It was actually a very nice little book done by a gift book company. They illustrated it with pictures from 1920s football, before there were face guards.
I think that might have been an element in it, and people have asked me that very thing. Remember, Disney is the majority shareholder, but it is not an operating division of Disney.
Inevitably, these sorts of things are going to come back to blow up in people's faces.
I'm a smart guy, I know the history of this issue and why people care about it.
And then ESPN fired me. I did not think that was a fitting punishment.
I didn't view myself as attacking the boss. I viewed my boss at ESPN as the publisher and president of ESPN.
But if you could make that mistake and press the send button and the entire world sees it forever.
I behaved poorly by starting this whole thing and I made some mistakes in dealing with it, and they made some mistakes in dealing with me, and taking down all my stuff was probably one of them.
It was Orwellian. I completely disappeared, and disappeared the same day. It was by early that evening when the Times story ran. That was an overreaction. All human beings under pressure behave poorly.
I view the players as entertainers. Their job is to entertain you, and although an Arizona Cardinals game might not have that effect, most of them do.
The publication date of that book was Sept. 10, 2001. That's why nobody's ever heard of it. Maybe I'll do another one in the future someday.
ESPN has said that they fired me without having been told to do so by Disney, and I actually believe that. I think they did it on their own.
Neither Aristotle nor the Framers were known for self-indulgence. All believed that happiness is a legitimate goal in life; perhaps, one of the reasons we are here.
Playing football is obviously very strenuous. It's exhausting. You have to try very hard in football. But there's no heroic risk involved.
I would guess that at the very least that all blogs that are affiliated with an organization are going to be edited, if they're not already.
I think they completely overreacted by firing me, but in my mind I think this coming a month after Rush Limbaugh had a lot to do with it.