Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: home run chase, home run mark, hitting coach, San Francisco, Barry Bonds, Van Slyke (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Pearlman, former staff writer with Sports Illustrated and Newsday, delivers a fully realized, if hardly appealing, portrait of baseball slugger Barry Bonds, who has perplexed teammates, fans, and the press for years with sometimes-indifferent play, an almost-joyful cruelty toward seemingly everyone (except kids), and a near-total disregard for the rules of the game, if allegations of his use of performance-enhancing drugs are true. At the same time, Pearlman's Barry Bonds is a man of astonishing talent and, on occasion, humanity. Bonds' career is fully traced here--from his pampered boyhood as the son of another gifted but troubled player (Bobby Bonds) through his successes at Arizona State, through his years as a superstar with the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants, including his pursuit of Hank Aaron's home-run record. Drug-use allegations aside, it's hard not to boo Barry Bonds for the teammate and man he appears to be, so damning is Pearlman's profile. Yet the reader is always reminded of Bonds' supreme talent. A highly readable companion to Fainaru-Wada and Williams' recent Game of Shadows, which relates in greater detail Bonds' alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

No player in the history of baseball has left such an indelible mark on the game as San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds. In his twenty-year career, Bonds has amassed an unprecedented seven MVP awards, eight Gold Gloves, and more than seven hundred home runs, an impressive assortment of feats that has earned him consideration as one of the greatest players the game has ever seen. Equally deserved, however, is his reputation as an insufferable braggart, whose mythical home runs are rivaled only by his legendary ego. From his staggering ability and fabled pedigree (father Bobby played outfield for the Giants; cousin Reggie Jackson and godfather Willie Mays are both Hall of Famers) to his well-documented run-ins with teammates and the persistent allegations of steroid use, Bonds inspires a like amount of passion from both sides of the fence. For many, Bonds belongs beside Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron in baseball's holy trinity; for others, he embodies all that is wrong with the modern athlete: aloof; arrogant; alienated.

In Love Me, Hate Me, author Jeff Pearlman offers a searing and insightful look into one of the most divisive athletes of our time. Drawing on more than five hundred interviews -- with former and current teammates, opponents, managers, trainers, friends, and outspoken critics and unapologetic supporters alike -- Pearlman reveals, for the first time, a wonderfully nuanced portrait of a prodigiously talented and immensely flawed American icon whose controversial run at baseball immortality forever changed the way we look at our sports heroes.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: It Books (February 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060797533
• ISBN-13: 978-0060797539
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #592,070 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loved it, didn't hate it, May 1, 2006

By	Jason A. Miller (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero (Hardcover)

If he's not more careful, Jeff Pearlman's going to get a reputation as the Kitty Kelley of baseball. First, the John Rocker interview in "Sports Illustrated". Next, "The Bad Guys Won!" -- a book about the hard-drinkin', coke-snortin' '86 Mets. Now, Barry Bonds is revealed in all his misanthropic, beef 'roid injectin' misery.

I'm not sure if "Love Me, Hate Me" began life as an impartial look at how Bonds' stellar on-field accomplishments redeemed his tumultuous personal life. Somehow, I doubt it. I suspect it was always intended to be a sarcastic look at how one of the most physically talented ballplayers of the last quarter-century managed to trash his public reputation and make exactly zero friends along the way.

Pearlman knows his baseball, and chooses his comparisons with great precision. His writing is crisp and lively, his point never in doubt. For example, he describes Bonds' infamous late-season and playoff slumps by comparison to late 1970s utility infielders -- the kind of references that only a guy in his mid 30s who grew up with shoeboxes full of Topps baseball cards could come up with: Bonds is described, during his slumps, as being: "... as useful to baseball as an autographed Otto Velez jersey". And: "In April and May, he was Willie Mays; in September, he was Tom Veryzer". This book is probably going to drive the average sabermetrician crazy.

In order to get away with a book like this, the author has to do two things right. He has to get his game accounts perfect. How many baseball bios have been trashed by a lack of research into game details? Ken Kaiser's biography, Andre Dawson's biography, Jose Canseco's love letter to steroids, to name three other baseball books I've reviewed. A look at RetroSheet, however, shows that Pearlman gets it right. He did his research, he watched the key games. That should be a given for any book, but it's not, so he gets points.

The other thing the author has to get right is to check his sources. How do we know that the stories in this book aren't bogus? When you interview 500 people, many of whom knew Bonds only in passing, you're likely to get some suspect information, or anecdotes altered by conscious or unconscious bias. Of course, story after story about how poorly Bonds treated teammates and neighbors is balanced by other stories about his generosity and heart, so not every interviewee is out to get Bonds. The chapter notes also detail hundreds of primary sources -- mostly contemporary newspaper game accounts or the musings of sports columnists (many of which, such as the paeans to Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998, look painfully naive in retrospect).

"Love Me, Hate Me" is hardly neutral or impartial. However, it has the ring of authenticity, and is written in the same breezy, in-your-face style that made "The Bad Guys Won!" a blast. It's unfortunate that, as of today, there are about 5700 other books that are outselling this one on Amazon. Love this book or hate this book, you should not avoid this book.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Link Between Insecurity and Greatness. , July 6, 2006

By	Bernard Chapin "Ora Et Labora!" (CHICAGO! USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero (Hardcover)

This book is ironically titled because the real Barry Bonds, who you feel like they know after finishing Jeff Pearlman's thrilling biography, is a man one can neither love nor hate. His excellence is tarnished by his personality which is so obviously confused that, despite the brutality with which he treats others, renders one incapable of hating him. Barry Bonds is yet another example of self-esteem having an inverse relationship with success. Had Bonds been a satisfied young man, he would have never expended every particle of his physical and mental energy conquering a craft which would one day make him a national celebrity and a fabulously wealthy person. Bonds's infinitesimal self-doubt caused him to train like, and with, Jerry Rice and even cry on the rare occasion he had to miss a game, but it also alienated almost everyone he came into contact with. He is a petty, abrasive, and irritable man who is entirely devoid of social skills. This reality makes one pity him which is not the reaction one expects to have towards a finger pointing, whining mega-millionaire. When you look at the numbers over the course of his career, it is readily apparent that Bonds really is the Michael Jordan of baseball, and that most of us don't realize it is directly related to the horrendous way with which he interacts with peers, the press, the fans, and your average citizen. I am a fairly hardened person, but I was shocked to read the passages documenting this icon's habit of berating small children who ask for his autograph. He seems to insult and slight others for absolutely no reason whatsoever. As for steroids and BALCO, Pearlman does not hedge on the issue which is quite appropriate considering the evidence. The author is certain that the allegations against Bonds are true, and the stigma he is now under is doubly tragic because the reality is that the Giant would have gone to the Hall of Fame without an ounce of illegal substance. After the scandal, it's now a crap shoot as to whether or not he'll ever make it to Cooperstown. This is a cautionary tale.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Different Perspective, August 26, 2006

By	Timothy J. Francis (Millis, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero (Hardcover)

The author certainly did his homework by interviewing over 500 people who have had some interaction with Bonds over his life in order to write this book. What was grat about this book was that it wasn't written by Bonds or from the perspective of the author it was more other peoples true experiences about Bonds spun into a book. This was a fresh look at this guy and not written to drag him down or to glorify him, you are left to make your own opinion. I liked it.