Jeff Pearlman 07:20
There you go. There you go. Exactly that. And like, I still, when I like, if I need to remember a number. Right. If I need to, let’s say there’s some code and it’s like 16, 28. Well, I always think like. All right. Dwight Gooden was a star pitcher with the Mets, number 16. Curtis Martin was a running back with the Jets 28. Like everything, I remember is based on numbers from when I was younger of uniforms and stuff.
Hal Steinberg 07:45
What info do you need to build up all that information? I know you based that one off of personal stories, but other books like Winning Time and your one off about Walter Payton. What stories and how much information, how much information do you need, and how much time does that actually take before you start writing?
Jeff Pearlman 08:08
Right. So even the Mets book is like me, it’s all about the interviews and all about the research. So a lot of what I do takes about two years. It’s basically a year and a half before I start writing and all. I do like interviews, interviews, interviews. So I’m tracking down every player, every coach, every ball boy, every cheerleader, every administrator, and fan with interesting stories. And I’m interviewing them. So, like my last book was about Bo Jackson, the former royal. And for Bo, that book, I think I interviewed 600, 700 people total, which is why I love it. It’s one of my favorite parts of it all, but it really takes a lot of time and a lot of time and a lot of digging, because what you want to do is get the stories I’ve never been told before. I don’t just want to write a book about Walter Payton until the next 12 Walter Payton stories. I want to tell unique stories. So you do that by interviewing a lot of people. So it takes a lot of time.
Hal Steinberg 09:00
And it’s not even just like when they were at the peak. Maybe it’s their best friend from growing up, or a fan that had a cool interaction with him and met him when he was at a restaurant.
Jeff Pearlman 09:09
And 100,000,000% you’re 100% correct. And like I always say, one of my philosophies is this, like Walter Payton when he was with the bears some year, when Walter Payton, maybe he was like 1982, the bears signed some free agent running back out of Delaware, and that running back from Delaware is going to be in camp with the bears for three weeks. And Walter Payton, till the day he died, would not remember that guy once he left camp. Walter Payton, never thinking about that running back from Delaware again, but that running back from Delaware is going to remember every moment he was exposed to Walter Payton. So he might remember Walter Payton buying him lunch. He might remember Walter Payton pranking on him and untying his shoelaces. Like, he’ll have a story about Walter Payton. So I really believe in calling all those people.
Hal Steinberg 09:53
And then what challenges do you have to face? Obviously, you’re going to all these places. What if one person has one story and another person has another story about the same time? What do you do there?
Jeff Pearlman 10:06
Oh, great question. Well, you try to fact-check as best you can. Right. So a lot of times you can fact check, and maybe someone says like there’s a lot of like, oh man, he ran. I remember that play. He ran five yards and then cut back and blah blah blah. And then you look it up, which doesn’t take very much these days. And you see, oh, he actually only ran for three yards. So a lot of it is research and detailing and just looking around. Sometimes you have to trust people. Sometimes it’s a matter of who’s a more reliable source, who’s inclined to exaggerate stuff like that. But generally, you can look things up for the most part.
Hal Steinberg 10:40
Yeah, that’s actually funny you say that because when I was doing a session with someone with Shea Patterson, actually, who played at Michigan. He was telling me about one of his best plays where he was like, I spin, move past three people, juke this one guy out, and I’m. And then I go on YouTube to look at the clip because he made it sound. And then he’s like, this guy made a catch in front of two people. Turns out he evaded one guy to his left, and then the other two guys collided with each other, and I’m like, yeah.
Jeff Pearlman 11:06
Well, alright. So it’s funny, like the book I just did about Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson has told this story for years. He literally just told it a few weeks ago on TV, when his daughter, he had a daughter named Morgan, and he was playing Bo Jackson, playing for the Royals, and Morgan was born. And Bo Jackson has told the story of how his wife was in labor. So he deliberately got thrown out of the game that day.
