By Steven Lienert
The Phanatic Magazine
A story came out this week on 610 WIP that Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb wants the team to financially compensate him for being benched in Baltimore during the 2008 season. He might as well try to get blood from a stone.
Here's the deal: McNabb was benched for playing about as bad as he's played since he first came into the league. His wife was having twins, they were born early and there were some complications. Brian Dawkins went through a similar situation with his children in 2007.
Dawkins has stated a few times on record that not only did his family situation affect his play in 2007, he knows that it affected McNabb's performance in 2008. McNabb, however, has steadfastly and repeatedly denied such claims, saying that the births of his twins had nothing to do with his performance on the field.
The kids were born after the Cardinals game, which was about the time McNabb coincidently started playing better football. That would also explain the drastic turnaround from the devastating loss at Baltimore to the obliteration of the Cardinals on Thanksgiving night four days later. Perhaps the win over Arizona at the Linc had more to do with Brian Westbrook having his best game of the season rather than McNabb coming out of his slump.
What would be the harm in admitting that he was preoccupied with the health and safety of his newborn children? Fans that would fault McNabb for that either never had kids or were dropped on their head when they were kids.
If that was happening to any one of us, as was happening to me in October when my wife was having some complications with our little embryo, it affected my job. Once I knew everything was fine, things picked up and we were on our way (The baby is due in 11 days.) Once McNabb's children were safely delivered, he could play without that thought always lingering in the back of his mind. If Donovan was as honest and open as Dawkins, perhaps he wouldn't run into half of the problems he does when he opens his mouth.
In Howard We Trust
Alex Rodriguez was supposed to be the baseball player that made us forget about Barry Bonds and his asterisk-laden home run title. He was supposed to be Mr. Clean, the guy that did it the right way, the way young ballplayers should model themselves after. Instead, Rodriguez delivered a head-shaking admission that left an entire era tarnished. Welcome to the Asterisk Club, Alex!
Finding out A-Rod took steroids is like the day you found out the tooth fairy wasn't real. You always kind of wondered why the hell there would be a tooth fairy in the first place, but as long as she kept throwing money under the pillow, you really didn't question it all that much. As long as Bonds was Public Enemy No. 1, which might be forever, A-Rod figured he could quietly slug his way into history.
I'm glad that the spotlight found the cockroach in this instance.
A-Rod has cheated on his wife. He's practically admitted to being under the influence of drugs while on the job. Yet he makes millions. What's next? Does he beat his kids? Did he place bets on one of dogs while it was 'visiting' Michael Vick's house? Is Madonna really his mother?
The best part about all of this actually benefits Phillies' fans, because now Ryan Howard is the poster boy for clean slugging. I don't think there's any question that Howard's accomplishments have all come sans juice. He may not have enough years left playing at an elite level to catch Bonds, but at least Howard's final home-run tally won't have an asterisk next to it.
Alomar's Past Comes Back To Haunt Him
Has anyone else been intrigued by what's happening to famous spitter, er, uh, Mets second baseman Roberto Alomar? Ex-girlfriend Ilya Dall is suing him for $15M dollars, saying that Alomar told her that he contracted the HIV virus after he was raped by two men after a baseball game in his home country when he was younger and that he now has been diagnosed with full blown AIDS. Alomar and his current girlfriend came out today and said that the suit contained “vile lies.” In a story on FOX Sports, Alomar is quoted as saying: “I am in very good health and I ask that you respect my privacy during this time.”
What? Someone says you almost gave her AIDS and all you say that you feel fine and please leave me alone right now? At first I thought that the woman was crazy and that she was trying to extort cash from Alomar. Now I'm thinking the guy's really sick and he's figuring out the best way to handle this thing. Yikes. If that's story actually turns out to be true, it's one of the saddest things I've ever heard.
Episode 39 of The Steve Lienert Show
The 40th-Episode-Eve edition of The Steve Lienert Show, a wildly popular Philadelphia sports and entertainment podcast, is available for your listening pleasure at www.podmitten.com. It's 20 minutes of your life you'll never get back, so why not spend it listening to The Steve Lienert Show?
Steve Lienert reads and responds to each and every email sent to stevelienert@hotmail.com, even those sent by unscrupulous Internet hackers.
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