The death of Arizona Cardinal Pat Tillman, while on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, is the only combat death of an athlete that I can think of. This article mentions that Bob Kalsu of the Buffalo Bills was the only active NFLer killed in action in Vietnam. I am too young to remember this.
I know Joe Dimaggio, Ted Williams, and others fought in WWII, but I don’t remember my grandparents or anyone else saying that any athlete they watched before the war was killed during the war. I’d think there must have been at least a few.
Have other active professional athletes been killed in combat?
While he wasn’t actually killed in combat, Christy Mathewson developed tuberculosis after being gassed as part of a training exercise in WWI. It eventually led to his death in 1925. He had retired as an active player at this point.
Many, many English cricketers died during the two World Wars, most notably Colin Blythe and Hedley Verity, both of whom played international cricket for England. (Note the somber listing of “place of death” for Blythe.) Several top cricketers from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada also were killed in combat. I’ve seen lists of fifty or more well-known cricketers who died in each war. I have read that soccer and rugby sides lost similar numbers of men.
Several baseball players died in WWI. Of these, the most notable was Giants player Eddie Grant, who, after the war, had a large monument set up in his honor in the Polo Grounds.
You also have Rocky Bleir of the Steelers who was wounded pretty severely while in Vietnam (grenade damage to his legs), but he was able to return to the NFL and have a productive career .
