I'm Brian Curtis, Editor-large The Bringer, and this is the Pressbox Podcast.

I'm joined today by a guy who wrote for Sports Illustrator for several decades, who founded

the Daily News Paper, The National, to which the words late and lamented or rightly attached

to the question who in April 1980 began recording weekly sports commentaries for NPR, the

best of which are collected in his new book.

I know that voice anywhere.

Frank DeFord, tell me what's satisfying about writing and recording a radio commentary

versus writing a magazine feature for Sports Illustrated?

Well, they're both really the same thing.

You use the proper word writing.

I mean, that even though I'm speaking when I do a radio commentary, I have written it.

And so it's just a question of approaching the ear instead of the eye of the person

who's listening or reading me.

I think I get a certain satisfaction out of it beyond that because I'm probably a

little bit of a ham.

When you're doing commentaries, you don't have to have that serious radio voice.

You can play around and emphasize certain things and chuckle and laugh.

And so it's a very pleasurable experience for me, which I stumbled into.

What does your voice sound like on the air?

What is my voice sound like?

Yeah.

You know, it struck me rather strange when people started saying that I had a distinct

...