by Frank Deford, 2012
"
Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter is as unconventional and
wide-ranging as Frank Deford’s remarkable career, in which he has
chronicled the heroes and the characters of just about every sport in
nearly every medium. Deford joined
Sports Illustrated in 1962, fresh, and fresh out of Princeton. In 1990, he was Editor-in-Chief of
The National Sports Daily,
one of the most ambitious—and ill-fated—projects in the history of
American print journalism. But then, he’s endured: writing ten novels,
winning an Emmy (not to mention being a fabled Lite Beer All-Star), and
last week he read something like his fourteen-hundredth commentary on
NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
From the Mad Men-like days of
SI
in the ‘60s, and the “bush” years of the early NBA, to Deford’s visit to
apartheid South Africa with Arthur Ashe, and his friend’s brave and
tragic death,
Over Time is packed with intriguing people and
stories. Interwoven through his personal history, Deford lovingly traces
the entire arc of American sportswriting from the lurid early days of
the Police Gazette, through Grantland Rice and Red Smith and on up to
ESPN. This is a wonderful, inspired book—equal parts funny and
touching—a treasure for sports fans. Just like Frank Deford." (from Amazon.com)
I read a few chapters, then did some skim-reading. I had never heard of Deford before and I'm not much of a sports fan, so this just didn't capture my attention. I liked looking at the photos, though.
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