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Anything to back that up, senator? Like a legal argument?
This man is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a lawyer, a former prosecutor, and he is launching accusations against the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL on the basis of ..what? A fleeting thought? A penumbra?
Unless the entire NFL colluded with the Philadelphia Eagles against Terrell Owens to prevent him from playing football this year, or next, there is no antitrust issue here. There is no evidence of that.
Owens has a contract with the Eagles. It was written within the framework of a collective bargaining agreement. Owens violated the terms of that contract. He was disciplined. He violated team rules again. He was disciplined again and finally, deactivated. He is still being paid under the terms required by his contract. An NFL arbitrator reviewed the matter. The Eagles won. Case closed.
Enter Sen. Spectacle.
"I think he (Owens) is in flagrant breach of his contract, and the Eagles would be in their rights to not pay him another dime, perhaps even sue him for damages they have sustained," he said. "But I do not believe, personally, it is appropriate to punish him. He’s not committed a crime; he’s committed a breach of contract."
Yes, well, Sen. Specter is just wrong. The Eagles would not be within their rights not to pay Owens. They must pay him what his contract and the NFL collective bargaining agreement demand. As for Specter "personally" thinking it inappropriate to "punish" Owens, well, yeah, so what?
Let the senator buy an NFL franchise and run it any way he likes. And when one of his star players refuses to speak to a coach, openly disrespects fellow players, refuses to open his playbook, sleeps through team meetings and publicly trashes his franchise, let Arlen sue him instead of "punishing" him. Let him see if that works.
In the meantime, to point out that Terrell Owens has committed no "crime" -- yeah, so? Is Sen. Specter under the impression that T.O. is languishing in a prison cell somewhere?
o
Seeing Media’s Joy Rose on the front page of Monday’s Daily Times holding up her fuel-oil bill got me to thinking. With gasoline prices coming down so fast over the last two months, from $3.45 to a little over $2, I wondered if fuel-oil prices might do the same.
I called oilman John Cipollone in Havertown Tuesday.
He told me while the price of heating oil is coming down, it’s not coming down nearly as fast as gasoline prices did. With the coming winter, he said, demand is still high. Tuesday his price was $2.49 a gallon, though today he expected it to drop to $2.39.
He asked me if I had oil heat. (I do). He asked me what I was paying. (I didn’t know). He told me to find out and call him back.
I called the oil-bill payer at my house. I asked her what we pay.
"$1.49 a gallon," she said confidently.
"I doubt it," I replied.
"Maybe $1.59," she said, annoyed.
"I doubt that, too."
She told me to call our oil company and to leave her alone.
I called and I was told we were "locked in" at $2.49 a gallon, but I could get the street price of $2.37 if I wanted it. I snapped it up and called home with the good news.
"We were paying $2.49 a gallon ..
"Yeah, that’s what I said."
"Right! And they offered us $2.37 a gallon. So I took it. Isn’t that great?"
"I gotta go," came the reply.
John Cipollone said he believes that price will come down even further, to $2.24 a gallon maybe, but that will still be 60 percent higher than last year’s average price.
Ouch!
o
Which brings us to the e-mail of the day. It comes from Rasputin Moran.
"A lot of folks can’t understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in our country. Well, there’s a very simple answer. Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn’t know we were getting so low.
"The reason for that is purely geographical.
"Our oil is located in Alaska, California, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
"Our dipsticks are located in Washington, D.C."
Gil Spencer’s column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at gspencer@delcotimes.com.
