People love tell all books.  Maybe it's the gossip that's created or maybe it's learning about the whole story that is finally presented; either way everyone seems to love them and everyone seems to write one.  With in the past couple of days we had tell all books released by ex-tennis superstar Andre Agassi and convicted felon/ex-NBA referee Tim Donaghy.  The gist of Agassi's book was that he hates his dad and that when he was doing bad he did some drugs.  Thankfully he told us about his drug problem.  I always wondered how any man could find Steffi Graf attractive..  Tim Donaghy on the other hand wrote his book all about scandals in the NBA.  He detailed about different referees having vendettas against players and how the referees would have small wagers about calling technicals on certain players.  Basically his book is all about how he shouldn't be vilified because other referees weren't perfect either.  Of course the difference is that he was gambling on NBA games, including ones he reffed and other referees were just biased for one reason or another.  The point of these books are to grab readers attention and get them to buy the book.  Unfortunately usually the only attention grabber is the excerpt that comes out and the book is worthless.  My problem isn't with the material in the book or the reasons someone wrote the book; no, my problem is that I just don't care  about what they're saying.

Very rarely do I care if an athlete is a good person or bad person.  I think we as fans get caught up in the media's perception of some players and change our opinion of that athlete based on how they're portrayed.  Take someone like Terrell Owens.  The media portrays him as a team cancer; the bad apple that will spoil the whole bunch.  Has this guy ever done anything that harmed society?  Ever been to jail or done anything criminally? No, but we still think of him as the worst guy in the NFL.  There's other players we've seen who have called out their teammates or showed their emotions on the sidelines and they are deemed great competitors; players that just want to win and will do anything to do so.  The point really isn't if TO is a good guy or bad guy.  It's about that as fans we have no middle ground of just thinking of them as athletes instead we have to know everything about them.  I'm sure most people have had moments where they saw an E:60 special, saw a community service being done by an athlete, even watched Hard Knocks and they thought to themselves, hey, that player isn't so bad after all.  If we can change our minds in an instance than maybe we aren't the right people to be deeming someone's characteristics based on their portrayal.

So to sum it all up, I'm sick of tell all books.  Thanks for playing, but retire and leave.  I don't need to hear about your drug problem or this and that about your life.  I don't need to know which referee doesn't like Allen Iverson and which referee always favors Kobe Bryant.  I don't need to know any of these things because by knowing them my opinion is changed too easily and the only opinion I should care about is how you do on the field, court, or rink; not what you do in your spare time.

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