QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I'd write a story, and in the back of my mind know the guy I'm highlighting is either cheating the game with steroids or cheating on his wife with a Hooter's waitress. Or he was simply a compassion-deprived moron. I longed for the way it used to be - when the compassion-deprived morons who cheated on their wives with Hooter's waitresses weren't using steroids.” – Former Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jeff Pearlman, who has a written a book about the 1986 Mets called “The Bad Guys Won,” which you can buy here.
Jeff, who I met awhile back and was kind enough to link here from his book’s website, wrote for SI for six years and was the author of 1999’s infamous “John Rocker on the 7 train” piece that did its part in helping the rest of the country to finally come around and start hating the Atlanta Braves. Pearlman left SI for Newsday a year ago but is now making his triumphant return to baseball writing with a tribute to the favorite team of his childhood. The book’s not likely to be a big hit among Red Sox fans, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.
Actually, I hope someday to write a similar treatment of the championship ballclubs of my childhood, the ’87/’91 Twins, in which I will include such “warts and all” items as Kirby Puckett’s infidelities, Kent Hrbek’s gluttony, Jack Morris’ midseason divorce, the Joe Niekro emery board incident, the famous Dan Gladden/Steve Lombardozzi lawn brawl, and (of course) a whole photo gallery of memorable Twins mullets.