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Great Men Die Twice: Muhammad Ali In Decline
Originally published in the June 1989 issue of Esquire. Republished here with the permission of the late author's son, Mark Kram Jr., a wonderful storyteller in his own right. His postscript follows. For a contemporary, but very different, glimpse of Ali, check out Davis Miller's story about his day...
![NASCAR Driver Intentionally Spins Out To Put Teammate In Playoff [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18zn7kd1ywifcjpg.jpg)
NASCAR Driver Intentionally Spins Out To Put Teammate In Playoff [Update]
This is not mere conspiracy theory, not just bitter-but-unfounded suspicions from Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon fans angry that they just missed out on a spot in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff. This is a thing that happened clear as day—a driver deliberately spun out to screw them over and ...

<em>Playboy</em>'s Candid Conversation With The Superswinger QB, Joe Namath
This interview, from 1969, is part of The Playboy Interview: Sports Gods, an ebook anthology that also includes conversations with Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Bill Jean King, Barry Bonds, and more. Buy it today at Amazon....

Butkus: One Season And One Injury With The Meanest Man Alive
This article originally appeared in the October 1971 issue of Playboy. To read every article the magazine has ever published—from 1953 until today—visit the complete archive at iplayboy.com. For more Playboy, check out PlayboySFW.kinja.com....

Tyrus: The Greatest Of 'Em All
Originally published in the June 1915 issue of American Magazine and anthologized in the Library of America's new collection of Ring Lardner's stories. Reprinted here with permission....

The Sportswriter Who Wrote American Better Than Anyone Anywheres
Below is John Lardner's introduction to a 1959 edition of Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al, a fictional series of letters from professional ballplayer Jack Keefe to his friend Al. Those stories are included in the Library of America's new collection. (There was also a comic strip based on the same char...

Frank Sinatra Jr. Is Worth Six Buddy Grecos
Originally published in the January 1994 issue of GQ. Reprinted here with the author's permission. His postscript follows....

The Time A Baseball Player Sent A Rat To A Female Sportswriter
This column originally appeared in the Sacramento Bee on June 26, 1986. It is reprinted here with the author's permission. ...

The Most Hated Winner In Football: Al Davis In 1969
Originally published in the Nov. 18, 1969, issue of Look magazine. Image by Sam Woolley....

The Hit King: Pete Rose In Purgatory
Originally published in the July 1997 issue of GQ. Reprinted here with permission of the author, whose annotations (as told to Alex Belth) appear throughout the story. Illustration by Sam Woolley....

The House That Thurman Munson Built
Originally published in the September 1999 issue of Esquire. Reprinted here with the author’s permission....

Memphis Kid And The Horrible Truth About Prize Fighting
W.C. Heinz was one of the great American journalists. A war correspondent, columnist, features writer, biographer, and novelist, he excelled in every form he tried....

High-Powered Sprint Boat Careens Off Course, Crashes Into Spectators
Sprint Boat racing is a niche sport in which 1,000-horsepower engines propel tiny boats around what looks like a flooded go-kart track. If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, you're right—as spectators at Oregon's "Field Of Dreams" learned yesterday....

“Source? <em>I'm</em> Your Fucking Source!” Dick Young, As He Really Was
To round off our Dick Young tribute/roast, please enjoy this excerpt from Keepers of the Game: When the Baseball Beat Was The Best Job On The Paper, a new oral history compiled by Dennis D’Agostino in the tradition of Jerome Holtzman’s No Cheering in the Press Box. Dennis was good enough to let me ...

Heaven Ain't What It Used to Be: Dick Young Goes To Hell
New York sportswriting legend Dick Young was a lot of different things. Among them, for reasons laid out in this classic Ross Wetzsteon profile, he was a man one could easily imagine having a great time filing his column from the depths of Hell. Warren Leight and Charlie Rubin ran with the conceit i...

Dick Young's America ... The Reactionary Who Changed Sportswriting ...
Originally published in the Aug. 1, 1985, issue of Sport magazine. Reprinted here with permission of the author's widow, Laura Ross....

The Loser: The Most Honest Sports Story Ever Written
Originally published in the March 1964 issue of Esquire. Reprinted here with the author's permission....

The Longest Day Of Sugar Ray: A Boxing Great Becomes A Sideshow Freak
Originally published by True magazine in 1964. Reprinted here with the author's permission....

How Hollywood Ruined Our Best Football Novel
Originally published in 1977 in the Chicago Daily News. Reprinted here with the author's permission....

Rae Carruth, The Women Who Loved Him, And The One He Wanted Dead
Originally published in the May 2001 issue of GQ. Reprinted here with the author's permission. His annotations appear throughout the story (click on the asterisk and wait a moment for his comment to appear). Illustration by Sam Woolley....