Tom Friend on William Perry

Tom Friend is a good writer and this is a good story but it's an old story. Many have known about Perry's problem and written about it. Again, it's not a knock by any means against TF, but the story doesn't shed anything new.

 

It's an update, by a guy who knows what he's doing. I'll take it.

 

Ben, it's not an update. There is no new information in the story. Well written, yes. Updated information, no.

 

Links please, indicating that all the people who spoke to Friend have also said what they said to him elsewhere and all the information he reported on has been revealed elsewhere.

 

http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2010/06/21/1008225?sac=Sports
http://www.thestate.com/2009/04/21/758361/william-the-fridge-perry-hospitalized.html

 

Friend is on a roll.

Have enjoyed his stuff since the Alexandra Stevenson/Dr. J piece in BASW five or six years ago.

 

TF has always been a good story teller, long before the Stevenson/Dr. J piece.

 

I have no doubt that's true. That is simply the first time I noticed him. That's on me, not him.

 

How dare Friend think that he could expand on the five paragraphs in the Fayetteville story!!! Or the 10 inches of the State article!!!!

If ESPN.com really wanted to do its readers a service, it would have simply provided links to those two stories, and sent Friend elsewhere. Thanks for posting, Drip!

 

Friend also wrote the excellent Eric Show piece a few months ago, which was similarly straightforward and maudlin-free.

This is a terrible disease. Joseph Heller and Andy Griffith also sufferers.

 

The story has been in the Chicago papers too.

 

Drip, do you seriously believe the depth and health implications of Perry's alcohol use has been covered elsewhere? If so, you're reaing different articles than the ones you linked to. One of those articles even mentioned the extreme weight loss as a good thing, where Friend's article makes it clear that the opposite is true.