Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero Review

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Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero ReviewIf he's not more careful, Jeff Pearlman's going to get a reputation as the Kitty Kelley of baseball. First, the John Rocker interview in "Sports Illustrated". Next, "The Bad Guys Won!" -- a book about the hard-drinkin', coke-snortin' '86 Mets. Now, Barry Bonds is revealed in all his misanthropic, beef 'roid injectin' misery.
I'm not sure if "Love Me, Hate Me" began life as an impartial look at how Bonds' stellar on-field accomplishments redeemed his tumultuous personal life. Somehow, I doubt it. I suspect it was always intended to be a sarcastic look at how one of the most physically talented ballplayers of the last quarter-century managed to trash his public reputation and make exactly zero friends along the way.
Pearlman knows his baseball, and chooses his comparisons with great precision. His writing is crisp and lively, his point never in doubt. For example, he describes Bonds' infamous late-season and playoff slumps by comparison to late 1970s utility infielders -- the kind of references that only a guy in his mid 30s who grew up with shoeboxes full of Topps baseball cards could come up with: Bonds is described, during his slumps, as being: "... as useful to baseball as an autographed Otto Velez jersey". And: "In April and May, he was Willie Mays; in September, he was Tom Veryzer". This book is probably going to drive the average sabermetrician crazy.
In order to get away with a book like this, the author has to do two things right. He has to get his game accounts perfect. How many baseball bios have been trashed by a lack of research into game details? Ken Kaiser's biography, Andre Dawson's biography, Jose Canseco's love letter to steroids, to name three other baseball books I've reviewed. A look at RetroSheet, however, shows that Pearlman gets it right. He did his research, he watched the key games. That should be a given for any book, but it's not, so he gets points.
The other thing the author has to get right is to check his sources. How do we know that the stories in this book aren't bogus? When you interview 500 people, many of whom knew Bonds only in passing, you're likely to get some suspect information, or anecdotes altered by conscious or unconscious bias. Of course, story after story about how poorly Bonds treated teammates and neighbors is balanced by other stories about his generosity and heart, so not every interviewee is out to get Bonds. The chapter notes also detail hundreds of primary sources -- mostly contemporary newspaper game accounts or the musings of sports columnists (many of which, such as the paeans to Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998, look painfully naive in retrospect).
"Love Me, Hate Me" is hardly neutral or impartial. However, it has the ring of authenticity, and is written in the same breezy, in-your-face style that made "The Bad Guys Won!" a blast. It's unfortunate that, as of today, there are about 5700 other books that are outselling this one on Amazon. Love this book or hate this book, you should not avoid this book.Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero Overview
No player in the history of baseball has left such an indelible mark on the game as San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds. In his twenty-year career, Bonds has amassed an unprecedented seven MVP awards, eight Gold Gloves, and more than seven hundred home runs, an impressive assortment of feats that has earned him consideration as one of the greatest players the game has ever seen. Equally deserved, however, is his reputation as an insufferable braggart, whose mythical home runs are rivaled only by his legendary ego. From his staggering ability and fabled pedigree (father Bobby played outfield for the Giants; cousin Reggie Jackson and godfather Willie Mays are both Hall of Famers) to his well-documented run-ins with teammates and the persistent allegations of steroid use, Bonds inspires a like amount of passion from both sides of the fence. For many, Bonds belongs beside Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron in baseball's holy trinity; for others, he embodies all that is wrong with the modern athlete: aloof; arrogant; alienated.

In Love Me, Hate Me, author Jeff Pearlman offers a searing and insightful look into one of the most divisive athletes of our time. Drawing on more than five hundred interviews -- with former and current teammates, opponents, managers, trainers, friends, and outspoken critics and unapologetic supporters alike -- Pearlman reveals, for the first time, a wonderfully nuanced portrait of a prodigiously talented and immensely flawed American icon whose controversial run at baseball immortality forever changed the way we look at our sports heroes.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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