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Frank Deford
Presidential game plan: Obama’s bid rooted to the rise of the black athlete
- Obviously, there are so many factors that have been applied, incrementally, over a long time, to bring us to a place where an African-American can be elected president. But I cannot help believing that the ubiquity and esteem of the black man in sport has played a significant part in this transformation that enables a black man to run for president.
- Obviously, there are so many factors that have been applied, incrementally, over a long time, to bring us to a place where an African-American can be elected president. But I cannot help believing that the ubiquity and esteem of the black man in sport has played a significant part in this transformation that enables a black man to run for president.
When being left-handed is more than all right
- If you’re interested in having your son support you in your old age, here is my vocational advice to you: starting when he’s in the crib, turn him into a left-hander, and then train him to become a relief pitcher. There’s always a well-paying place for southpaw relievers, well up into their athletic dotage.
- If you’re interested in having your son support you in your old age, here is my vocational advice to you: starting when he’s in the crib, turn him into a left-hander, and then train him to become a relief pitcher. There’s always a well-paying place for southpaw relievers, well up into their athletic dotage.
Hall of Famer who brings the past to present
- Sometimes the man and the moment seem to come around again. So it is with Bob Feller and this year's All-Star Game, which will be played Tuesday in Yankee Stadium, in this last season before they tear down that sublime American monument, The House That Ruth Built.
- Sometimes the man and the moment seem to come around again. So it is with Bob Feller and this year's All-Star Game, which will be played Tuesday in Yankee Stadium, in this last season before they tear down that sublime American monument, The House That Ruth Built.
Hope springs eternal for Baltimore’s Phelps
- Who woulda thunk it? The United States of America, that noble bastion of individualism, is bombing in individual sports.
- Who woulda thunk it? The United States of America, that noble bastion of individualism, is bombing in individual sports.
The playground: Darwinism at its best
- I was very lucky as a boy because I got to go away to camp two summers. We did all kind of stuff at camp. We played baseball and basketball and tennis and shot rifles and arrows and swam and rode horses. We did handicrafts, too. That’s never been my best territory, though. I confined myself to making pot holders, of which my mother accumulated legion during my fertile handicraft years. We lived in cabins and used outhouses, and, of course, this being camp, we camped out some in pup tents.
Cubs and 1908: Can’t say one without the other
- In medieval Europe, when people were interested in turning lead into gold, there was a tale that maintained that this was really an easy thing to accomplish. Peace o' cake. Just throughout the alchemy process you could never once think of the word “hippopotamus.”
- In medieval Europe, when people were interested in turning lead into gold, there was a tale that maintained that this was really an easy thing to accomplish. Peace o' cake. Just throughout the alchemy process you could never once think of the word “hippopotamus.”
Be fore-warned: Golf courses will be saturated in water crisis
- I have always thought that golf courses are perhaps the finest collaborative work between God and man. Yes, only God can make a tree, but golf course architects can make trees seem prettier, and golf course superintendents can make the grass greener and the flowers brighter, so that even when you can’t hit a fairway or sink a putt, it certainly is an awfully lovely place to be frustrated.
Turning back NBA clock produces timeless classic
- It is part of the faith-based history of the NBA, which I wholly accept, that when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson entered the league in the autumn of ‘79, they took an enterprise that was discredited, dispirited and desperate and restored it to acceptance, even prominence.
Time to man up and admit it, it’s the year of the woman
- I was certain Danica Patrick was going to win the Indianapolis 500 Sunday. Just positive. After all, this 2008 is a year, when, surely, women have been more prominent in sports than ever before — and in every way: good, bad and sad.
Will lacrosse kick soccer to the curb?
- Let us play word association.
- Let us play word association.
Why is the national anthem still played at games?
- The Sports Curmudgeon’s bile has been rising at the general level of tackiness he has witnessed in sports, and so he has requested time to vent.
For Whom the Belle Tolls
- One of my favorite old sports page words was “crafty.” It meant, of course, some player, usually what we also always called a “veteran,” who got by on his wits. Well, I can't remember the last time I heard anybody in sports described as “crafty.”
Sports, Nutsy Fagan Style
- Did you ever talk about Nutsy Fagan around your neighborhood? When somebody acted, well, nutsy, we said: he's as nutsy as Nutsy Fagan. There’s some question who exactly the Nutsy Fagan was. He might have been a guy in 19th century New York, who liked to join funeral processions under the impression they were parades. And, of course, we weren’t so considerate then. A guy was fat, we called him “fats,” a guy was nutsy — hey, we called him “nutsy.”