The Mariotti Rules

Nothing improves a good book more than reading it. Sometime last week, Jay Mariotti halted his cascade of white-hot prose on The Jordan Rules long enough to pick it up. Then he learned what only turning pages could tell him: it’s a carefully researched, closely observed portrait of the Bulls during the season they came to be the world’s best basketball team. Far from being the scandal-roiling screed that Mariotti announced on November 11 “might become one of the most damaging books ever written about a sports team,” it told the Bulls nothing about themselves they didn’t already know.

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Simon & Schuster, the publisher, hadn’t shipped out galleys or review copies in advance. But excerpts were in the hands of the publisher’s sales reps, as well as editors at the Tribune and Sports Illustrated; Mariotti probably saw them, even if he seems to have guessed wrong on one important point. Smith wrote very little about the Bulls after hours.

“I think he’s a pretty good reporter,” Smith told us. But “some of the stuff [in the November 11 column] wasn’t true. Let me get it exactly here–this was the toughest part for me. I’d told the players, ‘I’m not going to write about your private lives.’ He’d said, ‘Contrary to popular rumor surrounding the book’–I wasn’t aware of any such rumors–‘there is not a shred of material about family-man Jordan and womanizing.’ So he throws that out there and denies it. ‘The same can’t be said for reformed ladies’ men Grant and Scottie Pippen, whose nocturnal adventures are chronicled, along with those of other players. Rich young men will be rich young men. The NBA life-style is duly noted.’

Smith wrote, “The Bulls were not surprised. The league couldn’t want another Bulls sweep. It was too costly. The league had a TV contract with NBC to honor and ticket revenues to consider for owners like Philadelphia’s Harold Katz, whose team didn’t regularly draw sellouts.”

Mark Bryant had a problem with his magazine, although he didn’t know it. Bryant is the editor of Outside magazine, published in Chicago. The problem, as it so often is these days, was disrespect.

She continued, “I don’t really mind when people make fun of llamas, because llamas are fun. They’re almost a caricature of an animal. What I mind is when their attributes are not honestly portrayed.”