Ron Borges

What does it mean when your agent issues a statement that reads: "Tom and his family are excited about the pregnancy'' when his family doesn't include the person who's pregnant? Well, so much for the Beaver Cleaver image, that's what it means.

Ever since Tom Brady ascended to the level of American sporting icon, which took about a season and a half as the New England Patriots' starting quarterback, he also became not only the All-American Boy but America's favorite son. He was the poster boy for what the world hopes all its athletes could be — smart, good looking, aw-shucks humble, flashing blue eyes, wide smile. Just one of the guys, even when he couldn't really be one of the guys because of his rising public profile as a three-time Super Bowl winning quarterback. He was John-Boy Walton with better jewelry, an image he worked overtime to foster.

When his charmed life began to change and he threw a pick that helped kill his team in the playoffs a year ago, the reaction by most clear-thinking people around Boston was, "it happens." So what? His halo remained intact.

Even after the same thing happened again this season — killing his team's last chance in the AFC title game — most fair-thinking people looked at how far he'd taken the Patriots despite the fact his receivers stunk. And while his halo may have been left a tad askew it was still firmly intact.

Then his recently estranged girlfriend of the past three-plus years, 36-year-old actress Bridget Moynihan, announced she was pregnant with his child. Now, when we hear talk of Brady's halo we hear the voice of Keith Jackson hollering "Fummmbbbllleee.''

Yet even this recent misstep might have slid off him as if he was made of Teflon had he done what most people expected: Come out wearing that innocent grim and tousled hair as he talked about how much he was looking forward to being the kind of Dad his father was to him. That would have led everyone in America to say, "That's our Tom.''

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Instead, Brady goes off to Paris with his new girlfriend, a 26-year-old underwear model from Brazil named Giselle Bundchen, and comes away looking like a cad. As one day of silence from Brady led to another, the paparazzi were having a field day sending back photographs of Brady and his new love smooching in the front window of a Parisian bistro while the mother of his future child was presumably back in New York alone, coping with morning sickness and all the other displeasures that come with the early months of pregnancy. Not good for John-Boy.

Although babies without fathers present have become the norm in American society in general and in professional sports in particular, the image Tom Brady had so carefully cultivated the past six years was the opposite of that in every way. According to his father, his son was a faithful Catholic who, several years ago on a quite different trip to Europe, had his picture taken kneeling in front of the Pope in Rome. Now he's on the front page of newspapers from coast to coast canoodling with an underwear model young enough to serve as the nanny for Moynihan when she needs one in about six months.

National columnists, late-night talk show comedians and sports talk radio everywhere had a field day with this as Brady continued his silence. The only image was of him with a scarf around his neck and shades on walking down Rue de Day in Paris with the toothy Ms. Bundchen clutching his side.

Now no one knows what is really going on here but the future parents of Brady's progeny. Who did what to whom, when and for what reason is hard to know, although unidentified spokespeople for the two both claim Brady knew of the upcoming birth of his first child late last season. If true, that seemed to raise more questions about this whole mess than it answered.

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