Ball 5

Author: Justin Golenbock

Google Search Ugueth "Ugie" Urbina: Click…an opening to a column only Niall Sullivan could envision. Some interesting hits surface when you search for information on the 31-year-old (age possibly important or at least not uninteresting) Venezuelan, including statistics evidencing his success as a Major League closer, with over 100 lifetime saves in each league. Of course, Urbina's career has not been without its share of a little controversy. If you're a Tigers fan, you probably remember his 2004 arrest for firing off a handgun in public; if you're a Red Sox fan, you may remember his suspension from his winter league team in 2001 for throwing a pitch at the head of an opposing batter before charging the rival team's bench (by himself) with fists flying; if you were an Expos fan…who are you kidding, you weren't an Expos fan…but he got arrested up in Canada, too.

Urbina's history is interesting because, surprisingly enough, he was recently arrested and is being held without bail in a Venezuelan prison cell for attempted murder. Now catching your employees swimming in your private pool without permission can be irksome, but apparently in Venezuela it's considered an overreaction to send five of them to the hospital with lacerations and severe burn scars inflicted by a combination of machete and car gasoline.

Obviously, Urbina is relevant because of the little-known clause in all conscientious sports journalists' contracts (pretend I have one) that they need to have their own appropriate "in" into the very tired Terrell Owens debate. Now if the juxtaposition has not been made entirely clear…there are worse teammates to have. Interestingly enough, no one seems to be emphasizing that the 31-year-old (connection???) Eagles' receiver is having a career year. He caught 47 balls for 763 yards and six touchdowns through the first seven games to bail out the one-dimensional, arthritically-crippled Philadelphia running game. Now I'm math-challenged, but plug those numbers into the trigocalculator and that puts "TO" on pace for over 1,700 yards and 14 around touchdowns. And when Nos. 2, 3 and 4 on the receiver depth chart are Greg Lewis, Reggie Brown and Billy McMullen (50 catches/663 yards/two touchdowns combined)...honestly, folks, there are worse teammates to have.

Now we all feel for Andy Reid. Surely he's the first multimillionaire professional coach to be criticized by his multimillionaire professional superstar. And as other writers have pointed out, it's not fair to McNabb to expect that just because he's played much better with TO, that does not mean he will play much worse without him. If that defense takes a moment to work out, ponder next over what "Ugie" had to say in response to the allegations pointed his way: "Right now we aren't going to do anything to deny things that aren't true." Well said. For an Eagles team in need of an answer (and a Red Sox team in need of a closer): Exactly.