Letter #2

Dear Chuck,

I read your essay of Kareem and O.J. on Grantland, and with all due respect, I believe many of the Facebook commenters who say that this essay has Bill Simmons' fingerprints all over it. I understand he's your boss, but still.

There are certain subjects where even you, Mr. Find-A-Parallel, cannot find a parallel, and this is one of the few. As far as I'm concerned, everything that occured between June 1994 and October 1995 was simply a backdrop to the O.J. affair (1). The cancelled World Series, the rise of Newt Gingrich to the House Speakership, Hootie and the Blowfish's chart success, the Oklahoma City bombing (2), even (especially) the Million Man March are all things that happened while our country's primary interest was whether a well-known athlete murdered his ex-wife and her male friend in cold blood. Next to that, the Kobe affair was barely a sidebar.

And if you're going to talk about Kareem being unlikeable, how can you leave out punching Kent Benson? Or his 1983 book Giant Steps, which included the line "...when a whole lot of white people died in a tragedy—say a fire or a plane crash—I'd be happy." (3)

I only hope your comparison of Andrew Dice Clay and Lena Dunham is more valid.

Best,

Dan

P.S. Per Imdb, the ZAZ team originally wanted Pete Rose to play Roger Murdock in Airplane!, but filming was during baseball season, so Kareem got the role. It wasn't a matter of "tall guy can't disappear into somebody else" at first. I can easily imagine Rose as Murdock and telling the kid something like, "You tell your old man to face a Tom Seaver fastball." Would that have made the gambling scandal (assuming it still happens) sadder?

P.P.S. We all know that O.J. was one the first choices to play the original Terminator. Let's say he took the role and it bombed because no one could buy (at the time) likeable O.J. as evil robot. The movie was released October 26, 1984, and (in our timeline) O.J. and Nicole Brown were married on February 2, 1985. Would a box-office dud O.J. have been dumped by Nicole? Could a casting change have saved two lives?

(1) I'm only referring to the disgraced former football player as "O.J.," not "Simpson" or "O.J. Simpson."

(2) Damn right I went there.

(3) Sports Illustrated, Dec. 26, 1983

* Note dated August 24, 2013: I mentioned your O.J./Kareem essay to my friend Brad, a big ZAZ fan, and mentioned how Pete Rose was the first choice to play Roger Murdock. He agreed with you, saying that while Rose could theoretically disappear into a character, Kareem could never. I guess you had a point after all.