Foreword / Glenn Stout -- Introduction / Dick Schaap -- Stoorm warning / Bryan Burrough from Vanity Fair -- Enter the chicken / Burkhard Bilger from Harper's magazine -- How I won the Minnesota statehouse, by Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente as told to Garrison Keillor / Garrison Keillor from the New York Times Magazine -- Bottom of the ninth / Charles P. Pierce from Esquire -- His love never dies / Rick Telander from the Chicago Sun-Times -- He got a shot in the NBA-- and it went in / David Halberstam from the Los Angeles Times -- America is a bull / Jeanne Marie Laskas from Esquire -- The birdman / Mark Levine from the New Yorker -- Less than murder / Jeff MacGregor from Sports Illustrated -- Touch of Knievel / Allison Glock from GQ -- Joe DiMaggio would appreciate it very much if you'd leave him the hell alone / Robert Huber from Esquire -- Up from the gutter / Steve Friedman from Esquire -- Ay caramba! the fish drink tequila like goatsuckers! / Jonathan Miles from Sports Afield -- Peerless / Daniel Coyle from Outside -- Running like hell / Michael Finkel from Women's Sports and Fitness -- Poker face / James Hibberd from the Phoenix New Times -- Blown away / Stephen Roderick from GQ -- Swimming with sharks / Charles Sprawson from the New Yorker -- Terminal velocity / Craig Vetter from Outside -- Clotheslined / Pat Toomay from SportsJones -- The return of the white man / Matt Teague from Esquire -- Soul survivor / David Wharton from the Los Angeles Times -- Merv curls lead / Guy Lawson from Saturday Night.