Best Sports Book Ever: The Playboy Interviews - They Played the Game

Celebrities in general get treated like gods by their incredibly dedicated fans, and like our personal heroes whether or not they deserve such adulation. Nowhere does this seem to be more the case than in sports. The major pro athletes that sports commentators get all hot and bothered over get treated like the kings and queens of royalty, and they cease to be regular human beings in the eyes of the world. But no one can ever be that perfect, and their clean image can be so easily torn to shreds by the press or the fans (sometimes simultaneously), or through bad behavior and incredibly stupid choices they make out of some misguided hubris. While I certainly have my share of sports heroes in my own life (I yearn for the days of Joe Montana and Steve Young), a large part of me wants to see what is behind all this worship of them and their long line of product endorsements to see them as individuals who were once just like you and me.

That's one of the main reasons why this compilation of interviews from Playboy Magazine entitled "They Played The Game" is (so far) the best sports book I have ever read. With these interviews, we get a very vivid picture painted for us by both the interview and the athlete, and we get to look at how they grew up, and how they became the person they are today. It is an endless page turner filled with unforgettable moments and shocking revelations that stay with you long after you have finished reading, and it gives you one of the closer behind the scenes look at sports that a fan could ever hope to have.

"They Played The Game" features interviews from 17 sports superstars who have more then left their mark on the games they have played. The different arenas covered throughout are boxing, NASCAR, tennis, cycling, hockey, baseball, football, and basketball, and they include the following:

Henry (aka Hank) Aaron

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Lance Armstrong

Barry Bonds

Jim Brown

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Brett Farve

Wayne Gretzky

Allen Iverson

Derek Jeter

Michael Jordan

Billie Jean King

Joe Namath

Shaquille O'Neal

Pete Rose

O.J. Simpson

Mike Tyson

Each interview in Playboy starts with a prologue that would seem WAY too long in another magazine. But each one really captures each individual in how they grew up, and it documents their place in the world when it took place. It also gives us a descriptive biography of the sports star which helps to pull back the image that has defined him or her in the eyes of the world. It never fails to bring it to a really good starting point, and we come to feel like both people have reached a place where they are very comfortable with each other and can talk freely (it's not always the case though).

The book's first interview is with Hank Aaron (the book refers to him as Henry, but I always think of him as Hank) which was done back in May of 1974. At the time, he was on the verge of breaking the all time home run record set by Babe Ruth, and he had already become the first man (black or white) to get both 500 home runs and 3000 hits. Hearing him talk about the intense pressure he dealt with as he got closer and closer to making baseball history makes me believe that nothing (other than the technology involved) has changed in the way sports is covered in the media. But I bet that in retrospect, Hank is thrilled to have gone through it then instead of now. If it was hard then, it is unbelievably intense today.

We all know Hank did eventually break the record, and that same record was later broken by Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants. An interview with him is also featured in the book, but he never comes anywhere as likable or down to earth the way Hank does. It was really great to know more about Hank and of his place in baseball. Before this, I only knew him from that cameo he did on "Happy Days" where Richie Cunningham says:

"Hit a home run!"

Hank's ever so cool reply:

"Don't I always?"

Reading these interviews today gives one an interesting perspective dictated by their current place in the world. We are essentially looking at these players at a pivotal point in their career, and it is seen through our eyes as outstanding, commendable, and somewhat tragic in other cases. One great example of this is Brett Farve, who back then was Quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. His interview did make him seem like a really nice guy who would be at peace with himself when the time came to retire. Of course Brett, after finishing one incredible season with Green Bay, announced his retirement only to change his mind the very next day. Since then, he has gone on to play with the New York Jets and the Minnesota Vikings. Time will only tell now if he is truly past his prime.

But one of the really fascinating interviews that I read in "They Played The Game" was Lance Armstrong's. Now much has been said about his winning all those Tour De France bike races in a row on top of having beat cancer. Just as much has been said of how he has been constantly accused of using performance enhancing drugs throughout his career, and that still remains the case long after this interview took place. No one seems to be willing to believe that he won each cycling event through hardcore training and sheer determination. Robin Williams seems to have the best excuse for why Armstrong is so fast on the bike:

"He has one testicle. He's aerodynamic! Cut off your balls, you'll be quicker!"

