Evel Knievel was an American icon. Which says something about Knievel, and probably more about American fascination with celebrity. But that's a rumination for another time (and another place).

Knievel died today at the age of 69, and the wonder is that he ever made it this far. Not just because of his sometimes spectacular, frequently foolish and always dangerous stunts, but because he lived as dangerous out of the spotlight as in it. He lived fast and hard, and I imagine he played golf that way, too.

In 2005, Golf Digest ran a "My Shot" feature with Knievel, introduced with the sentence, "For America's greatest living daredevil, golf was the most dangerous game of all." (The photo, by Dom Furore, is from that piece, and in it Knievel is wearing an oxygen tank for his round of golf.)

Knievel's first "shot" of the article was this story:

How many of Knievel's stories are true - and which ones - is probably open to debate. Something he shared with his sometime-friend, sometime-foe, Amarillo Slim Preston.

Slim talked about Knievel in his book, Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People, and Knievel talked about Slim in the Golf Digest interview.

On Slim's own ranking of his greatest bets, No. 11 is "Beating Evel Knievel in golf with a carpenter's hammer..." Knievel says in "My Shot":

Knievel also lost a bet that weekend to Slim that was one of Slim's favorites. When Slim was in a crowded room, he liked to take bets on whether anyone in the room shared a birthday with anyone else. "One of Slim's favorite tricks was to bet that two of any 25 people chosen at random would have the same birthday," Knievel said. "He always won that bet - the math was huge in his favor."

It's very counterintuitive, but if you're in a room with 29 other people, there's a 70-percent chance that two people in that room with share a birthday. No, it has nothing to do with golf, but that's a good piece of knowledge to have. I can't explain the math, but in probability theory it's known as the "Birthday Paradox." Once you get 57 people in a room, the odds are 99 percent that two of them will share a birthday. There, go win some bets.

Anyway, when I was a kid I owned an Evel Knievel doll ... ahem, I mean action figure ... red, white and blue jumpsuit, motorcyle, the works. And so I wanted to note his passing.

One more excerpt from Evel, talking about Arnold Palmer: