Big contracts, big flops prove inseparable in big-time sports

By DANA PENNETT O'NEIL
Philadelphia Daily News

PHILADELPHIA - Pat Burrell is in a profession where failure is routine. The best players in the game only get a hit one out of every three times at bat.

But when Burrell inked a six-year, $50 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies during the offseason, the leftfielder's room for failure decreased exponentially.

He knew it.

"We play a game for a living, but this is a business," the Phillies leftfielder says. "There's a reason for the big contracts."

As the boobirds rained down on Donovan McNabb a week ago Sunday, heckling the same player they cheered during player introductions in Week 1, Burrell flinched. If there is one person in this city with an ounce of compassion for McNabb - and heaven knows he might be alone in a vast field - it is Burrell, whose average hovered around .200 for much of the season.

Burrell knows the $115 million contract McNabb signed last September not only is an endorsement of McNabb's abilities and a security blanket for his future, it is an albatross.

"They make all that stuff so public," Burrell says. "Everyone knows what you're making so they decide if you're worth it."

Right now, the consensus is McNabb is decidedly not. The Eagles are 0-2 and McNabb's passer rating (41.4) and completion percentage (45.1 percent) are among the league's worst. Since signing his 12-year deal, McNabb has thrown just 11 touchdown passes and the Eagles are 6-5 in games he has played substantially.

But McNabb's misery has plenty of company. The list of athletes who signed big contracts only to struggle reads like a who's who of all-stars.

In 2001, Jason Giambi ditched Oakland for the greener pastures of New York, signing a contract that upped his annual pay from $4 million to $10 million. In his first month, he managed a measly four home runs and hit .282, not bad but not good enough for Yankees fans, who booed him mercilessly.

• The Washington Capitals awarded Jaromir Jagr a seven-year, $77 million deal two seasons ago. In return, he has produced his fewest points since the strike-shortened 1994-95 season, and in the offseason, the Caps tried in earnest to trade him.

   

   

• Ken Griffey Jr. returned to Cincinnati before the 2000 season as a hometown hero, returning to town courtesy of an eight-year, $116.5 million deal. He batted .217 in his first month and has been sidelined by a litany of injuries. A dislocated shoulder ended this season after 53 games, but he earned $190,000 per game.

   

  In Philadelphia alone, try these names on for size - Burrell, LeClair, Thome. Even Ken Hitchcock.

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  HEIGHTENED EXPECTATIONS

  What gives? Players are loath to blame it on their salaries, knowing they won't get a lot of empathy from the guy slinging burgers at minimum wage.

  But it can't just be coincidence.

  "Of course players feel pressure to achieve when they've gotten so much money," New York-based sports psychologist Dr. Richard Lustberg says. "First, even though they live in a rarefied world, they have to know this is an insane sum of money. It's impossible to live up to. And money is linked to production. We look at numbers, statistics. Films are broken down, so a guy sees he didn't turn the right way on the handoff.

  "If someone calls and says, `I'm going to triple your salary,' they expect you to improve. What's implied in all this is he'll bring a Super Bowl to this team. This is a business. They paid him the money to get a result and he knows that."

  Even if the team itself doesn't spell out its expectations, the number of digits following the dollar sign implies it. For every number past the comma, figure a player is just a little bit more of a franchise player.

  George Steinbrenner said he was just trying to get more from the Yankees' highest-paid player, Derek Jeter, when he suggested the shortstop cut back on the extracurriculars and concentrate more on baseball in a December interview.

  By most standards, Jeter had a fine season, batting .297 with 75 RBI, but the Yankees lost to Anaheim in the Division Series. As much as a baseball man as Steinbrenner is, he's also a businessman; in this case, a businessman protecting his 10-year, $189 million investment.

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  UNDERPAID VS. OVERPAID

  For most of his career, John LeClair skated like a franchise player but was paid like a role player. A three-time 50-goal scorer, he finally upped his salary when he won $7 million in arbitration in 2000. A year later and despite some misgivings about the winger's ailing back, the Flyers awarded LeClair a five-year, $45 million deal.