He argued strikes and balls because he wanted to get thrown out. It was against the Brewers, and he’s told the story over and over and over again. So I looked it up. Number one, he was not thrown out of any games that year. Number two, they weren’t playing the Brewers that day. They were playing the Red Sox. And number three, Bo Jackson was on the injured list. Today. His daughter was born. He couldn’t have possibly been thrown out. And that’s not to say that Shay was lying or Bo was lying. Like memory is flexible, and over time your memories just adjust and change, and morph to the time period.
Hal Steinberg 12:00
And you make those things in your brain to think that so many times. And you’re like, when someone asks you about it, you’re just like, yeah, that’s what happened. Like you don’t second, second-guess it.
Jeff Pearlman 12:10
I had a story from a book I wrote about Barry Bonds, and I told it recently, and then I looked it up, and I realized that I was telling the story entirely wrong. It wasn’t as I remembered it at all. Because memory is weird, you know? So you just do your best.
Hal Steinberg 12:25
And then obviously you are playing baseball. What are some of your coolest experiences?
Jeff Pearlman 12:31
With baseball.
Hal Steinberg 12:32
Or any sport?
Jeff Pearlman 12:33
I’ve had so many. I mean, it’s like it’s the best. Like so, from a, you know, like when I was a baseball writer at Sports Illustrated, you know, part of the cool is like, you’re sitting, especially like when you’re young. You’re like 20. I started at SC when I was 24, so I started working on the baseball beat probably when I was 25. And like, just like you, I was a kid who grew up loving baseball. And all of a sudden you’re standing at the World Series and you’re on the field before the game and you’re talking to the players and you’re talking to coaches, and you’re just looking around and you’re really like, how the hell did I get here? Like, how did this happen to me?
I was just some kid from Mahopac, New York, sitting courtside covering March Madness, covering the NCAA tournament, and just sitting courtside covering it. Or like even little things like going in the locker room after the game and talking to some guy who you really admired or really looked up to. And the thing about being a journalist, when it’s at its best, is that it just gives you all these experiences and even little ones. I’ve done stories like I did a story about these rodeo brothers, and I found for a week I rode around Oklahoma with these two guys, just living their lives, experiencing what it was like to be a rodeo guy in Oklahoma, like I once did a story. It wasn’t even a sports story.
When I was at the newspaper. It was a really cold winter in New York, and they wanted me to experience it. They wanted to fly me to the coldest place in North America during the coldest winter on record. So they flew me to Yellowknife, Canada, in the middle of nowhere, and it was -40 degrees. I’m like, on the one hand, that sucks. Who wants to be around -40 degrees? But on the other hand, it’s such a cool experience to be able to say you did it. So I mean, I have an endless buffet of just experiences that this job has given me. When I was working on the Bo Jackson story, this was during COVID. It was right toward the end. I didn’t get to travel that much, but I went to him from Bessemer, Alabama, and I went to the middle of nowhere.
It’s near Birmingham, but I went to the church where he grew up, and I attended church on Sunday, Sunday morning, mass or not mass, but church service. And like, I’m a white Jewish kid from upstate rural conservative New York. I’m sitting there at this church service. I’m the only white face there. I’m the only New Yorker there. I’m certainly the only Jewish person there. And I’m looking around, and I’m like, this is an amazing way to spend my life. Like, I’m sitting here at Bo Jackson’s childhood church, just here. I mean, I love that stuff so much.
Hal Steinberg 15:01
Oh. That’s hilarious. And then another thing, what advice would you give to, like, your 14-year-old self? Younger self?
Jeff Pearlman 15:12
I mean, I would say listen more than talk, like listen to what people say. Don’t think you know everything because you really don’t. You think you do at that age, I did, but you don’t. Although you seem like a pretty humble guy. Like I would also say like, do exactly what you’re doing, like exactly what you’re doing. Like, just because you’re 14 doesn’t mean you can’t have a podcast, doesn’t mean you can’t have a Substack, doesn’t mean you can’t have a website, doesn’t mean you can’t be active on TikTok or active on like, all these things are in your control.
