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" I had gone to work for 'Newsweek', left 'Newsweek' and went to work for 'Vanity Fair,' and then went back to 'Newsweek'. I came back to 'SI' as a contract writer. "
Frank Deford
Fair
Gone
Vanity
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" What we accepted as great art - whether the book, the script, the painting, the symphony - is that which could be saved and savored. But the performances of the athletic artists who ran and jumped and wrestled were gone with the wind. "
Frank Deford
Wind
Painting
Great
" To write long pieces - or not even long pieces - to write stuff like the columns of Red Smith and people like that - they're different then what it is today. Everything today is based on x's and o's. Inside baseball, it's all, 'Who's gonna win?' or you're comparing things - it's not as thoughtful as it used to be. "
Frank Deford
Win
Baseball
Long
" I'll forever be grateful to NPR that they gave me such extraordinary freedom... It was 37 years of a fond relationship. "
Frank Deford
Me
Grateful
NPR
" I think there are more good sportswriters doing more good sportswriting than ever before. But I also believe that the one thing that's largely gone out is what made sport such fertile literary territory - the characters, the tales, the humor, the pain, what Hollywood calls 'the arc.' "
Frank Deford
Humor
Doing
Believe
" Sport is an art: it has incredible appeal everywhere on this earth, and it fills so many human hearts with passion that it's impossible to dismiss. "
Frank Deford
Hearts
Impossible
Passion
" It's almost impossible to explain how little the NBA amounted to when I started covering it in 1963. It wasn't fair to call it bush, although everybody did. It was simply small - only nine teams - and insignificant. "
Frank Deford
Only
Small
Fair
" How did females become 'guys?' How did everyone become 'guys?' Remember, too, that a male guy was something of a scoundrel. And a wise guy was a fresh kid, a whippersnapper. In its most other famous evocation, men in Brooklyn said 'youse guys.' Damon Runyon referred to hustlers, gamblers, and other nefarious types as guys. "
Frank Deford
Brooklyn
Remember
Men
" I think the four major leagues ought to set up a joint commission - say, of retired judges - to rule on athletes who are accused of doing bad things away from the game. Then each league would retain its independence in determining what penalties their players should get for infractions committed within the sport. "
Frank Deford
Independence
Think
Bad
" Owners own teams so that they might move them to another municipality with better luxury boxes. "
Frank Deford
Own
Luxury
Boxes
" I do honestly believe that, in the 21st century, sport is the most significant cultural element in this imperfect world. It calls for serious attention. "
Frank Deford
Most
Attention
World
" If I'd grown up in Sao Paulo, I'm sure I would've been a great soccer fan. "
Frank Deford
Been
Fan
Great
" I think the best thing I've written is a story called 'The Boxer and the Blonde.' It's a piece about Billy Conn, the white would-be heavyweight champion of the world, who lived in Pittsburgh. "
Frank Deford
Story
Best
Champion
" Yes, the Masters is too stylish to be an American icon. It's as out of character for Uncle Sam as a McDonald's is for France. "
Frank Deford
Stylish
Character
American
" 'SI' came to me and said, 'We want you to do a story on Russell as the greatest team player,' which I certainly agreed with. "
Frank Deford
You
Want
Team
" Thank you for listening. Thank you for abiding me. And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, I bid you goodbye and take my leave. "
Frank Deford
Thank You
Children
Goodbye
" Don't dismiss Auriemma and UConn just because their excellence shines on the female side of the coin. "
Frank Deford
Side
Excellence
Just Because
" I think we have enough trouble finding community in this country, and sport does provide that. It is a mediocrisy, the greatest mediocrisy. If you're the best, it shows in sports. Nobody can say, 'Well, he's only there because of his connections,' or whatever. In that sense, I suppose it upholds democracy and the best in us. "
Frank Deford
Community
You
Best
" It's still the tradition for various football powerhouses to pay guarantees to schools with cream-puff teams to come on over to our place and submit to massacre. "
Frank Deford
Over
Football
Pay
" I've been delivering these little homilies since 1980 - that's 37 years - and altogether, NPR statisticians tell me, my bloviation total is 1,656 commentaries - and I trust you've hung onto every word. "
Frank Deford
Little
Trust
Years
" It's fascinating, isn't it, that whereas so many of our statues have been of military leaders, now it may well be sports stars who are the ones more likely to be so honored. "
Frank Deford
Military
More
Now
" Quickness and momentum. You take the whole last generation of sports, listening to them, even reading about them, watching the games, analyzing them, arguing about them, instant-replaying them, second-guessing them, and all you'll distill from them is quickness and momentum. "
Frank Deford
Sports
Reading
Listening
" I think I would die if I couldn't get to the typewriter every day. I really need that. "
Frank Deford
Think
Day
Die
" The year after Russell retired, in the famous seventh game of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, Willis Reed, the New York Knicks center, limped onto the court against the Los Angeles Lakers, inspiring his team and freezing Chamberlain into a benign perplexity. "
Frank Deford
Garden
Game
Team
" First and foremost, Howard Cosell is sports. There are all these people, these fans, who claim that when Cosell does a game on television, they turn off the sound on the TV and listen to the radio broadcast. Oh, sure. You probably know critics in your neighborhood who vow the same thing. Well, too bad for them. "
Frank Deford
Game
Know
You
" If I come on three days after the Super Bowl and say pretty much what everybody else has said, what's the point? That was the tricky thing... coming up with a new angle every time - or most times, because you couldn't bat a thousand. "
Frank Deford
New
You
Time
" The Cowboys were never America's team any more than Anthony Weiner was America's congressman. "
Frank Deford
Team
Never
Than
" We exalted that Michael Phelps-consecrated water. Rose petals were strewn in Peyton Manning's path when he retired. But hey, that's natural. As we should, we admire those in any craft, no less so in sports, who appear out of nowhere to achieve remarkable feats. "
Frank Deford
Water
Rose
Path
" That's the greatest compliment I can get: when somebody from Key West says, 'Hey, Bubba.' That means I'm in! "
Frank Deford
Key
West
I Can
" When I was covering games, and this is back in the '60s, you'd go into the manager's office. I can still visualize Earl Weaver from the Baltimore Orioles. I can just see Earl now in his underwear... with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, holding court. And that was the way it was done then. "
Frank Deford
Manager
I Can
Beer
" I can remember going to see the minor league Orioles. Until I was 15 years old, we'd go down with 3,000 people to watch them play the Syracuse Chiefs or the Jersey City Little Giants. That's what passed for Baltimore sports. "
Frank Deford
Play
City
People