Don’t Phone It In, Eric; It’s Not What We Want to Hear

Say it ain’t so, Eric.

Tell us you’re not serious about phoning it in this year.

Phoning it in? That’s an expression used in the theater, big guy. It refers to an actor or actress who goes through the motions on stage, delivering a lifeless, soul-less, sub-par performance. Among actors, it is the lowest crime, the ultimate insult.

In this paper Tuesday you were quoted as saying, “I’ll go out and try to play my best. But I have too much on my mind. . . . I feel like a stallion who once upon a time had spirit. But once you break a horse’s spirit, the horse is no good.”

Horse manure.

Wait, Eric, don’t turn to the box scores yet. This isn’t a column about how Eric Dickerson is an overpaid crybaby. It’s a column about how Eric Dickerson is an under paid crybaby.

And worse, a phoner-inner.

We do agree on one point--you should be making more money. Lots more. You should be making more money than Bo Jackson. More than Bo Derek. Your job is ridiculous. What you do every Sunday is the physical equivalent of diving into an empty swimming pool 30 times. It’s knee surgery roulette.

But this is an unfair world. If I tell you Bo Jackson has a better shoe contract than you, will you threaten to play barefoot?

So you’re only earning about $680,000 a year, while guys who couldn’t carry your goggles are making twice that. Because of this, because the Ram organization has a heart the size of an amoeba, you’re not sure if you’re going to be able to play too well this year.

OK, I understand the game. You’re whining like this in order to enlist public sympathy, indirectly pressuring the Rams into renegotiating your contract. If so, this is the most poorly conceived PR campaign in history.

It’s one thing to complain about your salary. That’s the national pastime. But to threaten mediocre performance because of it, that’s horse manure of a different color.

What happens the first time you fumble the ball this season, Eric? Or the first time you get stopped cold on third and four? Up in the stands, we’ll just have to guess--Was it because some 285-pound piranha in cleats ripped out your kidneys, or were you simply too bleak of countenance to give the guy a decent straight arm to the nose?

You have a responsibility, big dude. Not that role model stuff. If you want to know the truth, I don’t think the football public gives a hoot about what kind of example you set in your private life. I certainly don’t expect you to supply moral leadership to the nation’s youth. They get too much of that already from our top government figures.

What I think we have a right to expect is an honest effort on the football field. But forget about us for a moment. What about your own self? I assume your new home in Malibu is equipped with mirrors.

You said: “When players are happy, they play harder.”

Are you serious? Magic Johnson believes he is underpaid. So does Wade Boggs. And Dan Marino. And probably Lee Iacocca. Bo Jackson probably thinks he’s underpaid. I don’t even want to tell you what they paid Joe DiMaggio the year he hit in 56 straight, or what they paid Jim Brown, who played pretty hard.

Remember Richard Dent, the Chicago Bear defensive end, before the 1986 Super Bowl? He was not a happy man. He threatened to boycott the game unless the Bears gave him a new contract. The Bears didn’t give him a new contract. He played anyway. He tore the Patriots to shreds. He was named MVP of the game.

I don’t know what good this performance did Dent in his negotiations, but he escaped with his pride and honor, which have to be worth the equivalent of at least a few Mercedes-Benzes.

The Ram$ have you by the cleats, big E. You wanted a contract extension so badly that you signed a lousy contract, and now the team’s front-office people are sitting back, cackling like Vincent Price. Don’t expect a trade. Where would they get another Eric Dickerson? Without you, the Rams are a pit bull with dentures.

When they offered you a take-it-or-leave-it contract extension in 1985, you should have left it, made ‘em squirm. Instead, they called your bluff, and you folded a winning hand.

Now, they figure you’re bluffing again.

If you’re not, if you really are too sensitive a soul to leave your emotional baggage in the locker room, maybe it’s time to head out to pasture, old stallion.

Whatever you do, don’t phone it in. That would be ugly.