Mike Ditka (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(WSCR) You remember Jeff Pearlman, right?
He’s the author who wrote Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton, a book in which Pearlman details Bears legend Walter Payton’s struggle with prescription drugs, depression and infidelity.
Eddie Payton, the older brother of Walter, recently released a book titled Walter & Me, which is reportedly a response to Pearlman’s piece.
The book’s introduction is written by Mike Ditka, who, after hearing of Pearlman’s book, said he would spit on Pearlman if he ever saw him. In the introduction to Walter & Me, Ditka goes hard after Pearlman.
“And when it comes to someone writing about my friend, I have to ask, how well did the writer really know him?” Ditka asks in the introduction. “Did he grow up with him? Was he on the field with him? Did he live with him? Was he a parent? Was he a coach? Was he a player? In the case of Jeff Pearlman, the answer to those questions is, “no.” Pearlman wrote a book about Walter, but it was written from a distance. It was all secondhand. He put together a few things he’d heard—some of them from people who have very little credibility—to paint a picture that just doesn’t look much like the Walter I knew.”
In his blog, Pearlman posted a response to Ditka’s message.
“I consider (Ditka) to be, unambiguously, stupid,” Pearlman wrote. “I would call Ditka’s brain rock-like, only I feel it could be interpreted as an insult to some of the world’s fine rocks. Ditka is, in no particular order, a dolt, a bully, a thug, a moron, an ass and a fool.”
Want to read the rest of Pearlman’s rant? Click here!
