“He had gone into another room, to where the buffet was, after he had watched the 12 rounds when he was the heavyweight champeen of the world, back in that last indelible summer when America dared yet dream that it could run and hide from the world, when the handsomest boy loved the prettiest girl, when streetcars still clanged and fistfights were fun, and the smoke hung low when Maggie went off to Paradise.”

Frank Deford died this week, and I'm not sure sportswriters will see his like again. The beautiful rhythm of his language was some kind of wonderful. I love this bit from The New York Times obit of him: Ross Greenburg, then the president of HBO Sports, told The Los Angeles Times in 2004, “Frank Deford with a pen in his hand is like Michael Jordan with a basketball and Tiger Woods with a driver.” In one of his most famous stories, "The Boxer and The Blonde," Deford manages to tell at least five love stories: a man for his mother, for his wife, for his city, for his sport, and for his country. This is one of the best last sentences I've ever read, both epic and intimate, an elegy not only for a life but a way of life.