instead they get this, and tax cheat Geithner, and that is our headline this Monday night, day number 63 of change we've been waiting for, "In Whom Do We Trust?"

Secretary Geithner finally introduced his bank rescue plan today and was greeted with a mixed reaction. Now liberal Paul Krugman at The New York Times says that the plan leaves him in a state of despair. The blog, the Daily Kos reportedly twittered today that Secretary Geithner is a liability to the administration like Donald Rumsfeld was to President Bush.

Recognizing this and the growing credibility deficit plaguing the administration the president has once again changed his tone from doom and gloom and malaise to positive, upbeat, and now to the comical.

Now Dick Morris will be here in a few minutes with complete analysis of TurboTax cheat Tim Geithner's plan to solve the problem he helped create, but when the administration tries to manipulate you, the American people, in such a calculated fashion, we're left with, you know, that one glaring question.

In whom do we trust, should we trust?

And joining us tonight with the answer to that question, and an exclusive first look at his brand-new book, I call him the great one, Mark Levin, author of the book just out today, "Liberty and Tyranny, A Conservative Manifesto."

Great one, how are you?

MARK LEVIN, "LIBERTY AND TYRANNY" AUTHOR: Good to see you.

HANNITY: Why do I have to fight to get you on the television program? It's like pulling teeth to get you here?

LEVIN: How do I look?

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: You look great.

LEVIN: Is this HD TV?

HANNITY: Yes, this is HD. As a matter of fact it is.

LEVIN: All right.

HANNITY: You look fantastic. We've got a lot to get to. Because not only are people mad and angry and afraid, but they also want solutions. You make the case in this book — you say that — so distant is America today from the founding principles that it's difficult to precisely describe the nature of American government.

And you make the case conservatism is the answer.

LEVIN: Conservatism is the only answer because we share our principles with the founding principles. We take our principles right out of the Declaration of Independence, right out of the constitution. Where does the leftists or, as I call them, the status, where do they take their principles? They're not out of the Declaration or the constitution.

These guys are winging it. And they're spending trillions of dollars winging it. They're empowering themselves. You saw Congress last week and this week. That is a mob. It is a mob, a frenzied mob. The founders would be absolutely appalled by it.

My goal here is to help give a rebirth to the conservative movement to help clarify who we are, why we are who we are, and — we're on the right side of history.

HANNITY: Look, I read your book closely, that's not only because we're friends, but, folks, every line in this book you're going to learn something. Every line is chocked full of wisdom. And you go back to our founders and our framers and the great philosophers that inspired them.

You said in a society, meaning American society now is transitioning towards statism.

LEVIN: Right.

HANNITY: And if the conservative does not come to grips with the significance of this transformation, he will be devoured by it.

LEVIN: Right.

HANNITY: This — that's a frightening, chilling.

LEVIN: Well, we have some pseudo conservatives out there saying just accept it and try and negotiate with it. The problem is...

HANNITY: Yes, without preconditions.

LEVIN: Without — the problem is we need to embrace our principles. They're great things, and I'm not talking about a bunch of talking points. This is life and death stuff. This is liberty and tyranny stuff. Embrace what? A $53 trillion debt that these entitlement programs have created? What? A $9 trillion new debt that's been created in the last six months?

How do we negotiate with this? What's our half measure, $5 trillion? $6 trillion? No.

HANNITY: You know, I was with you. Mark did a book signing, folks, in Long Island this weekend. We threw a big book party for you, 6,000 people showed up.

LEVIN: Unbelievable.

HANNITY: The biggest crowd they've ever had, and they've had former presidents there, OK? And there was one message that came across that every person that I spoke to that was there is they are furious. And you even wrote this on the book, you said Republicans seem clueless on how to slow and contain and reverse the statist agenda.

LEVIN: Right.

HANNITY: What do Republicans specifically themselves need to do? Because that's the only...

LEVIN: Republicans need to stop running from conservatism. I know it's hard because academia is leftist, the media is leftist, everywhere you look it's leftist, but guess what? Our founding principles are the right principles. And what I'm trying to say there, if you articulate them in an intelligent way and relate them to current events, we will succeed.

There is no other way. There's a road to tyranny, and I believe we're headed on that road, a sort tyranny, and there's a road to reinvigorate liberty in this country and limited government, and we need to understand it. We need to — it's not just to talk about liberty all the time. Why is liberty important? You know things of that sort.

HANNITY: Yes, and it goes in a great deal — you say the modern liberal believes in the supremacy of the state. And you say, you know, that's the classic meaning of liberal, but modern liberalism is statism. When you use the term statist, what specifically do you mean by that?

