Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter [Hardcover]

Frank DeFord (not Deford thank you, sir) is someone I have grown up seeing on television and in articles that I have come across as a kid in Sports Illustrated.

To be sure, one look at the author, and you just know he is a character (the pencil-thin mustahce and the sideburns distinguish that this is one far-out cat). And, in this book, you will realize that DeFord is an excellent writer with a great eye for details large and small which, unfortunately, have begun to escape newer generations with ESPN, Fox, Youtube, Twitter and all the other accouterments of the modern age that actually make athletes less available in some ways.

There was a time, not too long ago, when you either saw certain moments or you turned to Sports Illustrated to read articles about your heroes and their unseen feats. As DeFord makes amply clear in this book, sometimes the writers were able to make myths from what today seems pedestrian. Man, I was lucky to read Jim Murray's work in the LA Times growing up, and having people like DeFord in copies of Sports Illustrated I was able to purloin from various sources (plus Vin Scully, Chick Hearn and Dick Enberg, and Stu Nahan to see and hear on TV and radio). Writers that transcended simple descriptions of sports and allowed me to enjoy good examples of writing.

I simply loved this book. I greatly enjoy DeFord when I hear or see him (and infrequently read) him these days because of his great writing and some great stories. He covered the NBA when it was only a sport for oddballs (hard to believe these days) and got to actually befriend athletes rather than discuss their injuries or latest contracts. In the many wonderful chapters of this book, we get stories of so many heroes and villains and some autobiographical details of a vanishing world.

DeFord is a hell of a writer, and this book proves it. There are some lines (probably unrepeatable here) that I re-read several times marveling at their construction and context (Man, how come I didn't think of some of these lines, after all?). A joy for readers who enjoy sports and are fans that are probably a little more introspective than just watching SportsCenter on a regular basis, I was sad to see this book end.

Highly recommended.

Frank Deford may have taught me to write. As a kid I read every SI from about 1970-1982 cover to cover, and his were invariably the funniest and most enjoyable pieces (Dan Jenkins was the other highlight). Looking at my style now, it sure resembles Frank's then. If not nearly as fine. And he's still going strong, as this memoir attests.

Like his sports articles it's breezy and conversational, yet also surprisingly literate and intelligent. The man gets to the core of a person or issue mighty quick, and his unerring eye for quality and truth is a thing of much beauty. DeFord (you coulda been a name contender, Frank!) is also a people person, as they say, and his understanding of what makes us tick as humans as well as athletes lends his words real depth of meaning beyond their athletic subjects. Few sportswriters, or really any writers, can do that consistently.

Along with endless funny and touching anecdotes here are a number of tributes to sportswriting/editing greats from years gone by who never got their due from the general reading public. FD is here to fix that, and generously extols the many virtues of quite a few guys I'd never heard of but am glad to know more about now. Likewise his admiration of Rice and other forebears. Not many guys use their autobiographies to talk about how great everyone else is, but then that's another measure of this man.

I also enjoyed his various footnotes about colloquialisms and terms that have fallen out of usage; Frank loves our crazy language and its inane intricacies, and his good-humored, often ironic wordplay is one of the most appealing things about his writing.

This book is in fact just a flat-out pleasure to read, especially if you enjoy sports. But even if you don't, it's worth reading for the quality of the writing, and the quality of the man. In a world where profit and fame have become the only things that seem to matter, not just in sports but in business and all else, guys like Frank Deford make us realize what old school can and should mean. The man has character. He knows what matters in life as well as sports, and to read his words is to learn many fine and useful things about how to live and be as a human being. Plus he's always willing to insert some humor, and he can be mighty funny.

Let's just say it once and for all: Frank DeFord is not just the best American sportswriter, he's one of the best American writers period.

Thanks for sharing, my friend.
Our friend!
You helped me love words as a kid, and that love has served me as well as any I've ever found.
Peace and all good things to you and yours, Mr. Deford.

When I saw that Frank Deford wrote a book about his life as a sportswriter, I jumped at the opportunity to get an advance copy. In my 20's and 30's I learned to read the articles in Sports Illustrated that were written by Frank Deford. Otherwise I just looked at the articles that had to do with the sports and teams I followed. Frank Deford made everything interesting and, more often than not, he wrote in a way that touched you deeply. I was sorry when I read that he went on to be the managing editor (if I didn't get his title right, at least I spelled his name right) of a thing called "The National". The actual title of the publication was the "National Sports Daily" and I never ever saw a copy of it. My initial reaction to "The National" is that you don't create something new and immediately give it a nickname. I was glad to find out what that was all about. In fact, there is a lot in "Over Time" that I was glad to find more about.

There are a number of excellent chapters in "Over Time" but my rating of the book overall is largely a reaction to the number of chapters that didn't interst me at all. One of those chapters has to do with the proper spelling and construction of his name. Although I alluded to it above, it came across rather flat. There was a rather meandering chapter or two (it seemed way too long) about an athlete he knew of in Princeton. Somehow he managed to sleepwalk us into some sort of connection of this athlete and Bill Bradley. Along the way he seemed to minimize the mention of Hobey Baker, the Collegiate Hockey great whose name is on the annual award for the best collegiate hockey player of the year.

Mr. Deford is properly respectful of the many people who helped him on the way but that, for me, gets into a key problem of the book; name dropping vs the annonymous people who helped in his career. We tend to thrive on the chapters about Wilt Chamberlain, Arthur Ashe, Mickey Mantle and others whose names and reputation are familiar to us. The managing editor of Sports Illustrated may have done a great job but the accounts of him and many others (despite Deford's complimentary descriptions) leave us skimming to the next great persona. There are very interesting account of the Miller Lite commercial allumni and Deford lets us have a lot of fun with his recollection. (What has happened to beer commercials the last 10 years or so!)

Deford is not adverse to letting us know about some of the jerks he met along his career. Indeed, his career makes for a lot of interesting reflections. Much of the best of the book is saved for the last chapters including a Defordian sketch of Jimmy the Greek. That chapter reminded me (as much as anything else in the book) why I wanted to read the book in the first place. Oh well, glimpses like The Greek make up for his accounts of his career in NPR (I had no idea!). It just may be that Frank Deford is too humble to write about himself with the quality that he wrote about others. I give the book a C (based on what he could have done with it) and I give Mr. Deford an A- (for what he DID do with his life).