title: The Playboy Interviews: They Played The Game
author: The Editors of Playboy Magazine
description: If <i>Playboy </i>fans need reminding that the magazine's articles are worth a look, too, the editors have begun helpfully packaging a series of <i>Playboy</i>'s "legendary" interviews, starting here with a galaxy of 17 athletes, dating from the years 1968 (Jim Brown) to 2005 (Lance Armstrong) and including Henry Aaron (1974), Pete Rose (1979 and 2000), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2001), and O. J. Simpson (1976 and<i> </i>2003). Except for the later Rose and Simpson pieces, nearly all the interviews took place while the athletes were actively competing, if not in their prime. Each interview includes its original introduction, the only new material here being a two-page preface to the collection. However undemanding it might have been to pull this collection together, it offers luminous insights into the nature of competing at the highest levels of these sports, whether it's Brown explaining how he evades a 300-pound defensive tackle or Earnhardt explaining the nuances of a 195-mile-per-hour traffic jam. And there are many wonderfully candid comments, like Wayne Gretzky modestly remarking, "I don't think you can become too famous as a hockey player." <i>Alan Moores</i><br /><i>Copyright  American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
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  The Players  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  # The Players
  
  
  ### Everett B. Cole
  
  
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  THE  
  PLAYERS
  
  BY EVERETT B. COLE
  
  
  A Playboy is someone with power, too much time  
  on his hands, and too little sense of a goal  
  worth achieving. And if the Playboy happens to  
  belong to a highly advanced culture....
  
  
  
  
  
  Illustrated by Solo
  
  Through the narrow streets leading to the great plaza of Karth, swarmed a
  colorful crowd—buyers, idlers, herdsmen, artisans, traders. From all
  directions they came, some to gather around the fountain, some to explore the
  wineshops, many to examine the wares, or to buy from the merchants whose
  booths and tents hid the cobblestones.
  
  A caravan wound its way through a gate and stopped, the weary beasts standing
  patiently as the traders sought vacant space 