LEVIN: They're not liberals, they're not progressives. I understand the history of the progressive movement. They represent government, and they represent government against the people. They're constantly trashing groups of people in this country, the individual.

They want to create a dispirited population, they want the population to surrender their liberties to the government, they want the government — the population to rely on the government for all their needs and so what they want to create drones.

HANNITY: Yes, well, you — and you're — yes, we can, change, change, change.

LEVIN: Right. Right.

HANNITY: We saw a little bit of that. I call it Obama-mania. A lot of people don't seem to — and you deal with this right at the outset of the book. The — how do we define a conservative or conservative principles, and there are competing, I guess, factions within the conservative movement for the mantle of what is a conservative.

LEVIN: Right. Well, a lot of people seem to think that they're smarter than Madison and Jefferson and Franklin and Burke and Locke, and Plato and Aristotle.

HANNITY: It's true. We know who they are, too.

LEVIN: Right. And they're not.

HANNITY: They're not.

LEVIN: And so I went back and look at these men and really digested what they wrote, and what I present is what is a logical line generation to generation of why we conservatives want to uphold our traditions and our values and why they're worth fighting for.

HANNITY: All right. You talk about, though, that the statist is constant agitating for government action and how they have the support of the media. Well, we only have a few minutes on TV. That they have the media as their allies, but they're constantly agitating, that it is a step by step process, and that they're, in a sense, smart enough politically not to try and go for one big bite at the apple. Explain that.

LEVIN: It's a gradual, incremental action although it's speeding up now under Obama. That's clear. Well, the media, when is the last time the media did a story on the greatness of capitalism? Look around you. Look at the greatness of liberty. Look at all the magnificent things liberty has given us.

And I don't just mean material things. Look at the life we live as compared to other societies. Instead all we get is this drumbeat of rich against poor, old against young. The media perpetuates this left-wing agenda.

HANNITY: One of the great things — we'll get into this when we get back — you go through our founders and our framers, and you're a constitutional attorney, and you talk about that, you go back to our founding documents, the articles, the constitution, the declaration, and you quote these men at length, and you talk about free markets, which — so we'll get into.

LEVIN: I try to tie them all together.

HANNITY: And coming up — we call him the great one, Mark — by the way, write him and tell him come on the program more often. It's like pulling teeth to get you here.

LEVIN: Some people call me the great big one. You've got to be careful.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: That's more than I want to know. All right. We'll continue with the great one Mark Levin. His book in bookstores today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: And we continue now with — I call him the great one, Mark Levin, and a first look at his brand-new book, "Liberty and Tyranny, A Conservative Manifesto."

There's so much in this, we can't get it in and people, you're going to have to go and read this because there's chocked full of info.

LEVIN: I've got plenty of time.

HANNITY: I can give you the whole hour. As the statist is building a culture of conformity and dependency, you know, I thought about this. You listen to my radio show occasionally, right? I do my man on the street interviews. People want daycare, dental care, health care, housing, a car, transportation, a limo, and they think that that's the constitutional role in government. You counter this in great detail.

LEVIN: Well, to put a fine point on it, freedom is freedom from coercion, and what the statist says is you should have freedom from one, and we will deliver it. We will make possible — the impossible possible, we will make that which is unequal equal, and they create devils, they create — they turn citizen on citizen, and yet their agitation and agitating is never done, is it?

There's no limit to the power they want to take. How can you confine what the leftist wants to do, what the statist wants to do once you've abandoned the constitution. You have to rely on their judgment? They have no judgment. This is why they talk about a living and breathing constitution. They want to get away from the limits on government, and you see it right now in spades.

HANNITY: You — we now see popping up all over the country these tea parties and people angry. They've lost a lot of their money, and there's bailout mania fatigue here. You have a call to action here, and that is that it's going to be conservatives who lacked the confidence and persistence to deal with statism, but you also have a call to action towards the end of the book when you lay out your manifesto.

LEVIN: Right.

HANNITY: And the call to action is conservatives have got to be shrewder, smarter. They've got to be engaged, they tend to, you know, live and let live as you say. So if people want to counter Barack Obama's European socialism, they must what?

LEVIN: They must do this. We are a bigger army than his little group that he's put together and ACORN. There are tens of millions of us, hard-working Americans who follow the law, who believe in this country, who believe in the constitution and the Declaration, who like Americans' traditions and values.

