Dolphins' Porter Takes Off on New England

MIAMI.  His Dolphin teammates laughed and said it was only a matter of time.  "You guys want a story?" center Jake Grove said to writers who had gathered around his locker.  "Go talk to Joey--he'll give you one."

Porter:  "I caught 'em, and I'm gonna eat 'em!"

Like a long-dormant volcano, outspoken Miami linebacker Joey Porter erupted yesterday, pouring forth a lava flow of provocative comments that are sure to provide hot bulletin-board material in the New England Patriots' locker room before this Sunday's game.



"I just don't like New England," Porter said as reporters scurried to get his remarks down on tape.  "Never have, since I was a little kid."  Porter visited New England as a boy, and was told by a soda jerk at Howard Johnson's, the restaurant chain founded in Quincy, Massachusetts, that he couldn't have a milk shake.


Howard Johnson's

"I started crying, man," Porter said, growing emotional.  "Then the guy laughs and says 'But I can give you a frappe,'" the term used for a milk shake in New England.  "Why you want to mess with a little kid like that? Don't give me that frappe crappe."


The Town Meeting, by Norman Rockwell:  "We don't need a new fire truck."

Porter says New England is overrated for other reasons.  "I'm gonna be in Tom Brady's face all day," he predicted.  "Their O-Line sucks, and the open town meeting form of government is just a bunch of loudmouths arguing about how much to spend on a fire truck--I watched it on cable."


Lowell:  "You really think Porter can keep up with Randy Moss in man-to-man coverage?"

Porter blamed the media for egging him on.  "You guys want to talk about everything except football.  Yesterday some punk from The Boston Globe asked me 'Agree or disagree: Robert Lowell is the greatest American poet of the 20th century.'  Hell, man--disagree.  "'Everywhere, giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility
slides by on grease.'  That stinks."

Ralph Waldo Emerson:  "Names are like prunes.  One's not enough, three's about right."

When reminded that Lowell had been praised by The Atlantic Monthly, the literary and cultural magazine founded in Boston by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others, Porter didn't back down.  "The Atlantic Monthly?  Please.  They don't even have a sports page."

"And don't get me started about Boston Baked Beans," Porter said as he pulled on his helmet.  "They're disgusting."