ON THE DL

Grant Wahl Talks About The Beckham Experiment

Grant Wahl, author of The Beckham Experiment and senior writer at Sports Illustrated, joins the show to talk about his book, the writing process and the fires that have spread since the book has come out.

Wahl spent the better part of two years covering the LA Galaxy to write the book and he explains how the original plan was to just write the book on the first season of the Beckham Experiment, but with so many injuries

keeping Beckham off the field, the story needed a second act to be told. We discuss later in the interview, if Wahl had thought to write about the entire Beckham Experiment, as the story seems to get more and more interesting by the day, including Beckham’s recent altercation with a fan at a home match against the European club he was loaned to -- the same AC Milan club that months before he publicly stated he wanted to remain with -- this week. Gives new meaning to the term ‘friendly’ doesn’t it?

Wahl points out that the situation with Beckham’s experience in America was always changing. Had we done this interview in January, we’d all have agreed that Becks’ career in LA was already over and he’d be gone to Milan forever. But a deal wasn’t worked out and he is honoring his Galaxy contract...however long that is.

This is Wahl’s first book, and we discuss how the writing process was different than the feature stories he’s known for. How is the process of writing a book, and being around the same subjects for so long, different than writing feature stories? Wahl talks about the mountains of interview transcriptions he had to compile, and talked about how sometimes he wouldn’t learn about conversations that took place while he was covering the team until many months later.

This leads to a question I’ve always wanted to know...how do people get direct quotes from private conversations? Was someone wearing a wire? Was the author hiding behind a wall and scribbling frantically? Was the ‘private’ conversation had in front of the author in a true fly-on-the-wall situation? Specifically, Wahl has a detailed (and extensively quoted) exchange between Landon Donovan and Alexi Lalas where Donovan, standing in a hotel bar, wanted to address Lalas about not earning the team’s MVP award (and a $25,000 contract incentive) despite the media voting for him. Part of the exchange in the book is as follows:

“That’s bullshit, Alexi. I’m so fucking pissed right now. I have a bonus for this. You’re taking money from me. It’s completely unfair.”
“It’s nothing personal. It’s just the way it was done.”
“Well, it’s wrong. It’s completely wrong.”
“What do you want me to do about it? Pull you both on the field and say you’re co-MVPs?”
“I don’t care what you do or don’t do publicly. I just want what’s right to be right.”
“Okay, let me think about it.”
“All right.”

Donovan ended up getting his money, although no release was sent out naming him co-MVP with Chris Klein. But the question for Wahl was how this interaction was full of direct quotes -- something that happens throughout the book -- when he wasn’t there and, in this case, didn’t even learn about the exchange until 10 months later.

Wahl explained that he spent more than 30 minutes with Donovan talking just about this particular conversation in this particular bar to get the exchange as exact as he could. When he finished with Donovan’s side of the story, he took the quotes and showed them to Lalas who agreed that’s how the conversation took place.

Wahl admitted that in this instance, because he had a good working relationship with both parties, he was able to reconstruct the conversation with quotable content. He explained that other times, including behind-the-scenes board room meetings where the two parties clearly didn’t agree with the events that occurred, it was more difficult to reconstruct what was said. Still, and I know this happens with many books and Wahl isn’t the only one to employ this method of quoting, this conversation reconstruction illustrates different standards needed for quotation in books, magazine articles and news stories. The story, according to all involved, is spot on, but one wonders if there was a little fish tale involved. (“And then I told him to F-off and he told me he’d think about it...”)

We discuss the news that has come out since the book was excerpted and how Wahl went from covering the story to being part of it. Was that an uncomfortable position to be in? And was there ever a time during the process where he was sitting on information and thought it was too important to hold for the book? I mention that Selena Roberts co-authored a story on Alex Rodriguez steroid use in Sports Illustrated and ostensibly crushed her own book, because the story was out. Nobody needed to read the book after that. Did Wahl have that concern while writing the book and getting quotes from Lalas about his lack of input into the Galaxy’s operations, or the quotes from Donovan -- perhaps America’s best soccer talent -- talking ill of the most famous athlete on the planet?

