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" Johnny U was an American original, a piece of work like none other, excepting maybe Paul Bunyan and Horatio Alger. "
Frank Deford
Like
Maybe
Original
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" 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
" 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
" Every now and then, I get a free ticket from someone, and I look at the price, and it says $800, and I'm thinking, 'A thousand dollars to see,' I said, 'There's no ballgame in the world worth that kind of money,' and yet the attendance for sports is more than it ever has been. "
Frank Deford
World
Free
Thinking
" I think every time I can find a story that touches that human nerve, and even sometimes makes you cry, I think that I've found something that I'll like very much. "
Frank Deford
Cry
Think
Sometimes
" 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
" Majesty is a thing of beauty to behold, whatever the particular enterprise. "
Frank Deford
Whatever
Beauty
Behold
" We start 2016 with a command: that the subject of Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame is over, finis, kaput forever and ever. As sure as we will no longer discuss whether Lindsey Graham or George Pataki can be president. "
Frank Deford
Over
Fame
Will
" As it happens, Cumberland was on the verge of bankruptcy and had to give up football. But the villainous Heisman made it play a game that had been scheduled when Cumberland still had a team, or Heisman threatened to demand a $3,000 forfeiture fee that could well have put the school out of existence. "
Frank Deford
Game
Well
Team
" To compare writing an article for 'Sports Illustrated' to doing a piece for 'Real Sports', the article, it was all me. You know, I'm out there by myself with my pad and pencil. 'Real Sports,' I've got a producer, an assistant producer, and cameramen. It's an individual game versus a team game. "
Frank Deford
Me
Myself
Game
" 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
" Despite the fact that every sport this side of badminton worries about concussions that result in brain damage, CTE, the National Hockey League refuses to accept the overwhelming medical science. Good grief - the NHL still permits fights. "
Frank Deford
Science
Brain
Good
" 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
" 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
" Remember when John Roberts was seeking confirmation of the Supreme Court, and he said judges should be just like umpires, just calling balls and strikes? Well, turnabout is fair play. What baseball needs behind the plate are umpires like those judges who are called strict constructionists, which means you follow subtle law to the letter. "
Frank Deford
Law
Remember
Supreme Court
" The strike zone should be what the rule book says it is and not a personal idiosyncrasy. "
Frank Deford
Rule
Strike
Personal
" The stories that are most unfamiliar, the ones that seem to come out of the blue about people that aren't well known, usually come from producers that have really done a lot of homework and looked around. Other stories come from the correspondents. "
Frank Deford
Stories
People
Homework
" The NBA Schedule was made up by one man, Eddie Gottlieb, who had owned the Philadelphia Warriors. Eddie had a Buddha-like body and a crinkly smile, and because he had also been an owner in baseball's old Negro leagues, he was known as the Mogul. "
Frank Deford
Man
Baseball
Body
" 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
" You can stand at a bar and scream all you want about who was the greatest athlete and which was the greatest sports dynasty, and you can shout out your precious statistics, and maybe you're right, and maybe the red-faced guy down the bar - the one with the foam on his beer and the fancy computer rankings - is right, but nobody really knows. "
Frank Deford
Beer
Statistics
Stand
" The hardest thing in the world is to write something critical about someone and then show up the next day in the locker room. I mean, that is not fun, and that takes an awful lot of guts. And I never enjoyed that. "
Frank Deford
Someone
Never
Mean
" Owners own teams so that they might move them to another municipality with better luxury boxes. "
Frank Deford
Own
Luxury
Boxes
" I get very envious of my general news colleagues who are always being handed sexy new stuff like global warming, China, and Donald Trump, while my sports colleagues and I must be eternally satisfied with the same old home-court advantage, soccer, and momentum. "
Frank Deford
Soccer
Colleagues
News
" Pete Rose may not make the Hall of Fame, but a statue of him is going to be erected outside the Cincinnati Reds ballpark. "
Frank Deford
Statue
Fame
Going
" Nothing made me happier than to hear from literally hundreds of listeners who would tell me how much the commentaries revealed about a subject they otherwise had never cared much for. "
Frank Deford
Nothing
Tell
Never
" In the television era, the second week of the Olympics is reserved for what is considered the marquee event: track and field. "
Frank Deford
Field
Television
Track
" If you're a father of a child who dies, it's an experience that never leaves you. It scars you forever and ever and ever. And so when I do any kind of story with somebody who's in the same position as my daughter was, there's no question that something comes out of me and embraces that story in a way that only a father who lost a child could. "
Frank Deford
Child
Me
Experience
" 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
" 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
" 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
" In days of yore, Opening Day of the baseball season was special, signifying that spring had come at last. Today, however, Opening Day sort of dribbles into existence, and the spiritual start of spring now belongs to the Masters golf tournament, where the azaleas and magnolias and dogwood bloom. "
Frank Deford
Today
Day
Baseball