Jeff Pearlman on Walter Payton

All of this talk about "you have to tell the truth" begs the question of who wants that truth told.

Jeff Pearlman = Kitty Kelley.

 

LTL, I don't get what you're so pissed. Are you having trouble looking at your Walter Payton journey the same way? Don't people write biographies of dead people all the time? And don't those biographies often contain stuff that the subject might not have liked?

 

Also, to Starman's point, sometimes the famous subject has to die before those who knew him/her will talk. Pretty common occurrence, I think.

 

Walter Payton was considered a God in Chicago during his playing days on bad and then legendary Bears teams. But his life off the field, at least some of which is now part of Pearlman's book, was pretty much common knowledge in and around Chicago.

I read the outrage of people who disagree with Pearlman including it in the book, but for many who followed the Bears during Payton's glory days - especially when he was a "married" man - this isn't exactly groundbreaking stuff.

 

Guralnick's Elvis books were awesome.

 

Doesn't Kitty Kelley use a lot of unnamed sources?

There is a difference between a definitive biography and a gossippy Kitty Kelley celebrity biography.

 

I'm not a Payton fan (not particularly anyway, although I always liked watching him play and he seemed good to fans). Not a Bonds fan or a Clemens fan either, for that matter. But the same guy is making a cottage industry out of showing us that athletes are bad people. Any of those books might make for an interesting read to someone. Again, I think it reflects on Pearlman's character and the way he views the world. Just the Kitty Kelley or Joe McGinniss of sports.

 

I never dreamed that on a board for journalists, people would have this reaction to what promises to be an illuminating biography of a protected athlete.

Read Pearlman's blog. He admires Payton a great deal. He admires him even more because he knows he's human. Like all of us.

 

Have you read his books?

 

Enough to know I don't care to read any more.

 

Haven't read the excerpt yet, but that's the sense I get from his blog & twitter posts as well.

Jeff's registered here, maybe he'll drop in.

It would be great if he did a scheduled chat here.

 

So the answer is no?