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Jeff Pearlman, former SI writer/journalist, has a tiktok account where he's been telling stories of his time coving sports for SI. He has some great stories and some line up with what we knew or felt a the time, but it's nice to hear his context added.
He said the worst athlete he covered was Barry Bonds. I guess when he signed with the Giants SI decided to do a story on him and assigned it to Pearlman. They rented one of the city's cable cars and wanted to do a cover shoot with it. Bonds agreed and then no showed multiple days. It cost SI a couple hundred grand altogether and Bonds just shrugged his shoulders and didn't address it when asked.
Albert Belle was the scariest player he ever covered. He said Belle would just stare at you if approached his locker and asked a question. Then if you still lingered or tried to ask again he'd just say "get the fuck away from locker".
He has a couple of Bo stories were about his speed. He said at his first camp with the Raider Tom Flores had guys running 40s and, in pads, Bo ran a 4.19 on his first attempt. Flores had them remeasure the distance and had Bo run again, the 2nd time he ran a 4.17.
He said John Rocker was certifiably crazy. I guess Rocker was driving them somewhere while he was doing his first piece on Rocker and I guess Rocker bitched about Asian drivers, flipped off and hung his head out the window to yell fuck you to another driver, and hocked a loogie on a toll booth.
He did say Sean Casey was hands down the nicest player he ever met. Knew the kids names of Reds beat writers, would speak to each individually the first day of spring training, and invited all Reds beat writers to his wedding.
Way too many fun or interesting stories to cover here. Some steroid era stuff, stories about how nice Shaq genuinely is, and what it's like as a young baseball writer peeing next to Vin Skully.
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