Sometimes The Bear Eats You

So, yes, even among sportswriters, virtue could be its own reward, and, yes, we are a more honorable craft now. There are more good sportswriters than ever, although there may not be more good sportswriting. In the hallowed past we were more engaged in trying to reveal human nature, but now, because all the games are on TV or online, there is a natural disposition to endlessly analyze, dissect and predict, to enlarge minutiae. No wonder a whole profession didn't detect steroids; we were too busy studying the animal entrails of drafts.

There's always talk about the so-called Golden Age of Sports, but I'm convinced that the Golden Age of Writing About Sports began just about the time that I, The Kid, providentially strode into the vestibule.

I was a character in the age's last scene, too. The NBA didn't have a full-season network contract then, in the '60s, but on Sunday day games in the Finals, a network showed up, cherry-picking on the cheap. When the Celtics won another championship, a young assistant rushed onto the court and asked Red Auerbach to come right up to the TV booth. Red looked down at the boy. "Where the f--- were you in February?" he asked, waving him off with his cigar. Then, gloriously, he threw the other arm round me and said, "I'm going with my writers."

It was the last hurrah for the press. After that, it became the media.

Frank Deford, one of the most prolific writers in the history of SI, was also the founding editor of The National and is a regular contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and HBO's Real Sports. This is the one story he never expected to write.

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