Philadelphia fans are widely regarded as the drunken louts of the NFL. Some of it is deserved. The Phillies Faithful will boo just about anyone. (I once heard them at a pre-season half-time show give it to a guy who made a bad throw to a Frisbee-catching dog). They have been known to cheer when an opposing player is hurt. But most of it is just media overreaction based on a stereotype.

Take the booing, for example. You can’t watch a nationally televised Philadelphia game without the announcers reminding you that Santa was booed in Philadelphia. I would say three things in defense of that assault on Philly fans –
1) He was a shabby, poor excuse for a Santa with a lousy arm. (He had it coming.)
2) The team was REALLY bad that year. (They were in a bad mood.)
3) It was over 30 years ago. (It’s time to move on.)

Now the media folks are stirring the pot once again. Donovan McNabb, the most successful quarterback in the history of the franchise was given his walking papers on Easter Sunday to make way for the Kevin Kolb (who?) era. Four months later, he sat down with the fine folks at GQ to chat about his up and down tenure with the Eagles.

Among his litany of complaints – he was booed on draft day. And it’s true, he was roundly booed the day that the Eagles chose him over favored running back/pothead Ricky Williams – by about thirty drunken agitators specifically bussed to the draft by a local radio station to make a point. I think it is safe to say that they didn’t fairly represent a cross-section of Philadelphia fandom. But no matter. Here we are, 11 years later, with the national media still talking about it like it was a universal response from everyone within the greater Philadelphia viewing area.

For better or worse, the Eagles and McNabb have parted ways. Kolb has the full support of the fans – until the first time he throws an interception or takes an ill-advised sack. Then the kid’s gloves come off and they’ll treat him like a Frisbee dog guy or a poorly-dressed Santa Claus.

Shaq is a Celtic.  Say it with me now: Shaq is a Celtic.  Take a moment; let it sink in.  We’ve just got to accept it, you and I.  Because even though it defies all logic, Shaq as a Boston Celtic is now a reality.

Make no mistake about it, Shaq is one of the all-time greats in the game of basketball.  He’s a sure-fire hall of famer who was dominant at his position for years.  But unlike most other players who could be considered all-time greats, Shaq has never really settled in anywhere.  Sure, he spent some good years, won some titles, in LA.  But before that he was the marquee player on the expansion Orlando Magic.  After that, he blew through Miami, Phoenix, and Cleveland en route to his most recent stint of between-teams.

For all his talent and raw physical skills, Shaq’s best playing days are behind him.  So why is he heading to Boston?  And why does Boston want him?

First question first, why does Shaq want to be a Celtic?  It isn’t for the money.  $1.3 million isn’t worth getting out of bed for if you’re a half-billionaire like Shaq.  It isn’t for a shot at winning the title.  Been there, done that.  A thumb in the eye to the Lakers and their fans?  I don’t think so.  Although the fact that signing with the Celtics would deeply wound those Lakers fans still loyal to him didn’t dissuade  him, I don’t think it was his motivation, either.

So why, then?  Maybe to catch up with Kobe in the championship department.  It is possible that he’s just that shallow.  Maybe to go out on a high note – let’s face it, his tenure didn’t exactly end well in Orlando.  Or LA.  In fact, I don’t think he’s had a truly amicable separation in his career.  Maybe he just wants to prove that he’s not a bad guy.

For the other question – why do the Celtics want Shaq, there’s an easy answer: Bill Walton.  The Celts captured lightning in a bottle by taking on an over-the-hill, formerly great center and rejuvenating him.  It worked once.  Why not try again?

Every year when the NFL Preseason begins I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, the preseason signals that we are that much closer to the NFL season beginning for real. It is our first opportunity to see the professional athletes of the greatest sports league in the known universe take the field. After seven long football-less months, the action returns to the gridiron.

