USA TODAY: Philadelphia Eagles spokesman Derek Boyko confirmed to USA TODAY via email that the team has signed the former Atlanta Falcons Pro Bowl Quarterback. ESPN is reporting that the Eagles have signed Vick to a two-year deal. Vick’s agent, Joel Segal, confirmed the signing to ESPN. Fox is reporting that the first year of the deal is worth $1.6 million. The Eagles have a team option for a second year at $5.2 million. MORE
RELATED: How Michael Vick Went Bankrupt
Amount jailed star quarterback Michael Vick spent from July ‘06 to July ‘08, according to recent bankruptcy papers: $17.7 million.
Amount of that time he was in prison: 8 months.
Total amount of checks he wrote his mother, Brenda Boddie—not counting all her bills he paid—even while in prison: $21,400.
Amount he donated to her church: $327,900.
Amount he gave her for an Easter egg hunt: $700.
Number of Reese’s Chocolate Easter Eggs that would buy: 5,259.
Amount of the check he wrote to Boddie labeled “chump change”: $1,000.
STICKER PRICE OF THE ‘07 INFINITI VICK KEEPS IN LEAVENWORTH FOR HIS FIANCÉE’s VISITS: $65,000
COST OF A CAB FROM THE KANSAS CITY AIRPORT TO THE PRISON: $60.
Amount Vick was sentenced to pay to house and care for the 47 pit bulls he and his buddies didn’t drown, strangle, hang, shoot, or electrocute for not winning fights: $928,073.
Average pay, per hour, of Vick’s pit bulls’ caregivers at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah: $14. MORE
SATIRE: Inky Names Michael Vick Pet Care Columnist
[via BRENDAN CALLING]
PHILADELPHIA — The publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer is defending his decision to make former football player Michael Vick a regular columnist who will write about breeding and raising dogs.
Vick was the “the key figure” of an extensive unlawful interstate dogfighting ring operating over a period of five years that critics call cruelty to animals. One critic of the Inquirer’s Vick columns says it’s like having O.J. Simpson write about the criminal justice system.
Inquirer Publisher Brian Tierney says that’s a silly comparison. He says Simpson has been found liable
for wrongful death of a human being and Vick had been through no such legal process.
As Tierney put it: “Speech that is most important to defend is the speech that you hate; it’s easy to defend the speech that you like.”
Editorial page editor Harold Jackson was quick to respond in a column:
Paris. Yes, the one in France.
That’s the farthest point from which The Inquirer received e-mails protesting our contract with Michael Vick to write a monthly column, which mostly centers on topics related to the care and raising of dogs, especially pit bulls.
EDITOR’S NOTE: When Brendan Skwire wrote the above satirical piece a few months ago, he was making the point that the Inquirer hiring Bush torture memo-writer John Yoo as an editorial page columnist made about much sense as the Inquirer hiring Michael Vick as a pet care columnist. Who’s laughing now?