Wahl explained that he pitched several times, including the start of the 2008 season, for SI to do a follow up on the Beckham story and they passed on it. He also explained that when sitting down with people, most notably Lalas and Donovan, they’d ask if the interview was for the book or if it was for something sooner. It seems that people in the book were more than happy to let their story get out at some point, they just didn’t want it getting out then. And it’s an interesting point about the book...how many people were using Wahl’s book to get their true feelings about the Beckham Experiment out in public? Lalas, for example, looks far more sympathetic now than he did last year when he was fired.

Many people in and around the Galaxy gave Wahl as much time as he needed. Beckham was not one of them. While Wahl had a good relationship with some of Beckham’s handlers and would constantly speak with them in an effort to get both sides of the story, he was told he could speak with Beckham during regularly scheduled media availability, which was actually far more time than Becks had ever given in Europe. For Wahl to have any official sit-downs with Beckham for the book, his people would need final approval over anything used, and they requested, get this, one million dollars.

One million dollars to talk with Beckham in order to make this an official book in their minds. Wahl admits he had a good relationship with Beckham that began before the book was even an idea, but obviously refused to pay for access to the star. Wahl talked about how the journalistic integrity may be different in England and Europe than it is here, and there is no way he, or his publisher, would pay a subject they are covering.

That said, Beckham’s face is on the cover of the book. It is called The Beckham Experiment, not the Galaxy Experiment. Playing devil’s advocate, because I agree with the decision, I ask Wahl if maybe Beckham’s people have a point. He’s quite possibly the most famous man on the planet and his face and name are now on a project that Wahl and Crown Publishing will undoubtedly make a lot of money on and, for

Wahl, help create a name in the book industry -- all because of Beckham. Is it wrong of them to ask for a piece of the action?

Wahl defends the book as a chronicle of events, not a profile on a player. He said Landon Donovan is almost as much a part of the book as Beckham. Of course, I remind him that if the book were called the Donovan Experiment, nobody would buy it.

The book is a fair assessment of the situation surrounding the Galaxy in the two years he was covering the team. It’s a fascinating look into the struggles of a low-level American sports league who had one of the richest and most famous athletes on the planet drop into their laps. We talk about the constant juxtapositions of Beckham, who was making $6.5 million (more than three times the overall salary cap for each team) and developmental players making around $12,000 per year. Was there

an underlying resentment throughout the book at how rich Beckham was compared to the other teammates? Was there a ‘why are you here, leave us alone’ attitude by some on the team, some in America, and in the way he wrote the book?

We briefly talk about former Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit (hired by Beckham’s best friend who was working as a hush-hush consultant/executive with the Galaxy in 2008) and his comments in the book about American sports fans:

“Do the Americans really want soccer to become popular?” Gullit asked. “Because they are very patriotic. They want to protect their own sports.” It was a strange theory that bordered on paranoia. American sports fans might ignore soccer, but it was hard to believe that they would actively work against it out of a fear that its rise would harm, say, baseball.

Wahl and I discuss Gullit’s point, and while Wahl wrote that he thought Gullit’s ideas were out there (he did say bordered on paranoia) I wonder if he has a point...in some cities is there more anti-soccer sentiment than apathy? And with a new team coming into the Philadelphia market in MLS, will that happen here?

We talk about how this MLS season could change things for Beckham. Right now, even his own fans hate him. But if the Galaxy can win, will it be another reclamation project for his career? Can Beckham still be good for American soccer?

I received two copies of Wahl’s book and will be giving one away to a listener. Give us either your favorite Beckham story (you met him, you are his tattoo artist, etc) or give us your favorite soccer movie and why. Best story/example will get a copy of the book sent to them by the end of this week.