Frank Deford

No. 1s: The Latest Greatest Of All Time

Frank Deford — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:32:00 +0000

The Great Gatsby is on the screen again, re-opening the perennial debate about whether or not it is the great American novel. Or was that Huckleberry Finn? Or are we still waiting for the great American novel? Is the title vacant, like most recent Tour de France championships? In the arts, the argument over the great American novel is a rather unusual great fuss about the greatest. In most disciplines there simply doesn't seem to be a passion to constantly assess who's No. 1.

Ladies, Want Women's Sports To Get More Attention? Pony Up

Frank Deford — Wed, 08 May 2013 02:03:00 +0000

Fans of women's sports often maintain that female athletics get short shrift from the media, so it had to be something of a surprise gift when ESPN presented the start of the WNBA's draft live.

This happened as it was announced that after two abject failures in the past decade, yet another professional soccer league for women will dare venture forth in the United States.

Not to excuse the media, but the reality is that most attention is given to team sports, where there is an identity with the community –– and, by extension, with the local newspapers and broadcast outlets.

Get Off My Lawn! And Other Grumblings About Sports Today

Frank Deford — Wed, 01 May 2013 02:03:00 +0000

My friend the Sports Curmudgeon called me the other day: "Hey, Frank, I got a few things to get off my chest." He was about to take off on a Fantasy Fan cruise, where devoted sports buffs are drafted as fans for desperate losing teams, but he promised to text me his complaints once the ship got out to sea.

Sure enough, here came the Sports Curmudgeon's latest rants.

First, he asked, why do all newspapers and websites print so-called attendance figures, when they are abject lies?

The Pitch For More No. 42s

Frank Deford — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:55:00 +0000

Yet another movie about Jackie Robinson arrived as baseball held its annual commemorative celebration of No. 42, but officials of the game are fretting over the fact that only 8 1/2 percent of current major leaguers are black.

Given that African-Americans only constitute about 13 percent of the U.S.

Tiger At The Masters: The Juncture Of Exhilaration And Peril

Frank Deford — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 02:03:00 +0000

Let us now ponder the exquisite status of Tiger Woods, who has clawed back to the top of the charts thereby to proclaim, with the help of his Nike mouthpiece, that his ragged and raw past few years never really happened because — ta-da –– as his ad says: "Winning takes care of everything."

And yes, indeed, he is No. 1 in the rankings again. And, too, he has a beautiful new girlfriend, although, of course, I will not mention her name here, so as not to be a member of what he calls the "stalkerazzi."

And yet, that is why his position is so much more intriguing than ever.

Baseball Isn't Dead; It Just Takes More Work To Appreciate

Frank Deford — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 02:03:00 +0000

It being the start of baseball season, that means we've been inundated by predictions — who'll win the divisions and the pennants and the World Series? We know two things on this subject. In every sport, at the start of the season, the experts are bound and determined to make these long-range predictions. And second, they are invariably wrong.

In baseball, there is always one other long-term prediction, namely that baseball is dying. The non-baseball experts have been bleating this for years, because, they say, baseball is too slow and doesn't appeal to young people.

It's Been An Ugly Year For College Basketball

Frank Deford — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:03:00 +0000

There once was a wise old basketball coach named Arad McCutchan who led the Evansville Purple Aces to five national championships in the small-college division, dressing his Purple Aces in bright orange T-shirts. I've been reminded of this recently as a number of grubby athletic directors have sold out to the sporting goods companies, allowing their teams to be costumed in the most hideous outfits.

For openers: Whoever decided that basketball uniforms should have a camouflage motif? That makes as much sense as attiring the Navy SEALs in tutus.

What's The Score On Spirited Sports Banter At Bars?

Frank Deford — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 02:03:00 +0000

The more I travel, the more I see sports bars. They've been around for years, usually in obvious places, like in college towns or near arenas.

But now they're everywhere, even in airports and hotels, places where you'd expect generic bars. Sports bars are becoming ubiquitous and ordinary — merely, as my wife calls them, public man caves.

All bars, of course, have forever been places where men talk about sports. Other prime saloon subjects include women, the traffic and the weather.

But what made sports so perfect for bars is that they encourage argument.

School Bands Should Not Be Entertainment Adjunct For Sports

Frank Deford — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 05:53:00 +0000

Several years ago I gave a speech in which I mentioned that athletes tended to be the only college students who were awarded scholarships for what is an extracurricular activity.

Afterward, Myles Brand, the late president of the NCAA, told me I was wrong, that many music extracurricular scholarships were awarded at colleges.

Brand and I seldom agreed on much of anything, but I've always found him to be a gentleman. So, I expressed surprise at this claim.

Oh, no, Brand said, many colleges award music scholarships to members of the band who march during halftime at football games.

Catholic Universities See True Path To Salvation: Basketball

Frank Deford — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 08:21:00 +0000

I've always felt it's no coincidence that some basketball powerhouses — let us say, off the top of my head, Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Indiana — get a few better players because those hoops museums don't do very well with football.

