Jeff Pearlman

Honestly, God, just being totally honest, I'd mainly been focused on promoting this book because it came out yesterday.

So I wasn't as tuned in as I wanted to be.

I was just checking on my phone.

You know, this is gonna sound weird.

When I was a kid, Garth Brooks wrote a, had a rock album.

I'm not even a Garth Brooks fan, but he did a rock album called The Greatest Hits of Christopher Gaines.

And it was terrible and everyone killed it.

Or it wasn't terrible, but everyone killed him for it.

And I always admired the fact that he tried something way outside the box.

And I've always thought about that, just trying things.

I love Tupac.

I've always been fascinated by Tupac.

I feel like there hasn't been a great, great Tupac book.

And I just decided if no one else is gonna write it, why not a sports writer?

So I just kind of gave it a shot.

Wait, Dan, I just have to say, because you played that clip, around the time Emmitt Smith was on Monday Night Football, I appeared with him on an ESPN segment because I had a book come out about the 90s Cowboys.

And he actually kind of lit into me about the book.

And this was in the middle of him doing Monday Night Football.

And I had so much ammunition that I could have pulled out that I actually was running through my head.

And I just said, OK, like I held back.