Milestones

RETIRING. PAUL TAGLIABUE, 65, as commissioner of the National Football League, whose solid relationship with the Players Association facilitated a landmark 1992 collective-bargaining agreement considered a team-sports model that balanced free agency with a salary cap; in New York City. During his 17-year tenure, the unflappable Tagliabue oversaw the addition of four teams and the creation of the league's TV network.

FILED SUIT. BARRY BONDS, 41, slugger for the San Francisco Giants; against the authors and publishers of Game of Shadows, which claims Bonds took steroids for at least five seasons; in San Francisco. Instead of suing for libel, his lawyers seek to block authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams from profiting, arguing they "illegally obtained" the grand-jury testimony on which the book relies. Judge James Warren said Bonds was unlikely to prevail and denied his lawyers' request for a temporary restraining order on the book's profits.

DIED. ROBERT GRIMM, 54, vegetable king who helped popularize baby carrots; of a heart attack; in Bakersfield, Calif. Grimmway Farms marketed the 2-in. carrot--a full-size root that has been peeled and polished--as a healthy, easy snack. Carrot sales soared 33% in the 1990s, fueling Grimmway's growth into a $350 million company.

DIED. BERNARD LACOSTE, 74, who presided over the Lacoste apparel company for 40 years and made its crocodile logo a much imitated global brand; in Paris. After taking over the sportswearmaker--founded by his tennis-champ father Rene Lacoste, who created the signature polo shirt in reaction to the stifling long-sleeved Oxfords worn by players in the 1920s--the younger Lacoste licensed its logo to manufacturers across the globe and increased sales volume from 300,000 items in the 1960s to 50 million last year.

DIED. BUCK OWENS, 76, singer of more than 20 No. 1 country hits and longtime co-host of the hayseed variety show Hee Haw; in Los Angeles. Although 16 years in Hee Haw's Kornfield Kounty made Owens appear part of the Nashville establishment, his music career was spent in defiance of what he considered country music's slick, string-heavy arrangements. As a popularizer of the Bakersfield sound, named for the California town that was a destination for Dust Bowl refugees like himself, Owens used honky-tonk vocals and rock-'n'-roll guitars to add edge to his songs. His 1988 duet with Dwight Yoakam, Streets of Bakersfield, was his last No. 1 hit.

DIED. PHILIP KUNHARDT JR., 78, managing editor of LIFE who went on to produce such historical PBS documentaries as Freedom and The American President; in Chappaqua, N.Y. Kunhardt also wrote numerous books, including The Dreaming Game, about his mother, children's author Dorothy M. Kunhardt, who created the 1940 classic Pat the Bunny.

DIED. SARAH CALDWELL, 82, imaginative founding director of the now defunct Opera Company of Boston and the first woman to conduct at New York City's Metropolitan Opera; in Portland, Maine. Caldwell produced some 100 operas over 30 years, including complex modern works like Prokofiev's War and Peace. Though her insistence on directing and conducting could slow production, she was hailed as an inventive artist and a nurturer of emerging singers. A 1975 TIME cover story called her Music's Wonder Woman.

DIED. ADDWAITYA, around 250 years old, giant tortoise thought to have been the world's oldest living creature; in a zoo in Calcutta. Brought from the Seychelles to India by British sailors in the 1700s, Addwaitya (Bengali for "the one and only") first belonged to Robert Clive, who helped establish colonial rule in India. Clive died in 1774, but his pet stayed on in the garden of his estate, moving to the zoo 100 years later.

With reporting by Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, ELIZABETH L. BLAND, Logan E. Orlando