George Plimpton is one of America's most respected literary journalists, but he is perhaps best known for his sports books and essays. No other writer has taken more to heart sportswriter Paul Gallico's advice in "The Feel": "I do not insist that a curiosity and capacity for feeling sports is necessary to be a successful writer, but it is fairly obvious that a man who has been tapped on the chin with five fingers wrapped in a leather boxing glove and propelled by the arm of an expert knows more about that particular sensation than one who has not, always provided he has the gift of expressing himself." As a result of wondering what it would be like, as he put it in his introduction to The Best of Plimpton (1990), "to undertake the same kind of research . . . and expand it somewhat--to find out not only about athletic skills...