I mean, if I were a big-deal high school recruit, I might very well say to myself, "You know, I'd rather be a Hoosier or a Wildcat or a Jayhawk than I would go someplace where I'm just gonna be a lounge act for the glamorous Mr.

Dear College Presidents: Break The NCAA's Vise Grip On Athletes

Frank Deford — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 03:03:00 +0000

The great social quest in American sport is to have one prominent, active, gay male athlete step forward and identify himself.

But I have a similar quest. I seek one prominent college president to say to her trustees or to the other presidents in his conference: "The NCAA is a sham and disgrace.

Reminders Flood In: Athletes Are People, Not Heroes

Frank Deford — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 03:03:00 +0000

These have certainly been dispiriting times for those who admire athletes, who proclaim that sports build character. The horrendous shooting by Oscar Pistorius is of course, in a category mercifully unapproached since the O.J.

An Oft-Told Tale: The Beauty Queen And The Quarterback

Frank Deford — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 07:11:00 +0000

Gentlemen of a certain age might make a nostalgic note that today, Valentine's eve, is the 80th birthday of Kim Novak.

One of Miss Novak's most famous movie roles was in Picnic, where she played the gorgeous ingenue who could've married the son of the richest man in town but instead fell for a hunk of a bum who was an old football star.

Picnic is being revived on Broadway, as is Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, where — guess what?

It's The Dog Days For America's Sports Dynasties

Frank Deford — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 07:01:00 +0000

Since that devilish little morality saga with Linda Evans and Joan Collins left television in 1989, there have been no dynasties in our world outside of sports.

Today, nobody says that William and Kate are continuing a dynasty or the Kennedys are a dynasty, or the Rockefellers, or even that dreadful ugly chubby family in North Korea.

But at least in the democratic republic of the United States we've always kept our love of dynasties alive in sports. Besides momentum, dynasties are our favorite athletic thing.

History Joins The 49ers In Opposing Ray Lewis

Frank Deford — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 06:45:00 +0000

When Secretariat won what was certified to be his last race, I went down onto the track at Woodbine, and gauging where he had crossed the finish line, snatched up the last grass that perhaps the greatest thoroughbred ever had laid hooves to in his career.

Pretty sappy, I'll admit, but then it's quite a memento if only because it really is rare in sport for someone to declare that this will be the finale — the last dance — and then indeed go out a winner. Most famously, perhaps, was Ted Williams, who hit a home run in his final at bat.

Sports Calendar's Black Hole Gives Us Time To Reflect On Sportswriters

Frank Deford — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 03:03:00 +0000

Sports fans are jealous of sportswriters, because it's a dream job where you get to watch games free, which is, above all, what sports fans want.

Once upon a time this was true. The sportswriters watched games, keeping score, me. . .tic. . . u. . . lous. . . ly, and then wrote it all up, so that the poor devils who had real jobs could read about the games.

Well, that's the way it was.

But today there are no news cycles. News is like the Earth going around the sun, cycling constantly.

Love Of Football May Kick America Down The Path Of Ruination

Frank Deford — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 03:03:00 +0000

This may sound far-fetched, but football reminds me of Venice. Both are so tremendously popular, but it's the very things that made them so that could sow the seeds of their ruin.

Venice, of course, is so special because of its unique island geography, which, as the world's ecosystem changes, is precisely what now puts it at risk.

Steroid Accusations Likely To Bench Baseball Hall Of Fame Candidates

Frank Deford — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 08:17:00 +0000

The results of this year's baseball Hall of Fame voting will be revealed on Wednesday.

Given the exit polling, it appears both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as well as other candidates stained by accusations of steroid use, will not be admitted.

Among other reasons for not voting for them, I would suspect that accusations against Lance Armstrong for using performance-enhancing drugs in cycling is bound to have some carry-over effect.

New Jersey Wants To Horn In On Nevada's Gambling Turf

Frank Deford — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 06:47:00 +0000

For those dearly devoted of you who paid attention to me in September, I noted that the best bet in the NFL had proven to be whenever a West Coast team played an East Coast team at night, because the Pacific players had their body clocks better set.

There would be two such night games this year, and sure enough, both times the West Coast team beat the point spread.

Time For Gun Owners To Be Good Sports About Gun Restrictions

Frank Deford — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 03:03:00 +0000

I've never had any interest in hunting. Among other things, I'm a terrible shot, but I have friends who hunt, and it appears to me to be a perfectly reasonable sports hobby — certainly every bit as honorable as fantasy football. Moreover, shooting a deer or a duck with a bullet seems to me no more inhuman than catching a trout or a marlin with a hook.

Oh, sometimes I get a little piqued that those who hunt and fish are ennobled as "sportsmen," while people who play golf are just golfers and people who bowl are just bowlers.