This work recounts the lives and deaths of athletes who departed the world suddenly and without warning during their playing careers. From slugger Ed Delahanty's fatal plunge into the Niagara River in 1903 to the demise of Dwayne Haskins on a dark Florida highway in 2022, their untimely ends shocked and saddened millions of fans.

Many died from injuries sustained in the course of competition. Others met their fate in airplane and motor vehicle crashes, by freak accident and through disease, drug overdose, drowning and suicide. Several were victims of cold-blooded murder. Regardless of how or why they perished, Dale Earnhardt, Len Bias, Thurman Munson, Flo Hyman, the Marshall Thundering Herd and all the rest faced the same merciless truth--there would be no next year.