PAPER LION

What is the famous young editor of The Paris Review, who did the classic Hemingway interview, doing playing quarterback with the pro Detroit Lions? Simply, Plimpton has a hang-up: he likes to tempt the impossible. In Out of My League he told about how he insinuated his way into a post-season All Stars game in Yankee Stadium and, almost completely unqualified, pitched against the best ballplayers of the year. In Paper Lion his enthusiasm is to call signals as quarterback against a mashing onslaught of 300-lb. players. Amid the smack, swaks and yawps of the Big Game, he fails hilariously in every play. In one play his 300-1b. opponent Roger Brown just lifts him up, plucks the ball from his clasp and goes for a touchback.... Vignettes and cameos of famous Lions players, their pranks and foibles, flesh out the text of the year's most literate sportsbook.