Remembering The Long-Dead "The National"

Old-time media people might remember the short-lived "The National," a daily national sports newspaper founded by Frank Deford and featuring a lot of names you probably didn't know in the early '90s but certainly do now (Chris Mortensen, Keith Olbermann, Scott Ostler). As romantic as the idea of a daily intelligent, well-written newspaper was, it was destined to fail; they insisted on local editions — using their "breakthrough electronic technology" — and were launching just around the time the Interwebs (and, even more so, ESPN) were going to make them irrelevant. We know a few people who worked here, though, and they all speak of it in dreamy terms, like it was this Elysian paradise denied them by the cruel capitalist system.

Anyway, here's an old promotional video for the newspaper, hosted by Deford and featuring — and we swear to God they said this — "the sassy Mike Lupica."

The National [Wikipedia]

(CORRECTION: Keith Olbermann never worked for The National. Our apologies.)