"This Is Steve ... And He's (Still) A Sex Addict"

... and then everybody in the group joins the chorus, "Hi, Steve!" -- the only exception here is that, "yes" ... we will judge you and, "no" ... we'll probably never accept you nor will we ever love you.

To coin a phrase ... "tough titties."

Steve Phillips has forgotten more about titties than most of us (some of us, anyway) will ever know ... but, before we get all judgmental and say, "Once a sex addict, always a sex addict," let's remember that Steve Phillips has a disease -- and let's thank god that the last we'll ever see of him on live TV is spouting nonsense on "Baseball Tonight" rather than engaged in a memorable kitchen-table sit-down (while he's naked) with NBC Dateline's Chris Hansen.

A lot of kids across America stumbled into Phillips' face on TV and thought to themselves, "Why can't that guy finish turning that baby goat-tee into a full-grown goat-tee?"

The shit hit the fan on this Sunday morning -- and perhaps the silver lining to this Married Steve and His Girlfriend is that the story (so far) hasn't reached its "climax," so to speak, wherein Married Steve becomes Murdered Steve ... as it did more than three months ago for Steve McNair and his gal, Sahel Kazemi.

Most of us used to believe that Steve Phillips shoulda been Kazemi'ed because he came off as such a smug prick, so to speak, every time we saw him on TV ... but, there are many children out there across America who weren't laughing their asses off 10 yrs. ago when we heard the Mutts GM admit that he had a sexual addiction.

Despite his illness (covered? or NOT covered? in the new Obama Healthcare Package), the Disneyland Baseball Channel is probably going to lower the boom on Phillips (meaning that the final lasting observation he gave America was J-Roll's walk-off, 2-run double "hit the chain-link fence, blah blah blah ...).

Dammit, we're gonna miss that commentary.

It was unfortunate that the Espy Network chick who claims to be his lover thrust, so to speak, this situation into the public eye and set Phillips up for weeks of abuse.

The leadoff batter, metaphorically, was CBS Sportline's Gregg Doyel, who appeared on that Sunday morning CNN program which much of us weren't paying attention to as we dressed and prepared to go outdoors.

Doyel's initial cheap shot was that Phillips lover ain't too good-lookin'.

If such a remark seems harsh, America needs to understand that Doyel is obligated to say what he did.

As those of us who don't waste our time reading Doyel's traditional bullshit, we realize that guys who have a dangle the size of a broken No. 2 pencil and who, at birth, got the fuck beaten outta them with the ugly stick NEED to be pro-active in zeroing on peripheral, superficial matters.

Such as the looks of others who also got the fuck beaten outta them with the ugly stick.

It's doubtful that, in the days ahead, if we'll learn if Steve Phillips' lover had an inner-thigh that was sweeter n' hotter n' softer than cinnamon rolls fresh outta the oven -- just as we'll probably never learn where Gregg Doyel stashes his NAMBLA literature.

The central issue should be that it's America's children who'll be the losers in the end.

Then again, The MLB-Y2K-ESPN superpower was never intended for kids.

It's to reintroduce us to that "other" ex-Mets prick Bobby Valentine ... and the .063 percent of value he adds to everything he does.

So, how will America's children learn about the birds n' the bees between episodes of the Married Steve and the Murdered Steve?

From De Niro, of course.

When it comes to mapping out the M-L-B and s-e-x, it's always best to pop "The Fan" into the DVD player.

You remember: Young Richie Renard and his dad, Gil, are driving to Candleshit for the season opener.

RICHIE: "Jason Pelligrini's dad says Mick Jagger is gay."
GIL (angrily): "Jason Pelligrini's dad takes it up the ass."

It's up to America to decide if De Niro as Gil Renard offering that hostile response revealed him as a less-thoughtful character than the one he portrayed 25 or so years earlier when he was New York Mammoths catcher Bruce Pearson learning the ropes from teammate Henry Wiggen (Michael Moriarty) in "Bang The Drum Slowly."

BRUCE: "Arthur, if you was on one team and I was on another, what kinda book would you keep on me?"
HENRY: "If you was on one team and I was on another, I'd say to myself, 'No need to keep a book on Pearson, 'cuz Pearson keeps no book on me.' 'Cuz if I strike ya out on a curveball 'in here,' you don't go back to the bench sayin' 'That son of a bitch, Wiggen, he struck me out on a curveball in here, so I'll be on the lookout next time.' No ... you go back to the bench sayin', 'I think I need a frank' or 'I see a great pair of jugs up in the stands.' "

Hey ... it's a mediocre movie at best ... but it's all we have.

And it's better than reading Doyel's rants re: Steve Phillips' pursuit of 'tang ...

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