June 25, 2009 - Derby Dead Pool Update

There was huge news day with the celebrity deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

People always say that “They always Die in Threes." I guess with the death of Ed McMahon earlier this week, Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman can rest easy, ….for now.

For those long time Jabberwockers, I have been a participant for the past three years in the DERBY DEAD POOL.

The Derby Dead Pool is where you list 20 people that you think will die during the calendar year. The winner last year correctly predicted 12 of his 20 celebrity deaths. You get points based on how they die and how old they were at the time of their death

I currently “Captain” 4 teams:

2 Sick Not 2 Quit – personal list , 3rd year, finished 165th last year
1 Dead in Ohio – perossnl list, 3rd year, finished 342nd last year
Say Hi to Uncle George – family list, 1st year
5 Feet and 1 To Go – book club list, 1st year

Until today there had not been a “hit” on any of the 4 lists, an almost unheard of probability.

And then within one hour, two major deaths.

For example, here is the list for the 2 Sick Not 2 Quit submission:

Muhammad Ali
Fidel Castro
Dick Clark
Roger Ebert
Farrah Fawcett
Michael J Fox
Teri Garr
Stephen Hawking
Steve Jobs
Senator Edward Kennedy
Larry King
Jack Klugman
Jerry Lewis
George Michael
Liza Minnelli
Sharon Osbourne
Greg Page
Ron Santo
Ariel Sharon
Mary Tyler Moore

For the record, I’m not sadistic, otherwise I would put more time into research and would have finished higher than 165th last year.

I just have always been a fan of actuarial tables and the abnormal distribution of celebrity deaths indicated that most fall outside of 2 standard deviations from the mean (using a Z distribution of course.)