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Remembering The Forgotten Of The Sports World

Yes, the Little Brown Jug harness race lives on. The horse in the lead here, Vegas Vacation, driven by Brian Sears, holds on to win the 2013 race in Delaware, Ohio.
Mark Hall
/
AP
Yes, the Little Brown Jug harness race lives on. The horse in the lead here, Vegas Vacation, driven by Brian Sears, holds on to win the 2013 race in Delaware, Ohio.

Sports gets bigger all the time, everywhere. But even with a superabundance of sport, that's not enough to satisfy our appetites, and so now we have to have make-believe sport, too. Who would've ever thought we would bet real money on our sports fantasies?

Maybe H.L. Mencken was right when he said: "I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense." And Mencken didn't even know about Ultimate Fighting or the halfpipe of snowboarding.

However, even in the biggest bull markets, there are always a few stocks that fail, so I began to contemplate what in sports is bucking the trend and losing out.

Click the audio to hear Frank Deford's commentary.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Frank Deford died on Sunday, May 28, at his home in Florida. Remembrances of Frank's life and work can be found in All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and on NPR.org.