Sammy Sofa

No need to be obtuse. He was obviously taking a shot at the embracing of baseball statistics by the mainstream, which was (whether anyone will admit it in an argument or not) a product of MoneyBall's shockwave in baseball culture. He did this by telling the reporter he's not a MoneyBall fan because something something multiply it by [expletive]. Then he was indeed just sounding like an idiot.

I'm still curious as to what "rise" you think he's mocking so well. And your posts aren't invisible, unfortunately.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-spt-1006-rogers-cubs-chicago--20111006,0,1987711.column Holy crap it's Laura. With awesome news, too.

Slow down. Or give me your time machine. Probably both.

Soooooo...do you agree with him? And why is this being posted in this thread?

What is he mocking?

They don't necessarily drag down his legacy.

The Cubs need more RBI's and less Arby's nights. *Steps on a landmine*

Holy [expletive], that man is so [expletive] drunk.

Oh my God, that was so obscure. How did I never hear about that?

And even then he was still shooting for the stars.

That was very enormous of you to admit.

[expletive] YOU, COMPUTERS!

Yup.

I'm dying to read this now.

Yes, which is why I found the quotes funny. Really? NOTHING? The entire book is only things we all already knew about Payton and just the drug use and affairs? Man, I wish you had loaned me that advance copy you got. It's probably hard to believe because I never said the bold part. Some are. ALL good and great biographies are warts and all towards their subjects. One niche where you tend to get some good ones is when writers take on a legend, good or bad, and turn that legend into a person. It tends to make their strengths and successes even more admirable when contrasted with their struggles and failings.

Yes, different types of people have different biographies written about them.

At this point I have to think you are playing dumb. They are talking about a person who they felt very strongly about who died. In depth biographies are generally written about much bigger personas than Walter Payton. And most of his friends are all alive, so they are going to defend him. Defending him is great. I never said anywhere they shouldn't. I was getting a kick out of them seemingly having no clue how biographies typically "work." And your idea of who biographies "should" be written about is incredibly narrowminded and subjective. Some of the best bios are written about people that most of us had no clue even existed until the book showed up. Much more meaningful people who we didn't know. But that's the point of a biography, to inform. We already know most everything about Payton, and the fact that he was a professional athlete pretty much confirmed he was probably a bit of philanderer. The only thing this would serve at this point is to confirm that he did do drugs and have a marriage collapse. I would be shocked if less than 95% of pro athletes didn't cheat and do drugs. I don't see the point in biographies about them unless there's more interesting stuff to discuss and/or reveal. The thing about Payton is you tend to have more disparity between those kinds of activities and the public persona he had (which, in the grand scheme of things, was still pretty aloof and made him an enigma, both with the public but even often with his own coaches and teammates. I don't know about you, but I really don't feel I know much about the guy even after having read NDE; most of it just felt like an expanded bio sheet). That disparity seems to imply that there's a pretty complex person at the heart of this, especially given the psychological turmoil seemingly behind much of that as opposed to the usual "WOOOOOOOOOH, I'M FAMOUS AND I'M GONNA GET HIGH AND I'M GONNA [expletive] EVERYTHING THAT MOVES!!!" motives. Compound that even further with his tragic death and it seems to have the making of a very interesting and tumultuous story. Now, I could easily be wrong with those assumptions and it turns out Payton was just a typical boring jock who unfortunately got cancer and died young. I guess we'll have to see.

At this point I have to think you are playing dumb. They are talking about a person who they felt very strongly about who died. In depth biographies are generally written about much bigger personas than Walter Payton. And most of his friends are all alive, so they are going to defend him. Payton was easily big enough to warrant a doorstop biography being written about him. It's not like he's Churchill or Kissinger where you could fill a bookstore with books written about him but he's certainly merits at least one. Practically anyone "merits" a biography if it's well researched and written. That's kind of the beauty of the genre when it's well done.

I wasn't criticizing them for being mad. They can be as mad as they want and trash this all they want. I just think it's funny that they seem to think that biographies should be written when the subject is still alive, or like there's some kind of timeframe as to when a biography should be written. Ditka seems to think there's something "cowardly" about writing a biography about someone after they've died, and I find that amusing.

At this point I have to think you are playing dumb. They are talking about a person who they felt very strongly about who died. In depth biographies are generally written about much bigger personas than Walter Payton. And most of his friends are all alive, so they are going to defend him. Defending him is great. I never said anywhere they shouldn't. I was getting a kick out of them seemingly having no clue how biographies typically "work." And your idea of who biographies "should" be written about is incredibly narrowminded and subjective. Some of the best bios are written about people that most of us had no clue even existed until the book showed up.

I'm sure you are correct, but I think the emotional reaction is completely understandable. They knew and really cared about him. Emotional and rational thinking aren't mutually exclusive. Granted, yes, we're talking about football players here, but still, I'd figure even they could be mad about something without saying stupid things.

NDE is an autobiography. There's always room for a biography to contrast what a famous figure has to say about themselves.

Exactly.