Gustavo Arellano: Jeff Pearlman goes from sportswriting to throwing fastballs at politicians

Jeff Pearlman is one of the most successful sportswriters of his generation. His must-read articles appeared in Sports Illustrated and ESPN in the 2000s before he switched over to penning best-selling books on everything from Bo Jackson to the 1986 New York Mets to the Showtime-era Lakers, the latter which was turned into the recent HBO series "Winning Time." His biography of Tupac Shakur is scheduled for release in October.

And yet last month, Pearlman announced he was embarking on an altogether different kind of mission: to write about Orange County politics. Talk about a wicked curveball!

As a faithful reader and lifelong Orange Countian, I immediately signed up for his website, The Truth OC. There, on a near daily basis, Pearlman uses the same puerile-yet-potent invective against local conservatives and President Trump that he once reserved for sports fools.

Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns? He's "Bull Connor meets Bobby Knight meets Officer Krupke."

Laguna Woods Republican Club president Pat Micone? Belongs to the "genre of person who needs to be told, repeatedly, not to answer her cell unless she recognizes the number."

Capistrano Valley Unified School District trustees are a "four-headed wackadoo squad of hard-right board members." Rep. Young Kim is a "coward" for not standing up to Trump. Those are the barbs I can quote in a family-friendly newspaper.

Pearlman already scored a scoop by unearthing a video that went viral of Capo Valley trustee Judy Bullockus using the N-word during a board meeting. While I was pleasantly shocked by Pearlman's pivot, he's a much-needed chronicler for a region of 3.2 million that has served as a political bellwether for decades yet has a much smaller press corps than before.

Still, Pearlman writing about O.C. politics seems a little like Gustavo Dudamel quitting the L.A. Philharmonic to moonlight as a drummer at the Dresden Room. Shohei ditching the Dodgers to join a local pickleball league.

"I'm profoundly down" about national politics right now, he said when we recently met at a cafe near Chapman University, where he lectures on sports journalism. Gawky and bespectacled but with the brio of a scrapper, Pearlman was dressed like a quintessential sports geek: black-and-yellow Pittsburgh Pirates hat and Pittsburgh Maulers shirt, the latter a long-gone professional football team. Flip-flops. Sweatpants that looked like jeans.

"Like, these are not happy days for me. But every time I write a new post, I feel really good," he said. "Every time I see people reading and the subscriptions keep going up, I'm like, 'All right, this is a way to feel a little like you're doing something.'"

Other sports journalists also occasionally opine on politics, long a no-no in their profession. But Galen Clavio, director of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University in Bloomington, feels that what's especially fascinating about Pearlman's latest focus is that almost all of his peers "aren't going into hyper-local things, because most followers will think, 'I don't believe you're really into this, so why bring it into the equation?'"

"I wish I didn't have to do this … but this feels more important," the fast-talking Pearlman replied when I asked him why he's now focusing on the micro instead of the macro. He recently covered a rainy Friday afternoon pro-democracy rally outside Irvine City Hall, for chrissakes. "We don't need another me screaming about Trump, which I do a lot. It doesn't really resonate. There's a million people screaming, but there's not that many people screaming about local politics."

I wondered why he didn't just volunteer for a local Democratic club, or write a check to a politician, instead of devoting time and energy to something he's doing for free.

"This is important — I'm being serious," he shot back. "I want people to know that not everyone is doing sh-t for the money. Like, I'm just doing it because I'm mad."

The East Coast native moved with his family from New York to South O.C. in 2014 after years of visits for his work, which included covering the 2002 World Series that saw the Angels beat the San Francisco Giants (he thinks the Halos are the worst franchise in Major League Baseball). "We wanted a yard for our kids," he cracked. Pearlman was initially the classic O.C. suburbanite, preferring to focus on the good life instead of local matters. But he always kept in mind the experiences of a good friend.

"She used to tell me what it was like to be a Black person in Orange County and being stopped here" by police constantly. "And I'd notice weird things, and she was like, 'Well, that's Orange County.'"

In 2018, Pearlman came across the words of Huntington Beach-area Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, long an outlandish figure who once said during a congressional hearing that dinosaur farts caused global warming (he later claimed it was a joke). "I never actually never had exposure to people like this," the 52-year-old said. "I had read about them, but that was it."

He started a website that tracked some of the crazier things Rohrabacher said, which I remembered as being funny but not really revelatory. In hindsight, Pearlman was personifying the awakening of O.C. liberals, who made history in 2018 by electing an all-Democratic congressional delegation for the first time ever two years after making Hillary Clinton the first Democratic presidential nominee to take Orange County since the Great Depression.

"That was a real turning point," Pearlman said. "And I didn't think (Orange County) would ever go back for red."

Trump's triumph last year (although not in O.C., which he has never won), coupled with local election victories for MAGA acolytes, snapped Pearlman back into action. Shortly after the election, he went to a local meeting of liberals.

"They were very nice people, but basically the whole vibe of the meeting was, 'Who wants a hug? You need to get in touch with our feelings.' And that's just not me at all. I'm not saying I don't have feelings. But to me, you have to punch them (MAGA nation) in the face."

His pugnaciousness reminded me of O.C.'s oldest political blog: Orange Juice Blog, which began in 2003. Publisher Vern Nelson started off as the resident loudmouth in its lively comments section before becoming a contributor, then taking over Orange Juice altogether in 2010.

He hadn't heard of The Truth OC until I told him, and he asked if he could read some posts before offering his opinion. When Nelson called back, he was laughing in appreciation.

"He's doing a lot of good stuff," Nelson said. "We need another good political blog. I'd say to use his previously existing fame, but he's probably going to piss off a lot of his old readers."

Pearlman thinks his sports background actually makes him ideal to write about politics.

"We deal with people who are mad at us all the time, and we have to come back the next day," he said. "And, like, you have to write fast. You have to turn around copy quick. You have to make it punchy. Like, it can't just be flat."

He admits to being a "community college student, second semester freshman year" when it came to knowing about his new beat. He knew none of the historic names I threw at him, and nothing about Santa Ana, where a new generation of Latino voters are bringing L.A.-style progressive politics to the city. When Pearlman tried to rationalize the conservative leanings of his neighbors — "I think my neighbor is upset about his taxes. I don't think he's upset about a Black family here" — I retorted that his neighbor would be up in arms if it was a Mexican family, and he conceded the point.

"But I'm taking whatever people have to give me," he added. "I'm open to learn."

Pearlman doesn't know how long he'll do The Truth OC and even admitted, "I know I'm definitely gonna burn out. That doesn't mean I won't keep going." But he hoped that his example will bring attention and vigor to a political scene that desperately needs both.

"You'll go to these (local Democratic) meetings and they'll be like, 'All right, guys, tomorrow we're going to have a letter-writing campaign to Young Kim's office, and we're going to send 100 postcards. And it is done earnestly and with very good intentions. I'm not bashing anywhere, but it's not f—— working."

He stayed silent for a second — a lifetime for Pearlman.

"I sent 50 bucks to (Rep. Hakeem) Jeffries' office. It's another 50 bucks he has. What's it going to do, buy 100 postcards?"

A half-second of silence.

"What these people (politicians) don't like is being embarrassed."

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