On the other hand, the games themselves aren’t very exciting (compared to an actual football game where the scores count for something, that is. Compared to, say, baseball, the NFL preseason games are fairly exciting.) The starters will play for only a few minutes. And we’ll all collectively hold our breath while they’re in, hoping against all hope that our star quarterback or up and coming receiver doesn’t suffer a season ending injuring in their few short moments playing in a meaningless game.
Most of the preseason games will be used by the coaches to evaluate their on the bubble players. Which makes the preseason something akin to watching the UFL. Yes, it is the game we love, but it isn’t the same when being played by lesser athletes for lower stakes.

The proposal to stretch the regular season to 18 games by eliminating two of the preseason games (or more accurately, converting them to regular season games) is gaining traction among NFL owners and fans. The players, not so much.

With no labor agreement for next year and the very real possibility of a strike / lockout situation, it seems as good a time as any to push the change. If the players are going to walk away from this whole contract fiasco with an even bigger share of the revenues, the owners are going to compensate by gouging us, the fans, for even more money on tickets, hotdogs, jerseys, etc. We may as well get something out of it, and an extra two games a year would be about the best we could hope for.

So, Brett Favre retired again. Or did he? Can he really be pulling the same old nonsense again? I mean, I love me some Favre just as much as the next guy, but enough is enough.

He flip flopped and stalled in Green Bay until management finally showed him the door so they could start the Aaron Rodgers era. At the time, my sympathies were mostly with Favre, arguably the greatest player in the storied history of Green Bay’s franchise. It just seemed… wrong for him to be so unceremoniously dumped from the team he had played for so well for roughly sixty years (give or take).

Then he lollygagged with his decision about staying or going after his unremarkable year with the New York Jets, holding out his decision until well past the eleventh hour. Now, after playing well for Green Bay’s hated rival the Minnesota Vikings, he’s back to playing games with the franchise’s future, toying with staying or going right up to training camp and beyond.

Although everyone involved publicly gives the same “It’s all up to Brett” line, Coach Brad Childress has to be more than a little concerned about going into the season with either a 127-year-old quarterback with a surgically repaired knee and no reps with the offense during training camp or Tavaris Jackson. If Favre does really-really-no-fingers-crossed-truly-mean-it this time, that leaves the team one injury away from having Sage Rosenfels as the starting quarterback.

It’s hard not to make the comparison back to Michael Jordan and his multiple retirement parties. It’s hard to empathize with Favre again on his third go around with this schtick. In the long run, Favre will be in the Hall of Fame and will be remembered as one of the all time greats in the NFL. In the short run, Favre is tarnishing his shiny image and hurting his current team, which should only serve to delight the fans of his former teams.

The question on the floor is what to think about Michael Vick. We all know what he did. But does what he did define who he is now? And does that even matter when it comes to playing football?

My take is that Vick is a bad man. This isn’t some young kid who made a bad choice, or even a few bad choices, along the way. He’s a cold, cruel person who, regardless of his skin color, deserves every bit of the vilification he’s received in the media – but not all the disgusting, twisted punishments suggested on sports message boards across the Internet.

I wouldn’t like to hang out with Michael Vick socially. I would not want my son to wear a Michael Vick jersey or get his autograph. Then again, I wouldn’t really want to hang out with Tiger Woods or Mel Gibson or Angelina Jolie – though maybe I could just hover within gawking distance of Angelina.

Vick has, however, paid his debt to society. He broke the law and paid the consequences for those actions. (I know those are two very cliché expressions when discussing ex-convicts, but they are appropriate here.)

So it would be wrong to deny Michael Vick the opportunity to play in the NFL just because he’s a rotten person. Who knows? Maybe Tony Dungy and Andy Reid have had a good impact on him. Maybe Vick isn’t such a bad guy anymore. As unlikely as that is, we don’t actually know.

So if he deserves a chance to play in the NFL based on his ability and nothing else, then he should be allowed to play. If he becomes a distraction, which is a line he’s bordering on already, then he should be sent packing. Football is a business; if having Vick on your team is profitable for your business, you keep him. If having Vick on your team detracts from your business, you can find somebody almost as good to replace him. Vick, on the other hand, doesn’t have any options that are almost as good as raking in millions in the NFL. He should remember that the next time he’s invited to an open-to-the-public birthday bash.

