It's Sort Of Weird To Realize That If You Were Raped, It Would Just Be Rape, And Not "Molestation"

 Eben recently turned me on to Jeff Pearlman, a former SI writer who's got a blog. Good writing, he said. It's right up your alley; trust me, you'll like it.*

Eben's not often wrong about these things. He turned me on to Anonymous Lawyer back when it was still funny/published; he gave me a copy of Confederacy of Dunces; he harped on The Wire relentlessly. He does still watch 24, but nobody's perfect.

It's possible that Pearlman's, coincidentally, had a rough streak during the time I've consumed his posts. He's not been publishing for all that long, either, so maybe he's just adjusting to the format. This week's posts, though, have not been good. And by "not been good," I mean "been not good."

In part, I think it's because he's focused on steroids, and sportswriters, like other media figures/humans, tend to be at their worst when talking about morality. For one, it's hard not to step back and be like "IT'S A FUCKING GAME," when reading for the umpteenth time about how 'roiders have dishonored everything it means to be an Athlete, an American, and a Human. I'm less susceptible than some (Tom) to this, because I actually do like and care about sports, and think that on balance they serve a positive function in society. For two, sportswriters are rarely the sharpest tools in the shed. The sharper ones interested in writing for a living are waxing idiotic about morality in the context of Israel-Palestine, or stupidly advocating ever-more-expensive military purchases, or being Jim Fallows (he's the bomb).

Here are some choice bits from a recent post:

When I was a kid, my dream was to dig a tunnel in my backyard and wind up in Disney World. [You were a retarded kid. You also dreamt small.] I really thought I could do it, too. [Really, retarded.]I’d get Gary Miller and Dennis Gargano and John Ballerini to come over with their shovels, and we’d dig and dig and dig until reaching the Magic Kingdom. Boy, that would have kicked butt. [?]

[Covering sports i]s a fantastic way to make a living, and I count my blessings quite often. But there’s something about this widespread cheating (and it is, undeniably, cheating) that drives me to drink. [What about all the other cheating that took place over the years? That didn't bother you? Have you ever written an article blasting spitballers? Excoriating Kenny Rogers, who cheated IN THE WORLD SERIES? Calling for Gaylord Perry's ouster from the Hall of Fame?] In my six years of covering major league baseball for Sports Illustrated, I was led to believe I was seeing a lot of amazing things. Faster-than-ever fastballs; deeper-than-ever homers; arms that acted as cannons, and jumps that rivaled Mike Powell’s best. In hindsight, however, I’ve learned that much of it was fiction. [You are retarded. Your job was to cover this game; this massive, massively-obvious conspiracy was taking place in this game; you did not suspect anything; I should hate the perpetrators of the conspiracy for fooling you???] I was, in a sense, covering the WWF. [You were also, in a sense, covering women's basketball. What the fuck, in a sense, does this sentence mean? Does it mean the outcome of games was scripted? The announcing crews were better? That this is a misleading and/or irrelevant comparison? Right.] Why does this bother me? Because I have always been a lover of baseball’s history; of the very idea that Mickey Mantle and Bernie Williams stood in the exact same spot; that Rickey Henderson’s stolen bases, Lou Brock’s stolen bases and Ty Cobb’s stolen bases can be measured on the same chart. [Someone should teach him about controlling for eras and parks, such that these things can actually_be_compared.]

Yes, things have changed over the years: Stadium sizes, ball textures, integration, internationalism. But baseball is baseball is baseball is baseball. [Someone has apparently taught him about such things, though obviously only superficially, as we see with the "baseball is..." sentence.]

Hence, to see someone like Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez come along and show such blatant disrespect for the history of the game, well, it infuriates me. [Hard to see how you get a "Hence Q" from "P is P is P is P."] I’ve written this before, but if you’re Barry Bonds, how do you possibly justify breaking Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record while loaded with steroids and HGH? You know the man faced bitter racism in his pursuit; know he received death threats on more than one occasion. So how do you cheat? [With a syringe and a guillable press corps.] How? Or, in a similar case, you’re Mark McGwire. You’ve been juicing regularly, and when you pass Roger Maris’ single-season mark you rub your bat against his and begin to cry. How? How? Roger Maris’ 1961 was, from an individual standpoint, a nightmare. The media rooted against him; he began losing his hair and chain smoking. It was pure hell—and you come along, cheat and claim the title as your own? How? [Well to be fair, the pitchers were cheating too.]

So, yes, I am self-righteous, and I need to move on, and my high horse is on stilts by now. But I just can’t shed this anger. I probably need to, but I can’t. Not yet anyhow.

That’s my sincere explanation.

Thanks. [You ever cheat on anything in your life, Jeffy boy? Yes? Good, go kill yourself.]

I wrote this giant blog post, then realized that someone else said basically the same thing, only much more pithily.

*Eben wishes it noted that since his recommendation (he called Pearlman "must read") he has not read a single Perlman post. Did he level me?