🖊️ The fleeting satisfaction of the poisoned pen
I spent years imagining what it would feel spell out my stepfather's shortcomings for the world. I can see now it wouldn't have had the long-term effect I was hoping for.
Jeff Pearlman is a sports writer whose work I’ve followed for more than 20 years.
In 2008, he did something that I had always (quietly) dreamed about doing.
He wrote a story in which he absolutely let loose on someone who had treated him poorly:
Will Clark is a former major-league baseball player, a smooth-swinging first baseman who began his career in San Francisco before moving on to Texas. Pearlman found Clark particularly difficult. The story he wrote for Deadspin spelled out why.
Over the past 20 years, I have felt a fairly deep-rooted desire to write something similar about my stepfather.
To enumerate each and every way I felt he had wronged my family in general and my mother in particular. To let the world know just what a hypocritical jerk I felt he was.
Now, obviously, the stakes for my vendetta were more personal, but my motivation would have been the same: score settling. Fighting back. Standing up for yourself.
The way that Pearlman feels about that article now, however, makes this a bit of a cautionary tale, though.
Getting payback seldom turns out to be as satisfying as we think.
First, I want to link to the video that Pearlman made about this particular story. I do that for two reasons:
It’s a primary source for this post.
Pearlman himself is a fantastic storyteller, and his attempts to imitate Clark’s voice are — in and of themselves — worth the time it takes to listen.
OK. Now that I’ve tried to be ethical, let’s get to the story.
🥩 Beef background
August 26, 1997 – Pearlman was 25 years old and in his second year covering baseball at Sports Illustrated. He was assigned to write a story on the Texas Rangers, whose roster included Clark. Clark was recovering from a broken foot, and as reporters stood around Clark, asking questions about his recovery, Pearlman threw one in.
“Does it hurt?”
Clark paused, looked at Pearlman’s press credential to determine his name, and then responded: “Jeff, I broke my effing foot!”
Only he did not say effing.
“It was mortifying, and it was horrible,” Pearlman said in a recent podcast episode talking about his history with Clark. “And Will Clark just kind of moved on and snickered at me, and I shuffled off. And that was the beginning of my very, very strong disliking for Will Clark.”
Spring training 2000 – Pearlman saw Clark in spring training. By this time, Clark was playing for the Orioles, and after confirming Pearlman’s identity, Clark asked if he had written a specific story on John Rocker.
If you’re a sports fan, you probably know what story I’m talking about. If you’re not a sports fan, John Rocker was a tightly wired relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, whom Pearlman had profiled for Sports Illustrated.
In researching the profile, Pearlman spent time with Rocker in Georgia, where he made racist and homophobic statements. Pearlman (accurately) reported what Rocker said, which led to a great deal of condemnation and what turned out to be a 14-game suspension from the league.
Clark took issue not with what Rocker said, but with the fact that Pearlman reported it.
“Jeff (flipping) Pearlman,” Clark said, mispronouncing the word flipping. “Now, why the (heck) would anyone in here want to talk to you?”
2006 – Pearlman was in Arizona doing research for the book he would write on Barry Bonds (which is exceptional by the way).
Clark had retired by this point but was still working for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Pearlman asked if Clark would be willing to answer questions about Bonds.
Clark agreed to talk to Pearlman.
When Pearlman began to ask questions, Clark provided only one-word answers. Pearlman eventually asked why Clark was being non-responsive.
Clark’s response: “I would never talk to you. Look at what you did to Rocker. You think I forgot that? You think you could walk in here and talk to me?”
This time, Pearlman pushed back in what he now calls one of his favorite moments from his sports-writing career.
“I actually said something like Will Clark (would). ‘You know what, I don’t (effing) need this. I don’t have to talk to you.’ And I walked off.”
At the time, Pearlman found this very satisfying.
“You have these moments as a writer, now and then,” he said, “when you feel like Joe Frazier beating someone up and you feel pretty good. And in that moment, I felt really good.”
The reckoning
In 2008, Pearlman wrote the piece that Deadspin published under the headline “Will Clark was a cackling douchebag.”
“Even though I didn’t write the headline, I loved the headline,” Pearlman said of the piece. “To me, Will Clark was a cackling douchebag. And (forget) Will Clark and (forget) you and go to hell and I’m glad I wrote this about you and you shouldn’t have treated me that way.”
This is very much how I imagined I would feel if I published a piece calling my stepfather a self-righteous orifice.
The long tail of regret
Earlier this year, Pearlman was criticized by former NBA player Matt Barnes, who hosts the popular podcast “All The Smoke.”
Barnes observed that Pearlman was seemingly always negative in his observations and reflections on sports and the athletes he covered.
“My initial reaction was, ‘Go (eff) yourself,’ “Pearlman said of the criticism. “But I thought about it. Like, I really thought about it, and he’s not without a point.
“And then I started thinking about Will Clark.”
More specifically, he began looking at other aspects of Clark’s life beyond their interactions, beyond the game of baseball.
Clark has a son, Trey, who was born in 1995.
Before turning 3, Trey was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and much of Clark’s post-baseball life has been devoted to his son, both in celebrating his accomplishments and spending time with him.
Clark and his wife have also spent years raising awareness about autism and working with organizations that support individuals with autism and their families.
“You see this other side to this guy you called a cackling douchebag,” Pearlman said. “And yeah, Will Clark was definitely a douchebag to me. He definitely was not nice. But people are complex, and people are layered, and people are nuanced, and I just think in hindsight, what Matt Barnes said actually resonated with me.”
“In hindsight, referring to Will Clark as a cackling douchebag in print or on screen was kind of a low moment for me,” Pearlman said. “And dogging him all these years is shameful on my part. And that here’s a guy who might have not been perfect … but sitting here in 2026, what I see in Will Clark is a really devoted dad of two and husband and a guy who wants to do right.”
This really resonated with me.
Pearlman had intensely negative feelings toward Clark, feelings that weren’t unjustified, by the way. But by taking a bigger picture view of the person whose words stung him, he was able to dilute the hostility he felt.
This is where the parallel with my stepfather becomes more strained.
His actions did lasting damage primarily to my mom, but also to me, my brother, and my sister.
The closest I can come to cutting him some slack is to acknowledge that he grew up in a chaotic home, which undoubtedly affected his ability to relate to others.
That doesn’t absolve him of responsibility. It certainly doesn’t explain why he’s never acknowledged let alone apologized for the pain he caused.
But people are complex.
Even damaged ones.
Maybe especially damaged ones.
And while I’m sure I would get some satisfaction from publishing a story whose sole purpose was to enumerate my stepfather’s misdeeds, I’m pretty sure that down the road I would feel some level of regret about that.
It certainly wouldn’t change anything that happened, nor would it make my stepfather any more likely to take responsibility for what he did.
I’m still writing about him, but my main goal isn’t to detail what he did, but to explore why I fixated on it for as long as I did, the effect that this grudge had on me, and what ultimately allowed me to let go.