As a sports writer and a lifelong Eagles fan, I get asked one question a lot lately. There are many variations on the question, but they all boil down to this: “What do you think about Michael Vick?”

For those of you who live under a rock, Michael Vick was a star NFL quarterback and a vicious dog-fighting ringleader. In case the last sentence wasn’t clear, I meant “vicious” to refer to Vick, not the dogs. Anyway, then he was a star NFL quarterback and the center of a distracting media circus. Then he was a federal inmate who had lost every penny he had to massive lawsuits and high living.

Now he is a backup NFL quarterback and a free man, getting paid millions of dollars a year to play a few downs a week during the NFL season. Vick also recently was in the vicinity of a minor fracas in which one of his codefendants, one who happened to turn State’s evidence on Vick. The codefendant ended up with a little bullet in his leg, no biggie. The shooting was so incidental that the victim and witnesses refuse to talk to the police about it, so there will be no charges against anybody.

Although the question that I’m asked is essentially the same every time, the questioners come from three distinct camps. There are the “This is all racist; the press wouldn’t persecute (fill in the name of a successful white athlete here) like this,” fans who are so blindly devoted to Vick that you cannot reason with them. There are the “He’s a scumbag; he should be hanged and flogged immediately,” PETA crowd that are so blindly hateful of Vick that they cannot be reasoned with.

Then there are the “He’s a (pick one: great/washed up) player. Who cares what he did off the field?” gang that either love him or hate him based on their perception of him as a player. You can generally at least have a discussion with these fans without hysterical accusations of racism/species-ism.

Wow. That took more words than I would have expected to just set up the frame of reference for the question. Next week, I’ll try to actually answer the big question: What to think about Michael Vick?

Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Due to my travel schedule last week, I wrote my LeBron James article several days before it was due to be posted. So, yes, I know that King James had already announced his intentions to move to Miami long before my story posted. Maybe I should have tweeted all of you instead.

LeBron signing in Miami is big. LeBron signing in Miami alongside the returning Dwayne Wade and the newly arrived Chris Bosh is bigger. Three of the top nine scorers in 2010 will be on the same team in 2011. The expectations for the Heat couldn’t be any higher. Miss the Finals and the season will be considered an abject failure. Miss the playoffs and they’ll declare a new holiday in Cleveland – The Festival of Sour Grapes.

I haven’t been to Cleveland lately (thankfully), but I’m sure the “My two favorite teams are the Cavaliers and whoever is playing the Heat” bumper stickers and T-shirts have already hit the streets. I’m betting you could get a really good deal on a Cleveland James jersey on EBay right about now. That is, if the Cavs fans haven’t burned them all by now.

In the world of sports that are actually being played right now, the National League won the All-Star game for the first time since the early Ming Dynasty. The NL will have home field advantage for the World Series this year. That probably won’t be enough for the NL representative to overcome the New York “Win One More for George” Yankees, who still have a few days to buy the best players from the worst teams in baseball to make their annual run for the pennant.

Final Note – the blackest day on the sports calendar, the day after the All-Star game, has passed. There are only two days a year, the day before and after the MLB All-Star Game, on which there are no games played between the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL. The day before the All-Star Game we get the Home Run Derby, which leaves the day after as the saddest day in the sports fans’ year. Rest easy, my fellow fanatics, as that sad day is in the rear view mirror for another 12 months.

OK, sports fans. You’ve officially gone over the top. I mean it, it is time to pull it back. Now.

LeBron James, the NBA’s Teamless Wonder, has broken with his anti-Twitter stance and opened a Twitter account. This should not be newsworthy. But it is for this reason and these three numbers: 15, 90,000, and 140.

Within 15 minutes of his first post, 90,000 people signed up to read his thoughts 140 characters or less at a time. Really? 90,000 want to know what some guy (admittedly, an extraordinarily gifted guy, but still just some guy) that you’ve never met is going to the club or walking into the locker room?

LeBron is a fantastic basketball player, but he’s not Shakespeare. Don’t expect his posts to make for a great read. Neither professional athletes nor Twitter are known for its great prose. Put the two together and you generally get nearly unreadable txt babble.

