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CHICAGO - If you lie, cheat, do drugs, drink too much, disgrace your profession, make a fool of yourself, lose your job, divorce your spouse and maybe even stand trial for murder, do you think that you might be able to get your life story published as a book in time for Christmas?
Probably not.
But that hasn't stopped Pete Rose, Jose Canseco, Dennis Rodman, Bill Romanowski, John Daly, Terrell Owens and O.J. Simpson from selling their autobiographies to major publishing houses - or, more specifically, hasn't stopped such firms from publishing and paying them.
All across this nation and around this globe, there are genuine authors who cannot get their foot inside a publisher's door. There also are fine, decent, upstanding athletes by the thousands whose life stories would be interesting and inspirational to readers of all ages.
Nevertheless, one after another, America's most irresponsible and least admirable professional athletes continue to get top publishing houses to subsidize their lives when almost no other respectable employer would see fit to pay some of these individuals a dime.
The most recent and astounding example was "If I Did It," the sickening piece of trash commissioned - then, thankfully, abandoned - from the pen of horror master Orenthal J. Simpson.
Rupert Murdoch and his partner in slime, Judith Regan, paid big money and authorized both a book and a TV program in which the former NFL star and actor would speculate as to how somebody might have savagely murdered his ex-wife and her friend.
("If I Did It" not exactly being a title that accuses somebody else.)
What a repulsive idea. Murdoch and Regan, coiling up like two cobras out of a basket, agree to pay Simpson to tiptoe over the dead bodies of two innocent victims while their survivors wait for this villain to pay one red cent of the millions of dollars he owes them from a civil judgment against him.
Good thing Murdoch came to his senses and pulled the plug on the whole project. Otherwise, what a grotesque stocking-stuffer this would have made for some of you already out shopping for holiday gifts.
Also at your local bookstores this Christmas season, not one but two books by America's most immature football player.
"Little T Learns to Share" is a children's book from not-so-little Mr. T. Owens, a man all little kiddies out there should love and admire.
That is if you want them to love an admire an athlete who acts like an idiot if he scores a touchdown, gets into public arguments with his teammates, gets kicked off his own team and gets rushed to a hospital for accidentally popping too many pills.
What an adorable idea to have T.O. do a book for children, this one about a boy named Little T who doesn't want to share his football until he learns a hard but meaningful lesson that "football isn't any fun alone."
I may cry.
This comes on the heels of Owens' other book, "T.O.," co-written by one of his agents, about the life and times of this great NFL receiver who could go down in history with Jerry Rice except for the fact Rice is a gentleman and Owens is a jerk.
"My Life In and Out of the Rough," meanwhile, was the latest literary offering from Daly, the golf pro who cuts such a respectable figure on the PGA Tour - except, of course, for all of his drinking, smoking, carousing, divorcing and gambling.
Daly easily could have borrowed the title of Rodman's most recent tome, "I Should Be Dead By Now."
That book, which deals with the former Bulls freak's bouts with alcoholism as well as his now-you-see-her, now-you-don't marriage to Carmen Electra, is yet another narrative of Rodman's life that makes you so glad there aren't more athletes like him.
"Romo: My Life on the Edge" comes to us courtesy of Bill Romanowski, a half-man, half-beast who played for the Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders when he wasn't using every kind of performance-enhancing substance money could buy.
Included in the book are Romanowski's enchanting tales of all the dirty tricks he tried on and off the field, including the time he spat into an opponent's face.
You can see why a publisher would spare no expense to get a guy to tell a heartwarming story like this.
In a similar vein, pun intended, was Canseco's groundbreaking work, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant `Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big."
Instead of coming forward in a public forum - say, before Congress - to confess his sins, Canseco laid them all out on the printed page, ratting out multiple ex-teammates in the process. He named names and actually is earning plaudits now for his honesty in explaining what a lowlife he was.
Rose got this ball rolling with "My Prison Without Bars," in which he came clean after denying repeatedly and indignantly that he ever bet on baseball.
Rather than simply stroll into the commissioner's office to confess his sins, of course, Charlie Hustle went right out and hustled himself up a nice book deal. Crime never pays, but crime non-fiction does.
Well, that's the story.
In my own trade, two of the dirtiest rats in journalism history, Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, each procured for himself a sweet book deal shortly after he corrupted his profession, got caught and got fired.
Remember, authors, if you want a shot at that best-seller list in time for next Christmas, get out there and do something really reprehensible. Nice guys' books finish last.
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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Mclatchy-Tribune News Service.
