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CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Kevin Huigens wipes away tears as he gazes upon the statue of Cubs\u2019 legend Ryne Sandberg outside Chicago\u2019s famed Wrigley Field. Flowers, Cubs caps, American flags and \u2014 of course \u2014 baseballs, litter the base and the ground beneath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believed in him,\u201d said Huigens, 68, of nearby Berwyn. \u201cHe made being a Cubs fan enjoyable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandberg<\/a><\/span>, who had cancer, died Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he\u2019s here in sprit, and he\u2019s going to lift up our Cubs even if he\u2019s not here physically,\u201d Jessie Hill, 44, said, wearing a Cubs cap and jersey.<\/p>\n Social media is swamped with outpourings of love, regret and sadness at the death of Sandberg and other cherished celebrities who died this month.<\/p>\n The Cosby Show star Malcolm-Jamal Warner<\/a><\/span>, 54, drowned in Costa Rica on July 20. Two days later, legendary heavy metal and reality show star Ozzy Osbourne<\/a><\/span>, who had Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/a><\/span>, died at age 76. Jazz musician Chuck Mangione<\/a><\/span> also died July 22 in his sleep at age 84. Then, on Thursday, former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan<\/a><\/span>, whose real name was Terry Bollea, was pronounced dead at a hospital after a cardiac arrest. He was 71. <\/p>\n When celebrity deaths come in quick succession, \u201cif nothing else, it reminds people of their own mortality,\u201d said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people who were a central part of the culture of the 1980s are getting to that age when biology has its way,\u201d said Thompson, 65. \u201cWhen it happens in these big chunks, it becomes even more powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n Hogan, Warner and Sandberg were introduced to millions of people as television\u2019s popularity exploded during the 1980s. Mangione\u2019s trumpet and fl\u00fcgelhorn were staples on smooth jazz radio stations during the 1970s and into the 1980s.<\/p>\n Osbourne\u2019s career spanned multiple decades, from the 1970s, when his band, Black Sabbath, dominated the heavy metal scene, through the 2000s, when his family dominated reality TV with \u201cThe Osbournes.\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe silver lining about celebrities is they continue to exist for us exactly as they did before\u201d Thompson said, because we can continue to listen to their music or watch their TV shows even after they die.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you lose a grandparent or an uncle it\u2019s sad and you grieve with your family,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut it\u2019s a private kind of thing. When a celebrity dies, it\u2019s a loss you can share with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Livernois, 59, said he grew up an Osbourne fan. He lives in Birmingham \u2014 not the gritty city in the English Midlands where Ozzy was born and raised, but a tony city in suburban Detroit.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved his music. I never subscribed to any of the theatrics<\/a><\/span>,\u201d said Livernois, a radio show host. Osbourne famously bit off the head of a bat during a live performance.<\/p>\n Robert West, 40, produces content for The Wrestling Shop in San Antonio. He said he lost two icons within days when Osbourne and Hogan died. <\/p>\n He learned of Hogan\u2019s death through a text from a friend.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost like the last bits of my childhood is almost gone,\u201d West said. \u201cI think he was part of everyone\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n Hogan was a pioneer in the wrestling and entertainment industries, having a similar impact to that of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson in music, West added.<\/p>\n Twenty-three-year-old Indigo Watts is a Black Sabbath and heavy metal fan who was working at Flipside Records, a store in Berkley just north of Detroit, when he learned his hero had died.<\/p>\n \u201cSome guy came in and before he left he asked \u2018Have you heard about Ozzy?\u2019\u201d Watts said. \u201cAs soon as he said, it my heart just sank.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the recent celebrity deaths remind him of a dark period in 2016 when the world lost music legends Prince<\/a><\/span> and David Bowie<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cI was still young, but that hit me like a truck,\u201d Watts said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a celebrity and you die, you leave an impact on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\u2018A loss you can share with everybody\u2019<\/h2>\n
Eternal fans<\/h2>\n