King Kaufman's Sports Daily
O.J. Simpson's new interview: Yeah, it's weird. Plus: New baseball stat! Uselessness all but guaranteed.
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Aug. 3, 2007 | O.J. Simpson said this week that his hypotetheticonfessional book "If I Did It" was ghostwritten, and that the hypothetical ghostwriter did a theoretically lousy job on the chapter in which Simpson hypothetically described the night he killed his wife and her friend. Hypothetically.
"I read what he wrote, and I saw all of these major holes, all of these impossible things," Simpson said. "All of these other parts of the book I would correct, but I told myself, 'If I correct this, there are going to be people out there that say, "Oh, look how accurate this is,"' right?"
Right.
Also: Huh?
Simpson vowed to begin searching for the real ghostwriter immediately. The book, which was to be published by HarperCollins, was canceled in November by the publisher's parent company, News Corp.
The interview is a weird, online-only affair that pretty much lives up to what way too many people still think when they hear the words "online only." Ahem. It's on a Web site called Market News First, or MN1.com. I couldn't get the video to play -- note to Market News First: Fix the video player first -- but there are highlights available on YouTube.
Simpson seemed not to have known he'd be shot head to toe. He's ready for work from the belt up, in a suit jacket and tie, but below he's got on jeans, loafers and no socks. Meanwhile, interviewer Kate Delaney is sort of slumped in her easy chair.
There were phoned-in questions from viewers, many of whom took the opportunity to rag on Simpson, who pretended not to hear them. The best one I heard:
Caller: "Remember when you played for the 49ers?"
Simpson: "Yeah."
Caller: "Yeah, did you kill Bill Walsh?"
Simpson also took yet another opportunity to blast the Goldmans, the family of his ex-wife's friend whom he killed. Hypothetically.
The Goldmans were awarded the rights to "If I Did It" this week by a bankruptcy judge, and they told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News that they will release it, though not under that name or in its current form. Simpson called them hypocrites for calling Simpson's proposed earnings from the book "blood money," then seeking the rights as part of the $38 million wrongful death judgment they won against him.
"But we now see it wasn't 'blood money' if they got the money," Simpson huffed.
Actually, it is "blood money" if the Goldmans get it, according to the second definition in the official Salon dictionary, which is "money paid as compensation to the next of kin of a murdered person; wergeld." The third definition is what it would have been for O.J.: "money gotten ruthlessly at the expense of others' lives or suffering."
The interview is continuing throughout the week on MN1.com, if you're into that sort of thing. Simpson says he's still searching for the real killer. Maybe he ought to just search for his socks.
Either way, best bet would be to look straight down.