CAN HEAR CLEARWATER CALLING
You have to read through Donovan McNabb's musings on various Philadelphia-related sports topics in his latest blog entry to get to the stuff most of us really care about, the fact that he feels his shoulder is fine and that he's working out in Arizona with Brian Dawkins, a week before McNabb, other select veterans, and all rookies are scheduled to report to Lehigh. I'm told a bunch of Eagles receivers were to arrive today for sessions all this week, though I don't have any names.
As for DMac's other blog comments, I did take note of his endorsement of the Elton Brand signing. I think McNabb, who briefly played basketball for Syracuse, is usually pretty astute in his roundball observations. He seems to find it easier to say what he really thinks, when commenting on basketball. I remember briefly talking to him on the eve of the NBA Finals -- like most observers, he thought the Lakers would probably win, but he did note that if "Pau Gasol plays as soft as he did against San Antonio, the Celtics have a chance." He also did a pretty good job last spring with his NCAA tourney insights.
One other McNabb-related tidbit that came up while your Eagletarian was on vacation. Igglesblog summed up the whole, complicated, 10th-year McNabb situation very pithily, in what it calls a "Unified Theory of Donovan." it states the following:
Hard to argue with any of that, from my perspective.
This came before Igglesblog did a whole back-and-forth debate thing with the bountybowl guy on the McNabb era.
Meanwhile, Eagletarian's calls to agents representing the Birds' two unsigned rookies, second-round draftees DeSean Jackson and Trevor Laws, were not returned Monday, but second-round holdouts are pretty rare.
Also, while on vacation, your Eagletarian saw a guy he'd like the Birds to pick up as a free agent. He played 
Saturday night at the Xponential Music Festival in Camden. Michael Franti is feaking 
huge, seems pretty athletic, and he would have the best dreads since Al Harris left town. Plus, he really rocks.
Another vacation insight: Sometimes when you attend games for a living, sitting in an office-like press box and analyzing, you might need a refresher on what gets people riled. Case in point would be Saturday afternoon's 10-4 Phils loss to the D-Backs, to which I took my wife and kids and some visiting relatives.
Section 417 of Citizens Bank Park was hotter than Barry Blitt's inbox. While we sweltered, clutching our $6.75 Coronas, Adam Eaton suffered a two-out fourth-inning meltdown that pretty much made the rest of the game academic. How often does a team give up eight runs with two outs and the other squad's 44-year-old pitcher batting?
Suddenly, I didn't feel so great about the hundreds of bucks I'd laid out for tickets.
Boo? Yes, indeedy. With great enthusiasm.
Wish for painful, horrid afflictions to be visited upon Eaton's overcompensated carcass, and upon succeeding generations of Eatons, into perpetuity?
It didn't seem like an overreaction at the time.
This "fan" business is no bed of roses, in Philadelphia. Has anybody ever mentioned that?
Just wondering.
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
Download our iPhone/Android app for even more Birds coverage, including app-exclusive videos and analysis. Get it here for iPhone or here for Android.
 | Join on Facebook |
