Winners Will Be Winners
October 4, 2008
Boys Will be Boys,
the Glory Days and Party Nights
of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty,
by Jeff Pearlman
Harpers, 416 pages
Major entertainment media, from the movie industry to pro sports, have always worked to protect the images of their stars, usually by controlling media coverage of these assets.
The movie industry accomplished this during its classical period by controlling its press. All the major fan magazines of the time, like Photoplay, were published by the studios themselves. Control disappeared in the ’50s with the appearance of magazines like Confidential, a forefunner to The National Enquirer, which traded in gossip and scandal.
In the sports world, secrets were willingly kept by the sports press, who was allowed near total access in return for its silence. A sportswriter often played wingman to the stars he covered. Take the example of Fred Leib, whose Baseball as I Have Known It contains lurid stories about Babe Ruth’s sex life. Leib waited until the mid-’70s, nearly 30 years after Ruth’s death, to commit his stories in print.
It took a former player, Jim Bouton, to push the private side of baseball into the spotlight. His Ball Four, published in 1970, exposed major leaguers as pill-popping, womanizing ruffians. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn attempted to discredit the book, demanding that Bouton sign a statement declaring his book a piece of fiction. Bouton refused, and helped redefine the sports publishing industry. Every year now, a new crop of star exposes and insider views of winning and losing team seasons hits the shelves.
Modern fans have embraced the voyeurism we associate with Hollywood. The two worlds have blurred more in recent years, to the point where Sports Illustrated now has a feature on sports and pop culture.
This would seemingly make Jeff Pearlman’s Boys Will be Boys an easy sell. Pearlman chronicles the wild times of the ’90s Jerry/Jimmy/Barry Cowboys, from the J.J.’s infamous dinner at Mia’s the night before Tom Landry was fired to Michael Irvin’s assault on Everett McIver. To a football fandom accustomed to stories of steroids, hookers, guns, and police blotters, those Cowboys still managed to stand apart. They won bigger, partied harder and ultimately fell more loudly than their peers.
Pearlman, however, had to consider a Cowboys fan culture possibly hostile to muckraking. The Cowboys have always directed their press better than other clubs. The Dallas Cowboys Weekly is the closest thing we have to an old ’40s-style Hollywood fan magazine, filled with glossy photos and profiles of players and cheerleaders alike. When former WR Pete Gent wrote North Dallas Forty, his account of the late ’60s Cowboys’ exploits, he, unlike Bouton, presented it as a piece of fiction. Older Cowboys fans were raised on the catechism that their team was more popular, more creative and more righteous than others. Anybody who read the papers regularly knew better, but the P.R. triumphed more often than not.
Times apparently have changed. Pearlman told BSR in a chat yesterday that almost all of the ‘90 players were cooperative. When asked why they would so readily surrender embarrassing stories, he said,
“I’d say it’s because they look back at those times not as humiliating, but joyful. It’s akin to reliving your fraternity days from college. At age 36, 37, 38 - one would rarely chug beer from a lamp shaped like Elvis’ ass. But it’s funny to look back and think about…”
Pearlman also said he was pleasantly surprised by the Cowboys Nation’s response, as he has not yet received any criticism for exposing their heroes. “I think fans knew that the team was wild, misbehaved, etc., so it’s not all that shocking.”
It seems the fans can’t get enough of the inside story; Boys Will Be Boys currents sits at #9 on the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction. Readers won’t be disappointed. Pearlman delivers generous shovelfuls of dirt on everybody from Charles Haley to transient Cowboys like special teams ace Joe Fishback. He consistently goes beyond the familiar, adding new information to nearly every part of Cowboys story.
If the book were only about the parties and the women, however, it would be nothing more than an extended, hardcover edition of the Enquirer. Boys Will Be Boys aims for comprehensiveness, and Pearlman delivers. He shows not only the big libidos but the big egos, the big brains, the big ambitions and the incredible skills that made Dallas a three-time champion. When you read his sections on Jimmy Johnson, you see an unrepentant tyrant at work. You also understand that a softer touch might not have gotten this team to the top.
Vince Lombardi used to say you have to be willing to pay the price for success. Pearlman shows how high that price was, and how willing those players were to pay it. The off-field stuff, in the organizations’ collective mind, was their due. By fleshing out the Cowboys’ story, in both the literal and figurative senses, Pearlman brings a freshness to the tale, giving the reader the impression they are reliving the glory all over again — for the first time.
Blue and Silver Book Club: Boys Will Be Boys
October 1, 2008
Jeff Pearlman, the author of the newly-released Boys Will be Boys, The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty, will join us for a chat this Friday at noon, Eastern time, 11 am Central. Bring your questions about the ’90s Cowboys, the present Cowboys and how Pearlman got players from a recent football dynasty to come clean about their teammates, their coaches, their owner, and themselves.
Here’s a Q&A Pearlman held with the New York Times two weeks ago to whet your appetite.
-
"The Sports Doctors"
iTunes/
Winamp
Windows
Media
RealOne -
Cowboy Up
Dedicated to providing the best Cowboys analysis anywhere, our efforts are free of charge but not free of expense. Your kind donation today will keep our drive alive.
Thank you
Or mail payment to:
RV2 Enterprises
P.O. Box 150093
Austin TX 78715-0093
Advertisers
-
Fave it!
-
SiteMeter
Burst Media