What we need to reacquaint ourselves with the substance of our position so we have confidence to go out there and talk to our neighbors and our friends. Grandparents talking to grandchildren. Parents to children. We also need to stop allowing the statists to control these institutions. There's no reason they should control the media or academia or any of these institutions. We need to go get them.

HANNITY: Well, it's interesting because you're a constitutional attorney. You wrote the book "Men in Black," that was a huge, massive, big bestseller. But you said the constitution's meaning is erased or rewritten that — and the framers' intentions ignored, which is a big study in your life. It ceases to be a constitution.

Do you think the statist agenda is now unconstitutional and people have ignored it and through incrementalism they've achieved this?

LEVIN: At a huge chunk, and look today, the First Amendment, they're attacking talk radio. They're coming for you. Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.

HANNITY: They're coming after you.

LEVIN: They're coming after that. Fifth Amendment, the property rights, 10th Amendment, state authority. Almost every aspect of the constitution is under attack. Unless you're a terrorist, then they want to give you, you know, due process rights.

HANNITY: Yes, and close Gitmo. I want to talk to you specifically. You write about the free market which I thought was — because I'm a huge believer in capitalism, it brings the best out of people. We get — while we're pursuing a living, a standard of living for ourselves, we're creating — you know, we're advancing the human condition and creating wealth that's been unprecedented in the history of mankind, and it is constantly under attack.

You call the free market the most transformative of economic systems. It fosters creativity, inventiveness that we've never seen before.

LEVIN: And most of the problems in the free market are created by governments, whether it's the government compelling banks to give out bad loans, as they did in the `70s, `80s and `90s that led to the housing bust, first the boom and then the bust.

Even the automobile industry. The automobile industry isn't an example of a free market. The government controls the labor force, it controls the product that they make, it controls management.

HANNITY: Safety standards.

LEVIN: Yes, I mean, I don't know how these poor guys manage these companies to begin with. On the other hand, failure in the free market, it's not necessarily a good thing, but it's a productive thing.

HANNITY: My favorite chapter in the book is on faith and the founding, because you and I as friends have talked a lot about our belief and faith and our families and all this, but you come at it from a different point of view. You talk about reason cannot explain the creation of the universe. Reason. You know walk us through that a little bit.

LEVIN: Well, the framers were believers in the age of enlightenment, but they didn't worship it. So they believed in reason and they believed in science, and they practiced it to some extent, but they also knew that man is spiritual. If you look at the Declaration of Independence, it talks about unalienable rights. God-given unalienable rights and it references God six or seven different times.

There's a reason for that because our unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not conferred by man, they're not conferred by government, they cannot take them away legitimately, so the bottom line is we get these rights from something that's above, in my case, I believe it's God.

Now you might say, if you're a conservative well, I don't really believe in God. I'm an atheist. You can believe whatever you want. You can worship, you know, whatever you want or not worship whatever you — but the framers said correctly, we can't organize ourselves that way. We're organizing our society very specifically, and this belief in natural law is the way we do it.

HANNITY: You know, look, I learn something just about every sentence. For those of you out there that say well, what can I do, what can I do, you're going to learn a lot from Mark's book, "Liberty and Tyranny, A Conservative Manifesto", the antidote to massive European socialism.

LEVIN: And this picture in there, I think I was 20 pounds lighter.

HANNITY: No, I've got to tell you, you're a handsome guy.

LEVIN: Yes, but.

HANNITY: Now are you going to come back on the show? Do I have to beg you to come back?

LEVIN: Sure, I'll be here next year, same time, same place.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Great one, congratulations.

LEVIN: It's an honor. Thank you.

HANNITY: Three other radio stations around the country, the great one, Mark Levin, in bookstores everywhere.

Watch "Hannity" weeknights at 9 p.m. ET!

Original Source : http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510316,00.html

World Football Challenge

World Football ChallengeSuper Clubs Move In on M.L.S. This Summer.

The European powers will muscle in on Major League Soccer’s season by staging a one-week, six-city tournament from July 19 to 26, featuring three of the continent’s best teams and one of Mexico’s premier clubs.

Chelsea FC, AC Milan, Internazionale Milano and Club America will play a round-robin tournament as part of a preseason American tour designed to expand the clubs’ international footprint.

“It gives us the opportunity to really capitalize on the growing support of the game,” said Peter Kenyon, the chief executive of Chelsea. “It’s utilizing the team — on the back of broadcast — to go and support football development, soccer development, and also allow our fans, who are an ever-growing number, to come and touch the holy grail if you like.”

