October in America

[Loki]

Makes me wonder why this happens so infrequently actually. Young males are the demographic more likely to get killed, whether through violence or accidents. And yet perhaps 1 top athlete gets killed a year.

[wiggin]

Makes me wonder why this happens so infrequently actually. Young males are the demographic more likely to get killed, whether through violence or accidents. And yet perhaps 1 top athlete gets killed a year.

I don't have numbers to support or contradict your basic premise, but I wonder if the phenomenon (if it exists) is not simply explained by a combination of reporting bias (not very many top athletes, and maybe a bunch of minor league players die at a 'normal' rate) and selection effects (the resources and milieu of top athletes is so different from the average that they are less likely to die).