  In his two seasons since, LeClair has scored 53 goals combined.

  Asked about McNabb's traverses, LeClair smirks.

  "I'd rather be ticketed as an underpaid player than an overpaid player any day," he says.

  It's a big load to carry today in a world where fans are growing disenchanted with their latter-day heroes. Burgeoning appearances on police blotters and free agents abandoning cities for the almighty dollar have left many a former fan believing that more athletes live by Ricky Watters' "For who? For what?" mantra than the old "Take one for the team" adage.

  On barstools and around water coolers, some in this city have wondered aloud if maybe McNabb hasn't grown fat and lazy with a contract that guarantees him money no matter how he performs.

  "I totally disagree with that," Phillies manager Larry Bowa says. "Pat Burrell doesn't get in the batter's box, Donovan McNabb doesn't get behind the center and think, `Hmm. I'm making $20 million this year, I could care less if I complete this pass.' That's a total cop-out on a person's viewpoint. They want to be the best they can be. I guarantee that. The furthest thing from their mind is their paycheck."

  Athletes, Bowa reminds, are inherently competitive. They wouldn't make it to the top level unless they wanted and expected to complete every pass, bat 1.000 and score a goal in every game.

  "As (ticked) off as Eagles fan are right now," Flyers center Jeremy Roenick says, "I guarantee you no one is more disappointed right now than Donovan."

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  IT'S A TOUGH TOWN

  Add to all that self-inflicted anxiety a city that firmly believes you will deliver the parade it has been waiting 20 years for, and well, you have a recipe for disaster.

  Ken Hitchcock knows it well. Trumpeted as the man who would bring the elusive Stanley Cup to Philadelphia, Hitchcock was viewed as a hockey Svengali thanks to his championship ring from Dallas.

  "I just looked at winning the Cup and going to the finals as a natural progression," Hitchcock says, "but all of a sudden it became the focal point of a resume when you're looking for work. It was, `Well you know how to do this because you've done it before.' I never felt like that, but when I got here, I thought, `I better make sure I know what I'm talking about.' ''

  It's hard to be a savior.

  Griffey found that out.

  So did Jim Thome.

  Arguably the Phillies' biggest free-agent signing since Pete Rose, Thome was the slugger who was going to put the team over the top and into the playoffs.

  He opened the season batting .227 for the first month. Never mind that Thome is notoriously a slow starter, this city had little patience for a guy to find his groove when the paycheck said $85 million over six years.

  "Sometimes you try too hard and start fighting things and then it snowballs," says Bowa, who never got the kind of money they're offering these days but remembers feeling the strain when he agreed to longer-term deals. "It gets like a runaway train. You want to justify the contract because the people in the front office put all their eggs in one basket with you. The guys who are struggling, you can tell they care. They don't feel like they just let their teammates down. They feel like they let the entire city down."

  Not everyone does, of course, which makes the spotlight all the more glaring on McNabb.

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  FLOP, THEN FLOURISH

  The last time the Eagles made a quarterback the highest-paid player in the NFL the guy went out the same day and shredded the Redskins. In 1989, Randall Cunningham signed a five-year, $15 million extension in the morning, then went out and completed 34 passes for 447 yards and five touchdowns in the afternoon.

  The silver lining for those desperate to find it before kickoff Sunday against the Bills, is that there are players who flop and then flourish. Giambi ended up batting .314 with 41 home runs, 122 RBI in his first season with the Yankees.

  And Thome has slammed 44 homers, knocked in 126 runs and almost single-handedly given the Phillies a shot at the wild card.

  Even Burrell is batting .269 for the month of September.

  "Everybody knows how good he is, what he's capable of," Burrell says of his slump partner. "He'll get out of it. He's taking a lot of heat right now, as quarterbacks do, but next week he'll be the hero. That's how this business works."