The teams will play at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.; the Georgia Dome in Atlanta; Baltimore’s MT&T Bank Stadium; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.; Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, Calif.; and the new Cowboys Stadium in Texas. All games will be televised on ESPN or ESPN2, as well as the Spanish-language network, ESPN Deportes, and online at ESPN360.com

Before the foreign teams play each other at those sites, many will face M.L.S. competition. A.C. Milan has a friendly match scheduled for July 19 against the L.A. Galaxy, and Kenyon said that Chelsea will play the Sounders, the M.L.S. newcomers, in Seattle before its first match against Inter Milan on July 21 in Pasadena. That will mark the first time Chelsea will face its former manager, Jose Mourinho, who now coaches Inter.

Kenyon said the tournament — which will be run by C.A.A. Sports, a division of Creative Artists Agency under the name of the World Football Challenge — gives teams like Chelsea the opportunity to connect with fans who may only get the chance to follow the club online or on TV.

“The EPL is the most watched league in the world,” he said on Tuesday, before the official announcement of the summer program. “Broadcasting has enabled clubs to grow their international reach in terms of the number of fans. And it also brings with it the opportunity, and the demands of those fans wanting to not only travel half the world to come to Stamford Bridge, to England, but the ability to take those fans out, which really cements the relationship.”

(Look for more on Chelsea’s international efforts and how British club have been a model for other big foreign teams looking to expand to new markets.)

Several of the sites are N.F.L. stadiums fitted with artificial turf designed to withstand the rough-and-tumble American football game. But the synthetic surface makes for lousy soccer, and it’s unlikely that elite players for top teams would be keen to play on the surface, despite it being approved by FIFA. It’s expected that the fields would be re-surfaced with natural grass.

Here is a schedule of the World Football Challenge with TV times indicated. Tickets are available through worldfootballchallenge.com.


Sunday, July 19
Club America vs. FC Internazionale Milano at Stanford Stadium (Palo Alto, Calif.)
7 p.m. EST on ESPN2

Tuesday, July 21
Chelsea FC vs. FC Internazionale Milano at the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)
11 p.m. EST on ESPN2

Wednesday, July 22
AC Milan vs. Club America at the Georgia Dome (Atlanta, Ga.)
7 p.m. EST on ESPN2

Friday, July 24
AC Milan vs. Chelsea FC at M&T Bank Stadium (Baltimore, Md.)
8 p.m. EST on ESPN

Sunday, July 26
AC Milan vs. FC Internazionale Milano at Gillette Stadium (Foxborough, Mass.)
5 p.m. EST on ESPN2

Sunday, July 26
Chelsea FC vs. Club America at Dallas Cowboys Stadium (Arlington, Texas)
7 p.m. EST on ESPN2

Original Source : http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/super-clubs-move-in-on-mls-this-summer/

Necrotizing Fasciitis

Necrotizing FasciitisOhio High School Student Loses Legs to Flesh-Eating Bacteria.

An Ohio high school student has lost both his legs to a fast-moving case of a flesh-eating bacteria.

Doctors amputated Blake Haxton's legs above the knees, and a spokesman for Ohio State University Medical Center said the 18-year-old was listed in critical condition Tuesday.

Haxton is the senior captain of the rowing team at Upper Arlington High School in suburban Columbus. More than a week ago, he complained to his coaches about a strained calf muscle.

Doctors say such a minor injury can pave the way into the body for necrotizing fasciitis, an infection that spreads under the skin.

The flesh-eating form of the disease requires antibiotic treatment, but when that doesn't work doctors must remove dead skin, tissue and muscle — and sometimes limbs.

Original Source : http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510290,00.html

George Kell

George KellHall of Famer George Kell dies.

Hall of Fame third baseman George Kell died Tuesday morning. He was 86 years old.

According to Arkansas television station KAIT, Kell died in his sleep in Swifton, Arkansas.

Kell was a career .306 hitter in 15 big league seasons from 1943-57 with the Philadelphia Athletics, Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles.

A 10-time All-Star, Kell led the American League in batting in 1949 with the Tigers, edging Ted Williams to deny the Boston slugger his third Triple Crown. He also led AL third basemen in fielding percentage seven times.

Kell, elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1983, played in 1,795 games and hit just 78 homers. He drove in 870 runs, scored 881 runs and finished with 2,054 hits.

After his playing career, Kell embarked on a long broadcasting career that spanned 40 years from 1957 through 1996. He was the voice of the Tigers from 1959 until his retirement in 1996.

Original Source : http://www.seattlepi.com/scorecard/mlbnews.asp?articleID=256905