Just hearing about how cancer spread through his body and that he was coughing up blood is enough to illustrate how serious his condition was at the time. This is not to mention the brain surgery he went under after his testicle was removed, let alone the months of aggressive chemo that left him with burns on his skin from the inside. In spite of all this, Lance rebuilt both his body and his spirit and ended up winning the 1999 Tour De France. All of this brings about one of the great sports comebacks of all time, and all of this is said to us before the interview even begins.

That's what I love about the Playboy interviews in general; they give you so much information about the subject and where he or she came from that by the time the interview starts, you feel like you know this person already. Not all the interviews are just typical opportunities for these pro athletes to stretch their individual egos and telling us how great they are. We get to see beyond that image that is sold to us on a regular basis to get the complications of each person. I imagine that at some point, all these sports stars would like to be treated like regular people, and (to a certain extent anyway) they do get that treatment from writers and journalists who are willing to ask the tough questions. For once, they can all let their guard down so that they don't have to seem so godlike in the eyes of the fans. I for one am very thankful for that.

But what is probably the big selling point of "They Played The Game" are the interviews with two of the sports world's most controversial players: Pete Rose and O.J. Simpson. The both of them get two interviews each, and one captures them at the peak of their popularity while the other looks at them after their dramatic downfall. Once again, the perspective the reader brings to this will deeply affect how they take all that is said in.

In both of his interviews, Pete Rose does not always come off as the most likable of people in spite of his place in baseball history. The interviewer in the first one goes out of her way to call him a chauvinist, and she even says that Pete believes "a woman's place is in the kitchen." Still, there is no denying that Pete Rose more than deserves his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, his gambling conviction which has forever banned him from baseball notwithstanding.

I imagine that many skip right ahead to the end of the book to read the interviews with O.J. Simpson. The first one almost made me want to cry because it shows Simpson at his best, detailing how he won the Heisman Trophy on top of all the other college awards any football player could ever hope to get. Truth is, O.J. is still one of the greatest football players that ever lived, and in December of 1976, one of the most popular. It's hard not to get a little choked up because you read this with the knowledge of what Simpson would endure much later in the "trial of the century."

O.J.'s interview in October of 2003 shows him as having gone from one of the most beloved sports figures to one its most despised. Granted, he brought just about all of that on himself, and that's regardless of whether or not you think he murdered ex-wife Nicole and Ronald Goldman. Throughout this interview, he maintains his innocence like he always does. It will not make you like O.J. anymore than you already do, but what is sad that it highlights all that he has lost. His achievements in the game of football meant a lot to African-Americans everywhere, and perhaps they still do. But from 1994 and on, those accomplishments would be erased forever by a celebrity trial that received far more attention than it ever deserved to. Forget that he was one of the NFL's all time ground gainers; to many he is just a notorious man who got away with murder. Still, O.J. only has himself to blame for the majority of that. Now, he finally ended up in jail on a different charge, and that's the sad state of his life today.

As a fan of both actors and sports stars, I find it hard and a little embarrassing to pursue these people as just another autograph seeker. If given the opportunity, I would much rather know them one-on-one and see them as a regular person instead of major star they are. I imagine many of them would really appreciate that, assuming they would ever find a way to put their trust in you. Reading this collection of interviews from Playboy entitled "They Played The Game" makes you feel like you are spending some quality time with these people in ways you would never expect to. You get to see a whole other side to them that has not been zealously manipulated by the media, and hearing them tell their side of things is endlessly fascinating. For those reasons, "They Played The Game" is my personal choice (so far) for the best sports book ever, and one I recommend very strongly.

Just a note: there are no nude pictures to be found in here (sorry). Still, I don't think it's far fetched to say that many people buy the magazine just for the interviews. Whether or not they can get their friends to fully believe that is another story.