So, like sitting here at 14, you can build some of the best, you know, some of the best, like Tyler Kepner, who covers MLB for The Athletic, is one of the best baseball writers in the country. When he was your age, he started his own baseball magazine. And, like, like you got interviews with people and like, that stuff matters. So sitting there at 14, a lot of people in your shoes would never have the gumption to do what you’re doing. And I just think it’s really important and really wise. So big ups to you. I would do exactly what you’re doing.
Hal Steinberg 16:12
I mean, I look at social media all the time. I’m scrolling through. One of my favorite people to watch on TikTok is, I think it’s called the Bat Boys. They got started during Covid, just going to like Double-A independent ball games and interviewing the players, and now they’ve worked their way up to the major leagues. They’re on the field before the game, interviewing Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and the like; it’s amazing.
Jeff Pearlman 16:36
It is. And beauty, like journalism, is hard now. There’s no doubt about it. Everything has become very difficult. Newspapers aren’t really what newspapers were. Magazines certainly are where magazines are. People are being laid off. But you really can control your own destiny in a lot of ways. You can set yourself up as best as possible. So if you decide you want to be in sports media, you have all this experience behind you that, when those few jobs open up, you’re an obvious choice for one of them. So again, I like your approach here.
Hal Steinberg 17:04
And then another thing, especially with what younger people can do without a platform. Do you think social media has had a positive or negative impact on sports writing? Maybe taking away some of the magazines that have now been going online?
Jeff Pearlman 17:18
I think the biggest negative is if you’re LeBron James, or just use that as an example. You’re LeBron James or you’re Steph Curry or whoever. And 15 years ago, if a writer from ESPN or C or The New York Times said, I want to do a really long piece on you. I want to write a really long profile on you. Most of the time, you or your reps would say, Oh, that’s amazing. That’s great. We would love that. Do you want to have dinner with LeBron or whatever? That’s great.
And now if you’re LeBron James, you’re like, why do I need to do that? I can control my own message. I have my own everything I can. I can put out my own documentary if I want. I can do everything. It’s me that there’s a real barrier. Now, that wasn’t there before for the media. Now, the positive side is you’re a 14-year-old kid from Illinois who wants to get involved. And like, here we are talking like, right now, literally here we are talking like you’re interviewing athletes. You’re interviewing writers, like you’re doing it all because of social media and the power of social media. So I think there’s a lot of good, there’s a lot of bad. And it just depends on how wisely you choose to harness it.
Hal Steinberg 18:29
I mean, that’s what LeBron is doing right now with him and JJ Redick. They’re going on and they’re telling all these stories like why do you need to sit down and have dinner with someone when you can go on with someone who’s probably really close friends with you and just talk, like with a friend?
Jeff Pearlman 18:46
Sure. But I think the problem is maybe this is self-serving because my job, right, is do you really get to know the people, or do you get to know what they want you to know? Like, I’ve written every book I’ve written, there have been, you know, like there are sides of the athletes or whoever I’m writing about that they don’t necessarily they wouldn’t want you to know about. But to me, these are historic figures. LeBron James is undeniably a historic sports figure in, you know, an American historic figure, and to learn from figures in history, to learn about what they’ve been through, is to learn about the hardships as much as to learn about the positives, to learn about the shortcomings as much as the greatness. And I just think, like, if we reduce everyone to these two-dimensional characterizations with no depth, it definitely limits what you’re getting.
Hal Steinberg 19:35
And that’s the same thing as what The Last Dance was: Jordan controlled it, and everybody got to see only what Jordan wanted to see. Nothing was really about what Jordan did badly. It was all Jordan was, this good guy. And you don’t really get to see if the athletes control it, what other people’s opinions are, or if that is something that they kind of altered, or they don’t want you to hear this story about another guy.
Jeff Pearlman 20:00
I agree it’s a documentary, but it’s not really a documentary.
Hal Steinberg 20:05
Because it’s just. Yeah, it’s just Michael Jordan’s story.
Jeff Pearlman 20:08
Yeah, right. I’m with you. I mean, I agree 100% if Michael Jordan, if the person being profiled has control over what is being said, it’s not really a documentary.
Hal Steinberg 20:15
It’s not really. You don’t get the full picture.
