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© St. Petersburg Times, published January 15, 2003
The phone was ringing off the hook Monday at Daniel Flagg's home in Burlington County, N.J. Friends wanted to know if he really did manage to sneak onto the Eagles bench in the middle of Saturday's game.
"I can't believe I did it, either," Flagg told the Philadelphia Daily News. He pulled the stunt shortly before halftime. Flagg had been jawing with a security guard, wondering how so many onlookers had managed to make their way onto the sideline. "So I ask him, 'How do I get on?' " The guard, said Flagg, told him he needed an official pass. Flagg kept pestering him until, finally, the guard told him, "Yo, when I turn my head, I don't see nothing." "I knew he was just goofing with me," Flagg said, "but I took it seriously. He turned his head and I just walked right by him." He wandered around and found a place to sit ... on the bench next to running back Duce Staley. "A big guy on the other side of me, I'm not sure who he is, starts laughing and he says, 'You belong here?' " Flagg said. Flagg got up and wandered farther down the bench, plopping down next to quarterback Donovan McNabb. "I know a guy who does work at his house," Flagg said. "So I say, 'You from Jersey? I'm from Jersey.' "
McNabb didn't say much before Flagg was escorted off. He later pleaded guilty to trespassing.
The wacky question at Monday's Bucs media session was whether the players had been to, or even knew of, the Walt Whitman Bridge. Nobody seemed to know, or care, about the bridge that coach Jon Gruden referenced Sunday in saying he'd play the Eagles anywhere to get another shot at them. The bridge is named for the 19th century American poet, whose Leaves of Grass was once published in Philadelphia. And though Bucs fans might not have been so bold last week against San Francisco, we'll put Gruden's bridge head-to-head with Tampa Bay's own landmark.
Stat Whitman Skyway
Length (ft) 11,981 29,040
Lanes 7 4
Interstate 76 275
Opened 1957 1987
Build cost $90-mil $245-mil
Toll cost $3 (west) $1 (both)
Crosses Delaware R. Tampa Bay
Donovan McNabb is by far the most popular Eagles player at eBay.com, with his name yielding more than 2,100 items (Brad Johnson, by comparison, pulls up 373). His rookie football cards can get expensive; one was bidding at $635 Tuesday. If you're looking for volume, a Pensacola dealer has a lot of 269 McNabb cards, bidding at $57 Tuesday, or about 20 percent of its listed value. He's big enough that you get multiple items listed under incorrect spellings: you'll find items under McNaab, McNab, Donovann, Donavan, Donnavan. For originality, we'll spotlight one rare card: a 1999 Skybox "Hats Off" insert card, which has a swatch of the hat McNabb wore at the 1999 NFL draft and is one of 20 such cards autographed by McNabb. Bidding was already at $148 Tuesday, with five days left on the auction.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=28099&item=1988307298
In a case of excessive publicity, the Philadelphia man mentioned in Tuesday's editions who is selling 25 1-foot-square plots of old Veterans Stadium turf for $10 each received a deluge of inquiries after the item ran. Jerry Ehrlich said that as of Tuesday evening, he had received bids for 42 pieces of turf from 22 people, including one man who bid on 10 with the intention of plastering his bedroom with them. Ehrlich, whose backyard putting green is made up of the turf, promises to make more pieces available in future auctions.
-- Compiled by Greg Auman and Times wires.