Oh, baby. Here’s the story of a lovely lady. Yep, they’re making a brand new Brady Bunch, with a thoroughly modern plot twist.
The all-star cast? Hunky Tom Brady plays the football hero. Lovely Bridget Moynahan steals the show as the ex-girlfriend with a secret to tell.
And baby makes three.
Don’t look now. But Brady, leader of the New England Patriots and America’s playboy next door, has updated the meaning of quarterback sneak.
Why, you sly dog, didn’t you tell us before now that the most winning quarterback in the NFL will soon have a new reason to light a stogie, Tom?
Although the jock and the actress revealed last year their last date ended in Splitsville, Moynahan is now all aglow with the news she is three months pregnant. Brady is the proud papa.
The former couple made the happy announcement through publicists. Separately. Of course.
There are more than 1 million out-of-wedlock births in the United States every year. But this one takes the cake, although there will be no tiny, plastic bride and groom sitting atop it.
News of Moynahan’s Dunkin’ Donut in the oven bugs me, but maybe for not exactly the same reasons you would hear in church.
Back in the day, what qualified as juicy locker-room gossip ranged from trade rumors to a nasty coaching feud. Save for the foul language, it was all PG-13 rated stuff. No more.
Now, maybe you look at sports differently, as if the games are endless material for E! But between gay basketball player John Amaechi ripping the closet from its hinges and the under- the-sheets scorecard on Brady, it might be a tad more comfortable for all of us if athletes kept the most private parts of their lives behind closed doors.
Condemn me as old school. I would rather keep tabs on my center’s rebounding average or the number of picks thrown by the quarterback than memorize the names of their sleeping partners.
In an infotainment world where every breath a sports superstar takes is nothing more than fodder for David Letterman, you mean to tell me Brady gave his blood, sweat and tears to earn three Super Bowl rings for himself, yet he was afraid of the commitment required to slip a diamond on the finger of Moynahan?
But if we want to seriously discuss the significance of an athletic role model spreading his genes outside of marriage, then somehow it makes the issue of San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds’ flaxseed oil problem seem rather trivial by comparison.
Almost one in four kids in America is now born out of wedlock. Baby boomers who remember when singer Paul Anka took “Having My Baby” to No. 1 on the pop charts in 1974 might regard Tom’s new little Patriot as evidence of a nation’s moral fiber slip-sliding away.
It, however, is probably not such a big deal to a generation more likely to know every word to “Runaway Love” by Ludacris and Mary J. Blige. Birth certificates signed by unwed mothers are not just for poor, confused teenagers any more.
In fact, this we’re-having-a-baby drama might be joining the beach house and Italian sports car as accoutrement in a hip, young quarterback’s lifestyle. Arizona Cardinals heartthrob Matt Leinart, who throws a pretty mean pass himself, already has been there, done that and got the child-support payments.
Leinart, who has been linked to Paris Hilton for every time Brady has been photographed with uber-underwear model Gisele Bundchen, celebrated a baby out of wedlock with University of Southern California basketball player Brynn Cameron months ago.
Forget which quarterback earns a trip to the Pro Bowl. The real question for 2007 is: Can Leinart beat out Brady for People magazine’s unwed father of the year?
Some of us remember when football used to be a simple game of X’s and O’s.
Well, that’s yesterday’s news.
This isn’t your grandfather’s NFL, bubba.
Now, you can’t tell the future quarterbacks of America without an X and Y chromosome chart.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
