Watching, But Not Interested

It’s the Friday before the Super Bowl, and I’m just not interested. I’m not at my wife’s level of “not interested”, at least not yet. She loves the Super Bowl because there are no shopping lines anywhere in the US.

I am going to watch it, because I always watch it. I’m old enough to confirm that I’ve watched every one, all XLI of them. I’ve seen them at Super Bowl parties, including a PEFA-Super Bowl XXIII party at my home when we saw Montana hit Taylor in the end zone with 34 seconds left to win it for our Niners. I’ve seen them in bars from coast (SB VIII in Killington VT, SB XVI at The Portals in SF from which I have no idea how I got home alive). I’ve seen them with my brothers, my friends, and alone with my best friend, Max.

I’ve never been to one, and that’s ok. The closest I came was SB XVI at Stanford, the super-hyped game between the high-flying Marino-led Dolphins and the 17-1 Montana-led Niners. My buddy Sam Barron said he was going and I should go with him. He guaranteed we’d get a ticket for $100. Face was $60, and tickets were going for $500 and up. I told him he was nuts, so I headed over to West Portal to get blitzed. (On the way home in that car, I pulled my Fiat X-1/9 over to the curb, opened the door, stuck my head out and barfed, then headed home.) Sam told me later that he bought a ticket in the end zone for $100 from a guy who had 2. The guy who sat in my seat said he paid face.

Sure, I’m going to watch it Sunday. I’ve got a streak going – XLI in a row. I’m not going to break it. But even with the Pats going for the perfect season, I’m just not interested. I’m interested in baseball getting started, and I'm really interested in fantasy baseball getting started. In a couple of weeks all this football stuff will finally be off the sports pages, and we’ll start to see the awakening of what is getting my blood up. What’s funny is that for most of those Super Bowls, I craved football, not baseball. I’m not sure what changed, though it may be that I don’t like actually going to football games any more, but I love going to baseball games. And despite having invented online fantasy football, Roto Baseball is just so much more fun. I invented that, too, by the way.

So this weekend I’m going to ramp up my baseball jones and download Rotolab, fantasy baseball software that I bought last season for the first time that has really added to my enjoyment of the game. I used to do it all on a massive spreadsheet, but Rotolab is so much easier. I have some suggestions which I’ll pass on to Merv, my Rotolab guru, but it’s pretty good just as it is. Money very well spent. In fact, while the Super Bowl is on, I’ll be tossing the ball to Max and simultaneously playing around with Merv’s software. Now that’s the way to watch a football game.

Speaking of football, let me leave you with this link to a hilarious video on You Tube. It’s got Hitler in it, so you know it’s in bad taste. But so is the annual Dolphin toast after the last team loses a game each year. Hitler is history, and maybe, finally, so will be that annual toast.