An open letter to NPR

Another Wednesday morning, another barrage of bloviating bluster from our wistful but erudite expert on all things sporting, Frank Deford. How fortunate I am to be driving down County Line Road at just the right time to be edified on the deeper, subtler truths to be found in the world of sport, as seen by rich, white, octogenarian New Yorkers reporting from the Olympian heights of WPUD in Fairfield, Connecticut. Why? Because they know better than you and me, having written holy scripture (Sports Illustrated) back when men were men and women were broads.

Uncle Frank's sore spot of the week is power over finesse. Have you heard this one before? Has it been recycled every season in every sport for every generation since the heavyweight title bout between Achilles and Hector? It must be the sports columnist's drunken desperation strategy number 1: when it's deadline and you really have nothing to say, give 'em the old lamentation about the decline of civilization due to youth and power overcoming experience and guile. How very original!

Poignant anecdote du jour: Ain't it a shame that Michelle Kwan in her dotage can't quite measure up to the skating feats of the younger, stronger, more skilled skaters? (Go figure!) Furthermore, ain't it just tragic that the five-foot-seven Martina Hingis can't compete on the tennis court anymore against taller, faster players ten years younger who hit the ball harder. And just to throw a bone to our listeners up the pike in Boston, ain't it noble how that plucky little runt Doug Flutie is finally retiring after hanging in there all these years dodging the bigger, faster athletes in the NFL. And they said he was too short for a pro quarterback, but he showed them - he made a drop-kick his swan song! No doubt that will play well with his future employers on the nostalgia circuit.

Face it, Frank. Talent will out. Each game, set, and match is a test of who's got game, who's on their game, and who's lost it. Why not argue that it's morally wrong for LeBron to out-play smaller, slower, older guys who can't jump? When Lew Alcindor was at UCLA, dinosaurs like Deford were saying they should raise the basket to 12 feet because Alcindor (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) had an unfair advantage over the poor developmentally challenged six-foot-ten guys. They did succeed in banning the dunk for a few years, which was like banning the forward pass in football, embarrassing themselves in the name of the purity of the two-hand set shot.

That's it! Just get a roomful of geezers together and turn back the clock, eh Frank? Maybe adopting the old girls rules will make basketball more quaintly interesting for the Defords of the world. No more than two dribbles, guards stay out of the offensive end, center jump after a basket, nice....and....slow. Honey, I think it's time for my medication. Ban jumps from figure skating, and impose a speed limit on serves in tennis.

If only the natural order of things governed radio commentary, as it does athletic competition, there might be a cogent thought or two on the radio. Then a fresh, informed voice could take to the airwaves on Wednesday morning, and the over-the-hill gang could be put out to pasture somewhere in Connecticut.