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In The Old Ball Game, Frank Deford, NPR sports commentator and Sports Illustrated journalist retells the story of an unusual friendship between two towering figures in baseball history.

When he stepped onto the Wimbledon grass in 1920, Bill Tilden was poised to become the world’s greatest tennis star. Throughout the 1920's he dominated the sport, winning championship after championship with his trademark grace, power, and intelligence. He owned the game more completely than Babe Ruth ruled baseball, making his name, for more than a decade, synonymous with tennis. This classic biography, by legendary sports writer Frank Deford, tells of Tilden’s dominance, unlike anything the sport had ever seen - and the big man’s tragic fall.

Gavin Grey is everyone's All-American. A star running back at the University of North Carolina in the late 1950s, he graces the covers of Time and LIFE magazines and appears on the "Ed Sullivan Show." Everyone wants a piece of him or to be around him to bask in his glory, including his nephew Donny, who narrates the story and is Gavin's only real confidant.After college, Gavin goes on to the NFL where he has a solid career. As his playing days wind down and the cheering stops, however, he finds the adjustment to life as an ex-athlete difficult to accept.

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, fresh, and fresh out of Princeton. In 1990, he was Editor-in-Chief of The National Sports Daily, one of the most ambitious and ill-fated projects in the history of American print journalism.