MUST BE DREAMING: TEMPLE IS 9-2?
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.
Paul Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982. He has spent most of his 27 years at 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 came to the Daily News from the Fort Worth (Tx.) Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually wa s boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose two sports coats to blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley, a University of Oklahoma grad and very dangerous to be around following a Sooner loss, have been married 29 years and have raised 2 terrific daughters – Allison, 26, a lawyer and graduate of Boston University School of Law; and Amy, 23, who graduated from Clemson and works in marketing and sales for a professional baseball team.
