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" People often lump radio and television together because they are both broadcast mediums. But radio, anyway, and the radio I do for NPR, is much closer to writing than it is to television. "
Frank Deford
People
Together
Writing
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" I remember, when I was growing up in Baltimore, we'd get on a streetcar and go down to see the Orioles, and for a couple of bucks, you could get a pretty good seat. Kids can't do that anymore. So I think that changes the whole nature of sports. "
Frank Deford
Growing Up
Sports
Nature
" Nowadays, of course, flesh peddlers and scouting services identify the best athletes when they are still in junior high. Prospects are not allowed to sneak up on us. "
Frank Deford
High
Best
Still
" 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
" 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
" I have survived so long because I've been blessed with talented and gracious colleagues and with a top brass who let me choose my topics every week and then allowed me to express opinions that were not always popular. Well, someone had to stand up to the yackety-yak soccer cult. "
Frank Deford
Blessed
Stand Up
Stand
" 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 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
" 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
" 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
" So much about big-time college sports is criticized. But the worst scandal is almost never mentioned: the academic fraud wherein the student-athletes, so-called, are admitted without even remotely adequate credentials and then aren't educated so much as they are just kept eligible. "
Frank Deford
Fraud
Sports
College
" Bill Russell was the pivot on which the whole sport turned. "
Frank Deford
Which
Whole
Bill
" 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
" Dan Rather pulling on a sweater and thereby winning a whole new chunk of the populace: That's television. President Reagan's press conferences: That's television. Keith Jackson is television. So are Kermit the Frog, instant replay, and the Fiesta Bowl. "
Frank Deford
Winning
Sweater
New
" I think I would die if I couldn't get to the typewriter every day. I really need that. "
Frank Deford
Think
Day
Die
" Because I lost a daughter, eight years old, to cystic fibrosis, I think that anytime that I'm dealing with people who, like Andrea Yeager, are trying to help those sick children, I identify very much with them. "
Frank Deford
Daughter
Children
Think
" ESPN is all meat and potatoes. It's pretty much scouting reports. There isn't a great deal of humor, and when there is, it's pretty sophomoric. "
Frank Deford
Humor
Potatoes
Meat
" She glances at the photo, and the pilot light of memory flickers in her eyes. "
Frank Deford
Memory
She
Eyes
" I don't think there are many kids who sit around and want to be actors. I don't think there are many kids who want to sit around and want to be senators. But so many of us want to be athletes, so we're envious of them, and we put them up on that pedestal. "
Frank Deford
Want
Senators
Us
" The dollar is a winner. The euro is a tie. Get off the dime, Europe, and play to win. "
Frank Deford
Winner
Dollar
Off
" 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
" 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
" Once again it is peaceful at Augusta National Golf Club, after some rather ugly stand-offs in recent years, when the club balked at changing its all-white, all-male membership tradition. African-Americans and female Americans are on the club manifest now along with other golf-Americans, and all is serene once again. "
Frank Deford
Ugly
Golf
Now
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" You have to do what the market requires of you... You either keep swimming, or you sink. "
Frank Deford
Keep
Swimming
You
" 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
" 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
" All sorts of famous sports people have been suspended for extended periods. "
Frank Deford
Been
People
Sports