I am warming up at Rancho Park's driving range in July 2002 when the old instructor approaches. He is wearing a beige Gilligan's hat pulled down to his eyebrows and quietly observes me hitting balls off a faded green mat.
"When did you start playing?" he asks. As a teenager, I reply. "How often do you practice?" Not enough. "What is your occupation?" Investigative reporter. He pauses a moment, then gently inquires, "Do you know Frank Deford?" Of course. "Are you familiar with his work?"
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday January 24, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 60 words Type of Material: Correction
Frank Deford -- A Jan. 11 Los Angeles Times Magazine article on writer Frank Deford incorrectly stated that Deford collaborated on books with five professional tennis players. In fact, Deford wrote "Big Bill Tilden" in 1975 on his own. The article also referred to Robert Victor Sullivan as a Mississippi prep football coach. He was a junior college football coach.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday February 08, 2004 Home Edition Los Angeles Times Magazine Part I Page 8 Lat Magazine Desk 1 inches; 54 words Type of Material: Correction
The article "Picking Nits With Frank Deford" (Jan. 11) incorrectly stated that Deford collaborated on books with five professional tennis players. In fact, Deford wrote "Big Bill Tilden" in 1975 on his own. The article also referred to Robert Victor Sullivan as a Mississippi prep football coach. He was a junior college football coach.
It seems an odd question. I am there for a golf lesson and the old instructor who barely knows me first wants to chat about one of the most accomplished sportswriters in America?
Indeed, he does. In the middle of my backswing, the old instructor mentions that Deford recently referred to Serena and Venus Williams as the first sisters ever to play in the finals of a major tennis tournament.
"That's wrong!" he barks. "How is a writer with such prestige allowed to keep making errors?"
Ed Coleman, octogenarian, has been teaching golf professionally since 1949. He has a nimble, encyclopedic mind and has been a stickler for detail since the 1930s when, as a teenager, he wrote letters pointing out mistakes to the sports editor of the New York World-Telegram. These days, he takes pride in spotting a misspelled word on a movie billboard or a miscue in the Los Angeles Times.
At our next lesson, Ed informs me that he has caught other great sportswriters in the wrong, among them the late Jim Murray of The Times and Herbert Warren Wind of The New Yorker. But in Ed's view, Murray and Wind were jaywalkers compared to Deford.
"I do respect the man," Ed says. "He is a beautiful writer. But his articles lack integrity. Would it ruin his column to eliminate the exaggerations and mistakes?"
He's got my attention. I begin listening to Deford's weekly commentaries on National Public Radio every Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. My phone frequently rings minutes afterward. It's Ed on the line.
"Deford did it again!" he exclaims on the morning of Nov. 6, 2002. Ed says Deford reported that no woman had ever before played in a men's professional golf tournament. He tells me that Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias competed in the men's Los Angeles Open in 1938 and 1945.
"This is reprehensible," Ed complains. "It isn't right to gloss over the Babe's accomplishments . . . Are you getting my point? Don't I have a right to be angry?"
