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" 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
Related Quotes:
" The Tigers, Lions, Red Wings, and Pistons are there today as sure as they were when what was good for General Motors was good for the country. Would you rather have a basketball team, or would you rather be Detroit? "
Frank Deford
Team
Today
Good
" 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
" Statues of sports stars are all the rage - especially in baseball. "
Frank Deford
Baseball
Stars
Sports
" Football teams represent cities and colleges and schools. The people have built great stadiums, and the game is culturally intertwined with our calendar. We don't go back to college for the college. We go back for a football game, and, yes, we even call that 'homecoming.' "
Frank Deford
Football
Great
Game
" On Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., there are statues of five Confederate luminaries and then, incongruously in this company, one of Arthur Ashe. "
Frank Deford
Five
Monument
VA
" 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
" It was not that long ago when the accepted wisdom in football was that the running game had to be established - that was always the obligatory verb: established - before passes could become effective. My, we know how that has changed. Now the pass is established from the get-go, and running is an afterthought. "
Frank Deford
Wisdom
Now
Long
" 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
" If there ever was an 'America's team,' it would be itty-bitty, little Green Bay, stuck way up there somewhere, owned by the salt-of-the-Earth citizens themselves. "
Frank Deford
Way
Up
Green
" It's interesting too, that the coach of that Georgia Tech team who led his valiant warriors to those 222 points was none other than John Heisman. Yes, he whom the Heisman trophy is named for, an award that honors that college player who best exemplifies excellence and integrity. "
Frank Deford
Award
Integrity
Team
" The only thing we know for sure about superiority in sports in the United States of America in the 20th century is that Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics teams he led stand alone as the ultimate winners. "
Frank Deford
America
Know
Sports
" 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
" In the summer of 1963, my second with 'Sports Illustrated,' Jerry Tax, the basketball editor, got the Celtics' Frank Ramsey, the NBA's first famous sixth man, to do a piece for the magazine revealing some of the devious little tricks of his trade. Things like surreptitiously holding an opponent's shorts - nickel-and-dime stuff. "
Frank Deford
Famous
Sports
Summer
" The strike zone should be what the rule book says it is and not a personal idiosyncrasy. "
Frank Deford
Rule
Strike
Personal
" Bill Russell was the pivot on which the whole sport turned. "
Frank Deford
Which
Whole
Bill
" 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
" Majesty is a thing of beauty to behold, whatever the particular enterprise. "
Frank Deford
Whatever
Beauty
Behold
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" It costs a lot of money to deliver newsprint. It's so much easier to do it through the air, Internet, radio, television. The second easiest thing is to do it through the mail. But when you have to take something heavy and put it on someone's doorstep, that costs a lot of money. "
Frank Deford
Internet
Air
Television
" 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
" 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
" 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
" Since too few Americans go to the polls, I say what this country needs is a bobblehead election, where voters will get free bobblehead dolls of their choice when they show up and vote for president. "
Frank Deford
Choice
Will
Election
" 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 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
" 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
" You're writing about young, vibrant people; there are wins and losses. In other words, it's great drama. "
Frank Deford
Writing
Words
You