Tales from the Bo Zone

Sportswriter Bill Simmons once responded to a reader mailbag question with a new phrase: “The Tyson Zone,” the collection of celebrities about which one could hear any story and believe it to be true. Simmons listed, alongside Tyson, famous folks like Andy Dick, Paris Hilton, and Tara Reid (this was 2004). In the years since, the Zone has expanded to include the likes of Tom Cruise, Rip Torn, and Donald Trump.

The exploits of Tyson Zone entrants must be, for the celebrity to qualify for induction, unrelated to that member’s profession. Athletes on the list like Dennis Rodman and Ricky Williams are known for their colorful personal lives rather than mythical in-game performance. A new title, then, must be created for legendary feats like Babe Ruth’s called shot, Michael Jordan’s flu game, and Mickey Mantle’s 660-foot home run.

After reading Jeff Pearlman’s The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, one might be compelled to name that club “The Bo Zone.”

Pearlman is no stranger to larger-than-life characters and stories that may be too good to be true. Though his 2014 book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers accurately reflected real-world events, the cable television show for which it serves as inspiration, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, has drawn criticism from former players for alleged looseness with the truth.

But, just as many reviewers believe the show’s possible factual discrepancies are more exciting than the truth, the stories Pearlman relays about Bo Jackson are worth believing simply because they are amazing. And Pearlman knows Bo.

To understand what Bo Jackson was, Pearlman contends, it is important first to understand what Bo Jackson was not. An undisciplined hitter and oft-unmotivated running back with an Iversonian aversion to practice and a penchant for taking himself out of some of the biggest games of his college football career, Jackson was not, as sports fans would say, a gamer. He did not have a killer instinct, he was not a mainstay in the playoffs, and he did not have a long, Hall of Fame-worthy career in either sport he played professionally.

The Last Folk Hero is not a book about an athlete. It’s a book about a superhero. A man who, despite never lifting weights with any regularity, could bench press more than anyone else on the Los Angeles Raiders.

Who stood waist-deep in a

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