Over Time; My Life as a Sportswriter

New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. vi, 354, [2] pages. Contains footnotes, Acknowledgments, and 41 black and white photographs. Inscribed on the title page by the author, Frank Deford; the inscription reads "May 7, 2012, For Jeremy Klitzman. All good wishes, Frank Deford." Minor DJ rear flap blemish. Benjamin Franklin Deford III (1938 - 2017) was a sportswriter and novelist. From 1980 until his death in 2017, he was a commentator on NPR's Morning Edition. Deford wrote for Sports Illustrated from 1962 until his death in 2017. He wrote 18 books. A member of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame, he was six times voted National Sportswriter of the Year, and was twice voted Magazine Writer of the Year by the Washington Journalism Review. In 2012, Deford was the first magazine recipient of the Red Smith Award. In 2013, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal, and was the first sports journalist to receive the National Press Foundation's W. M. Kiplinger Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism. 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. In 1990, he was Editor-in-Chief of The National Sports Daily, one of the most ambitious projects in the history of American print journalism. He won an Emmy. From the Mad Men-like days of SI in the '60s, and the "bush" years of the early NBA, and Deford's visit to apartheid South Africa with Arthur Ashe, Over Time is packed with intriguing people and stories. This is a wonderful, inspired book, a treasure for sports fans. "Deford is the Holy Grail. He's simply one of the greatest sportswriters of all time. ... Over Time has a little bit of everything -- great stories about interviewing everyone from Richard Nixon... to Jerry Jones. ... and has great takes on the history and characters of Sports Illustrated in its formative years.