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Errors Cast Doubt on Matt McCarthy’s Baseball Memoir

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by YankeeFan, Mar 2, 2009.

  1. The
    The thing that raises a red flag with me is the guy claims to have taken notes during his stint.
    if you took notes, how the hell can you screw up some of the info? Like who you got drunk with? Or which - if any player - made fun of disabled kids?
    What kind of notes did this guy take?
     
  2. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    If McCarthy got really, really, really drunk, he might have misremembered the guy by the time he wrote his notes. On a cocktail napkin, no doubt.
     
  3. Cousin Jeffrey

    Cousin Jeffrey Active Member

    Actually I think note-taking could've gotten him into some of this mistakes, esp with the dates. you could write about stuff that happened in June in july, then when you go over these notes four years later, you think the stuff happened in July. Or you take situations you gloss over in your notes and try to re-create them later. I don't think he said his journal was specifically aimed at writing a book six years later.
     
  4. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    Although I'll admit to being disappointed here because I enjoyed the SI excerpt very much -- and because I hate James Frey with a passion of 1,000 white hot suns -- some of the stuff his ex-teammates are complaining about (since they're being portrayed as jerks, hicks, racists, roiders and d-bags) sounds like sour grapes.

    I played football in college. Teammates said a lot of racist shit. They made fun of disabled kids. They treated women like shit, cheated on tests, stole and lied, had sex on the 50 yard-line of our field, drove drunk and crashed their cars, attempted suicide, smoked a ridiculous amount of weed and then dodged drug tests, used steroids, and one dude even broke a fucking pool cue over the head of another teammate he didn't like.

    In retrospect, I wish I had taken notes to write a book about it. Had such a tome been published, I'm certain a ton of it would have been denied, no matter how true.
     
  5. Some Guy

    Some Guy Active Member

    That's what he gets for buying his memoirs from Cosmo Kramer ...
     
  6. budcrew08

    budcrew08 Active Member

    And now MORE people will buy his book because the guy got a story in the NYT. They'll want to see exactly what this guy wrote.
     
  7. Cousin Jeffrey

    Cousin Jeffrey Active Member

    "The very pants I was returning. That's perfect irony!"
     
  8. Beaker

    Beaker Active Member

    And I'm guessing more people mentioned in the book will now start to come out of the woodwork to pile on--"my stories are false too," regardless of whether or not they're true.
     
  9. Editude

    Editude Active Member

    Eyewitness testimony is not that reliable, so we shouldn't be surprised that details are botched six years after something happens (or doesn't). People remember what they want to remember and what they want it to represent. I guess memoirs are tapping into that sense of embellishment.
     
  10. broadway joe

    broadway joe Guest

    Too many discrepancies in this book to just chalk it all up to faulty memory, though. It's pretty clear that there was some intentional dishonesty here.
     
  11. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Having lived in Orem and worked for the Owlz (which is the renamed Provo Angels club), the behavior described wouldn't surprise me.

    I'm also wondering if Kotch flatly denied any of his supposed actions taking place or that he didn't order a pitcher to bean a player on that date.
     
  12. 21

    21 Well-Known Member

    It's one thing to sit around with your pals throwing out crazy memories and forgetting the details. Quite another to take money to write an actual book, calling it a memoir based on detailed journals, and warranting that it's true.

    Six years isn't that long. People write memoirs based on decades of life, and aren't cited for this many errors.

    I agree that everyone in the book can now bluster, 'Honey, it wasn't me, I swear! The guy made a million mistakes, look!' But what gets me is the 13 page letter the manager sent to the publisher before publication, listing all the mistakes, and was told the discrepancies were minor.
     
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