Billy Dillon was about to sign a contract with the Detroit Tigers. Instead he was convicted–wrongly–of first-degree murder and spent the next 27 years in prison.

Montaous Walton couldn’t throw, catch or hit. But he wanted to be a ballplayer. And with the help of the internet, the media, and an ambitious young agent, that’s what he briefly became.

Captain Iván Castro, who lost his vision in Iraq, runs the Boston Marathon.