There's an old saying that bad news comes in threes.
That was certainly true Friday and Saturday when three prominent and greatly disparate Americans died.
The news came that broadcaster and former presidential spokesman Tony Snow, 53, renowned surgeon and medical innovator Dr. Michael DeBakey, 99, and baseball player and sportscaster Bobby Murcer, 62, all had died.
DeBakey helped save countless lives, and Snow and Murcer made many others' more enjoyable than they would have been without them.
Snow was a political conservative through and through, whether as a syndicated columnist, TV commentator or as press secretary for President Bush.
In this climate of media frenzy on the left and the right, it's increasingly rare to witness an advocate who can disagree without being disagreeable. Tony Snow was one of those people.
He was immensely popular with the Washington press corps, even as he sparred with reporters and defended often-indefensible government actions.
He battled cancer with the same cheery and characteristic good humor with which he lived his life.
As for Dr. DeBakey, it's impossible to summarize his almost-century-long life in these few lines.
He was the physician of choice for such notables as Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Russia's Boris Yeltsin ... and comedian Jerry Lewis.
But most of his patients were just people who needed the man who came to be regarded as the best surgeon in the world.
DeBakey performed more than 60,000 operations and pioneered such important procedures as bypass and open-heart surgery.
The son of Lebanese immigrants developed dozens of new instruments and procedures and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science and the Congressional Gold Medal among many other honors.
Bobby Murcer didn't fix hearts, he captured them.
Signed out of an Oklahoma high school by the same agent who discovered Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle, Murcer was touted as the next great New York Yankees outfielder.
To be honest, Murcer was a very good, but not great, ballplayer.
By any yardstick Murcer had a distinguished career over 17 major league seasons. He was a five-time All-Star, won a Gold Glove, hit .277, 252 home runs and knocked in 1,043 runs.
He played for other teams, too, but his heart was always with the Yankees, for whom he became a broadcaster after retiring as a player.
Already a fan favorite, Murcer's popularity grew as his easygoing style and outstanding sense of humor came across the airwaves with a rare genuineness.
Yankees players and coaches loved him and will wear black armbands on their uniforms in his honor for the rest of the season.
We have lost three very important people. Bad news did indeed come in threes.
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