For the record, LeBron’s first post, under the screen name kingjames, was: “Hello World, the real King James is in the building”. Unlike some of his counterparts, James’ post was grammatically correct, at least. And at just 51 characters, I guess he left his followers wanting more.

The only reason that I can think of for this insane LeBron following is the hope that his Twitter followers will be the first to know when he does pick a team. Is it really that important to you to be the first to know? Will you be rushing into my office to tell me, hoping against all hope that I don’t have ESPN.com up on my computer?

I am curious now to know if the gambit pays off. Will James tweet his decision before some anonymous source “with knowledge of the situation” leaks the deal to ESPN? Even if he does, will the joy of being first to know offset the pain of reading his “Heading to the studio to do an interview” or “Hangin with my homies” tweets?

I’m thinking no. Then again, I’m a cranky old guy who doesn’t have a Twitter account so take it for what it’s worth.

As public service, Buzzer Eagle presents the most pertinent sports-related things to talk about around the water cooler this week.  Even if you haven’t seen or heard anything from the sports world this week, you can fake it with a few pithy comments.

1) FIFA World Cup – Apparently it isn’t over yet.  Just pick your favorite second-world country and say they got screwed by a bad call and that should never have been a red card on that one play.  If the conversation gets too deep, switch tracks and start complaining about the vuvuzelas.  We are a world united by our hatred of those stupid plastic horns.

2) Tiger Woods -  It was a bad week for Tiger.  First his wife took 750 million of his dollars, and the kids, and left his cheating, lying, weasly butt.  Then he failed to break par in a tournament for the first time in eleven years.  Of course, the very fact that he could give his soon to be ex-wife three quarters of a billion (with a ‘b’) dollars and still have more in the bank than most people will see in their entire lifetime means that a bad week as Tiger Woods is better than a good week for the average joe.

3) LeBron James - Everyone is trying to predict where LeBron will land next year.  Feel free to boldly predict any NBA city.  If your coworkers mock you, just nod knowingly and say “We’ll see” with an air of confidence.  No matter what he say at that moment, he’ll be telling his buddies later that night about his inside scoop on LeBron.  Better yet, tell ’em you read it on Buzzer Eagle, and Buzzer Eagle has never, EVER been wrong when predicting where a major NBA player would move.

4) Who actually stands around chatting at the water cooler anyway?  Just tell them to get back to work.

During the Tampa Bay Rays’ loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday, Rays’ center fielder B.J. Upton caused quite a commotion on the field and in the dugout.  He got the attention of the fans, his teammates, and team management.  Unfortunately for Upton, it was for all the wrong reasons.

When chasing down a fly ball in the sixth inning, Upton jogged his way out to the ball, allowing a double to stretch into a triple for his lack of effort.  This wasn’t a case of Cadillac-ing around in a game that the Rays were winning by ten runs.  Nor was it a case of giving up because they were down by ten.

This was a very much in play 0-0 tie game.  This was a pivotal moment in a defensive struggle behind a tremendous pitching performance.  This was… inexcusable.

Lest you thingk that your humble blogger is the only one who thinks so, Upton’s team mate Evan Longoria had a few thoughts on the matter, which he shared with Upton in the dugout.  I’m not the world’s greatest lip reader, but it was clear that Upton did not take Longoria’s criticism well.  Things nearly turned really ugly, but good-hearted Willy Aybar jumped in and dragged Upton a safe distance away.

So obviously, Upton was primed to redeem himself the next time he got on base, right?  You’d think that would be the case.  Instead, Upton took a zombie-like stroll off first base and was picked off.  In his final at bat, with the game on the line, Upton thought he had hit a home run.  Instead of demonstrating his commitment to hustle, he posed for the cameras and trotted down the first base line, only to see his drive fall short of a home run by mere feet.

These multi-millionaire athletes are multi-millionaires thanks to the sweat of the guys making $50k a year who buy tickets to the games.  They buy the jerseys and the licensed keychains and mugs and posters.  And this is the thanks they get?  The fans deserve better, and Upton deserve to be demoted to the Pougkeepsie Mudhens until he gets his act together.