How 'SI' Got Sucked into Fake Memoir Controversy

Book publishers don't routinely fact-check memoirs, as a string of falsified first-person tales has made all too clear. Magazines, on the other hand, do. So what happens when a magazine publishes an excerpt of a book that turns out to be bogus?

That's what Sports Illustrated is finding out, having run a 6,000 word chunk of Odd Man Out, Matt McCarthy's memoir of the year he spent playing minor league baseball. As The New York Times revealed yesterday, many of the anecdotes from the book appear fabricated or embellished, and are being disputed by teammates and others. One stands out as particularly damaging: McCarthy quoted a fellow pitcher, Blake Allen, as saying he faked injuries. That passage was part of SI's excerpt.

Chris Stone, the magazine's baseball editor, says SI conducted its own, independent fact-check of the excerpt, but that its fact-checking doesn't routinely extend to calling up people who are quoted and reading them back their quotes. (Some other magazines, including The New Yorker, do fact-check quotes.)

Stone says he's troubled by the discrepancies brought to light in the Times but doesn't think the book should be written off as a fraud. In teh excerpt, he says, "there were some facts that needed to be amended and corrected, but not enough to suggest that this book was fundamentally wrong. These errors certainly speak to sloppiness and carelessness with the facts, and it's inexcusable, but to compare it to the James Frey memoir -- that's a big leap."

In any case, Stone says the terms of Sports Illustrated's contract to publish the excerpt indemnify it against any possible legal action by parties who might seek to sue for libel. I left a message for Blake Allen at his home in Alabama but did not receive a response.

But Jonathan Koch, a lawyer for Tom Kotchman, who managed McCarthy's former team and who is also depicted unflatteringly in the book, said that a lawsuit is under consideration. "The most I can say about that is that we're considering our options," he says. "We really have not reached a point of decision, is as much as I can say with respect to commencing any action."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for SI says the magazine has no plans to run a note to readers addressing the inaccuracies in McCarthy's book, although he says the possibility of running such a note has been discussed.