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Cager Legend, `The Goat,' Dead
He was perhaps the greatest player never to make the NBA, an incredible leaper who made dunking an art form back when Michael Jordan was in diapers and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still Lew Alcindor.
Earl "The Goat" Manigault, the New York City playground legend whose descent into heroin addiction cost him a professional career, died Friday of heart failure at Bellevue Hospital. Manigault, whose life was made into a 1996 HBO movie, was 53.
The 6-foot-1-inch Manigault was "the best player his size in the history of New York City," according to Abdul-Jabbar, who often squared off against "The Goat" in city parks during the 1960s.
Manigault's domination of the players at...