Derby women take a leap during the sport's first heyday in the 1950s, when it was a TV staple.

In addition to a million other things he’s done in his amazing career, the legendary journalist Frank Deford was a pioneering writer about roller derby. I’ve seen Five Strides on the Banked Track, his out-of-print book about the roller sport for sale online for anywhere from $55 to $700. That volume grew out of a 1969 Sports Illustrated article of the same name. Deford was fully aware of the feminist appeal of the pseudo-sport and its then-greatest star Ann Calvello, whom he profiled. An excerpt from the article about Calvello:

“‘The one time I really got hurt was in Honolulu. I was fighting this girl, and she must have gotten me with her fingernail. I didn’t even know it was my eye till all this blood came pouring out, so right away—this one time—I went to the doctor at the hospital, because eyes are the one thing I don’t want to fool around with. Well, the doctor took one look at me, with the blue hair, the blue lipstick, the red blood pouring out of my eye, the green-and-gold uniform, and he had to figure I was straight into Honolulu from outer space.’

Frank Deford was the editor of the short-lived, much-lamented sports daily, "The National." (Image by Bridgeport Public Library.)

Little escapes Calvello. The acid comment she spills forth is the product of her wit and is not related to the meanness that she exhibits on the track. She is certainly a leader by any standard, astrological or otherwise. As soon as she reaches the bar with her silver chalice she is in charge. She directs the conversation, sometimes two conversations at a time—the one she is dominating and the adjoining one that she overhears. She distributes nicknames to everybody. She outlaws shoptalk. ‘No skating talk while drinking’ is the first Calvello law.

While she is hardly just another pretty face, Calvello is still slim and attractively winsome after 20 years on the tour. She dresses exceptionally well and is able to get away with wearing youthful clothes that most women her age would be afraid of. Divorced many years ago from a former Derby referee, Ann also likes her men young. On the tour, in the company of Eddie Krebs, a wistful, temperamental Leo himself, Ann sparkled, particularly when the other skaters kidded Krebs that he was starting to look 40 and Calvello 20. Krebs, slim to start with, had lost almost 40 pounds on the tour. With his handsome, chiseled face, long page-boy hair and a haunting high-pitched giggle, he and the blue-haired, hoarse-throated Calvello made a couple that seemed straight out of an avant-garde French movie. It was the only tour romance.”