Jeff Pearlman 20:17
Correct? Correct. I’m with you.
Hal Steinberg 20:20
All right, that’s all I got.
Jeff Pearlman 20:23
That’s it. You don’t have any wacky ending questions like.
Hal Steinberg 20:27
Oh, I actually do. Wait, I will do the final 14.
Jeff Pearlman 20:31
All right. Oh really? Do you do this with your guests?
Hal Steinberg 20:33
Yeah, I do this with everybody.
Jeff Pearlman 20:34
So basically, I did you a service by reminding you on your show what you need to ask me.
Hal Steinberg 20:37
Yes. You did.
Jeff Pearlman 20:38
All right. I’m here for you. Go ahead.
Hal Steinberg 20:40
I’m. That is. I can’t believe I almost forgot. I do this with everybody. It’s like everybody loves it. They’re just goofy questions at the end.
Jeff Pearlman 20:46
I’m here for it.
Hal Steinberg 20:47
They’re rapid fire. Like 2 or 3 word answers.
Jeff Pearlman 20:50
So, how many do we have? 14.
Hal Steinberg 20:52
14 of them. Final 14.
Jeff Pearlman 20:54
Bring it.
Hal Steinberg 20:54
All right. Who was your idol?
Jeff Pearlman 20:57
My idol growing up was Ken Griffey Sr., who is Ken Griffey Jr’s dad.
Hal Steinberg 21:02
Yes.Favorite fast food place?
Jeff Pearlman 21:05
The Burger King, Impossible Whopper.
Hal Steinberg 21:07
Biggest fear.
Jeff Pearlman 21:09
The snakes.
Hal Steinberg 21:11
Favorite school subject?
Jeff Pearlman 21:13
English.
Hal Steinberg 21:14
Favorite hobby? I mean, I know you love writing, but.
Jeff Pearlman 21:21
Basketball.
Hal Steinberg 21:22
All right. Favorite influencer? Or like, someone you like to listen to on social media?
Jeff Pearlman 21:29
Oh, interesting. Heather Cox Richardson.
Hal Steinberg 21:34
Favorite gym workout?
Jeff Pearlman 21:38
StairMaster. Because I’m old.
Hal Steinberg 21:41
Favorite musician? Singer.
Jeff Pearlman 21:45
Tupac.
Hal Steinberg 21:47
Favorite TV show?
Jeff Pearlman 21:51
I mean, Winning Time was based on my book, so I’ll just say Winning Time.
Hal Steinberg 21:55
Favorite animal?
Jeff Pearlman 21:57
Giraffe.
Hal Steinberg 21:58
Biggest pet peeve?
Jeff Pearlman 22:02
People who do not put their shopping carts back after they use them and leave them for the person working there to put back.
Hal Steinberg 22:09
Is a hot dog a sandwich?
Jeff Pearlman 22:11
No. Definitely not.
Hal Steinberg 22:13
Are you a shower singer?
Jeff Pearlman 22:15
Very. A very bad one.
Hal Steinberg 22:18
And then what’s your favorite emoji?
Jeff Pearlman 22:21
Oh man, I like eggplant when people misuse it.
Hal Steinberg 22:28
All right. And winning, I mean, I saw you got the wig. That was crazy.
Jeff Pearlman 22:35
It wasn’t good. I had a skin infection. I had to go to urgent care. My head blew up. But it was a cool experience. If you ever get the chance, if you ever get the chance to have anything, you do become an HBO show. Definitely do it.
Hal Steinberg 22:48
I still can’t believe they would. I mean, that’s cool that it was. It’s based on your book, you get to play in the show, but that’s like, did you not know that? Did they not know that, or was it just?
Jeff Pearlman 23:00
They didn’t know. They just didn’t know. It happens. It’s okay.
Hal Steinberg 23:03
All right. Thank you.
Jeff Pearlman 23:07
Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Hal Steinberg 23:08
No problem.
Jeff Pearlman 23:09
Good luck to you.
Hal Steinberg 23:09
Thank you.
Jeff Pearlman 23:11
All right. Bye-bye.
