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I got to see this up close once at Yankee Stadium in New York about 10 years ago. There was a fracas in the stands behind the third base dugout, and the drunken fan who was the primary troublemaker was so large and powerful that a half-dozen security personnel couldn't subdue him -- he was tossing them around like they were kids, and they were all men. I swear he was largest person I've ever seen up close -- he had to be about 6'5" and 275 pounds, and looked like an enraged Viking with his blond hair.

Correct that last point . . . He was the second-largest person I've ever seen up front. The largest was a security officer who arrived on the scene after the initial attempt to subdue the crazed fan had failed. The "reinforcement" was a black man who was about five inches taller and at least 50 pounds heavier than the unruly "Viking," and he emerged from the tunnel surrounded by other tiny (actually normal-sized) security personnel. It was like a scene from The Lord of the Rings in which a troll from Mordor surrounded by Orcs is brought out to knock down a gate or something. I got the impression that this guy was an emergency reinforcement who was kept underneath the stadium and fed chunks of raw meat and hapless Red Sox fans until he was needed in a particularly desperate situation.

It all ended quickly, but Mr. Viking didn't want to go peacefully. He flailed away at all comers, but he was no match for the new arrival on the scene. The last we saw of him he was being carried out horizontally by a bunch of security guards . . . two guards held each of his legs, and one guard was on each arm. At the rear of the group was the triumphant giant, holding the Viking in a headlock. The giant was so big that his arms completely engulfed the Viking's head, and as the procession disappeared down the tunnel we could only see a small patch of yellow hair on the top of the Viking's head -- I swear it couldn't have been any larger than a quarter.