John SchulianSometimes They Even Shook Your Hand
Portraits of Champions Who Walked Among Us
John Schulian's work has been included in Best American Sports Writing and Sports Illustrated's Fifty Years of Great Writing. His many books include The John Lardner Reader and Twilight of the Long-Ball Gods: Dispatches from the Disappearing Heart of Baseball, both available in Bison Books editions. William Nack is the author of Secretariat: The Making of a Champion and Ruffian: A Racetrack Romance.
Foreword by William Nack
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1. Hundred-Yard Warriors
Chuck Bednarik: Concrete Charlie
Walter Payton: The Poetry of Silence
Terry Bradshaw: A Country Boy Can Survive
Bear Bryant: A Win, and a Coach, for All Time
Dan Hampton: A World of Hurt
John Matuszak: Me and the Tooz
John Matuszak: The Other Side of the Story
John Riggins: Runaway
Dan Marino: A Kid Among Legends
Joe Montana: Easy to Underestimate, Hard to Beat
Gary Fencik: Boola! Boola!
Part 2. Legends of the Box Score
Willie Mays: Out of the Past
Stan Musial: The Man, Forever
Reggie Jackson: The Ego Is a Lonely Hunter
Pete Rose: Pete Belongs in Cooperstown
Nolan Ryan: On Second Thought
Johnny Bench: Old Too Young
Earl Weaver: The Earl of Baltimore
Gene Mauch: The Toughest Loss of All
Dick Allen: More a Ghost Than a Legend
Frank Robinson: Hard Game, Hard Man
Brooks Robinson: Honored To Be a Hero
Ernie Banks: Mr. Cub Remembers
Bill Veeck: "Bionic Man I'm Not"
Carl Yastrzemski: Family Tradition
Bill Lee: Spaceman
Mark Fidrych: Bird with a Broken Wing
Steve Bilko: The Slugging Seraph
George Brett: Lipstick on a .407 Batting Average
Willie Stargell: The Pirates' Patriarch
Fernando Valenzuela: And a Rookie Shall Lead Them
Jim Palmer: Good-bye Doesn't Come Easy
Oscar Charleston: A One-Way Ticket to Obscurity
Part 3. Hoops and Horses and Everything in Between
Pete Maravich: The Pistol's Parting Shot
Julius Erving: Sky King
Larry Bird: The Ultimate Celtic
Big House Gaines: No Way to Treat a Legend
Al McGuire: Sunday's Jester
Ben Wilson: Only the Good Die Young
Wayne Gretzky: Borderline Case
Jimmy Connors: Blue Collar at a Tea Dance
John Carlos: The Olympic Ideal
Johnny Kelley: The Elder
Ron Turcotte: Rider Down
Buddy Delp: The Happy Anarchist
Bill Shoemaker: A Million for the Shoe
Part 4. Arts and Letters
Red Smith: The Write Stuff
W. C. Heinz: The Professional
A. J. Liebling: Joe
Mark Kram: Poet and Provocateur
F. X. Toole: One Tough Baby
Part 5. Sweet Scientists
Marvelous Marvin Hagler: The Proud Warrior
Sugar Ray Robinson: He Gave Style a Name
Joe Louis: Larger Than Life or Death
Tony Zale: Raise Your Glass to a Teetotaler
Paddy Flood: One of a Kind
Sugar Ray Leonard: The One-Eyed Man
Ray Arcel: A Touch of Class
Roberto Duran: A Man of Stone
Roberto Duran: He Cramped His Own Style
Larry Holmes: His Time and No One Else's
Muhammad Ali: No Garden Party
Muhammad Ali: Marching Off to Slaughter
Muhammad Ali: Ali! Ali! Ali!
Source Acknowledgments
