Monday Mimisms ~ Superbowl Sunday: I'm Down With It

I have a Superbowl hangover.
Not from drinking.
From thinking.

I know it's unAmerican but I just don't understand football. It's not that I can't intellectualize the rules of the game, it's just that well......I just don't like football. And here's why.

They fall down.
They get up.
They fall down on top of each other.
They get up.
They knock each other down on purpose.
They get up.

It's insane!!!

Any other sport and they'd all be in jail.
Why is it OK for five players on the court (no, wrong sport) grassy knoll lawn to plow into each other like bulldozers and act like they just got the last chocolate Hershey's kiss out of the bowl holding on for dear life when they fall ON the ball?

Can't we learn to share? Whatever happened to manners? I swear as I was reading lips yesterday with my head cocked to one side trying to figure out which body parts belonged where (theirs, not mine) while the blues and the whites were groveling and grunting on the ground I watched a half-a-dozen contorted faces say, "Get offa me or I'm tellin' my Mama."

These thoughts plague me.
I'm a peaceful Queen.

It took me all afternoon to figure out that the coin toss had nothing to do with Ground Hog Day. So I made it easy on myself.

I decided that whoever made the first kick after the coin toss would be my player to follow. I can't keep up with all the numbers when they all fall in a pile. I just need one. Number 3 Stephen Gostkowski who is wearing a very nice blue and white suit sans a tie was the lucky winner. Here he is. Isn't he cute?

Height: 6-1 Weight: 210
Year: 2 Yrs/Pat: 2
Acquired: D4-06 (118th Overall)
School: Memphis
Major: Pre-Physical Therapy
Born: Jan 28, 1984 Madison, Miss.

Uh oh.
He's old enough to be my pool boy.

Trouble is, after he kicked the ball I lost him. It took me hours to find him again. The next time I looked he was sitting - and spitting - on the bench (yea I know that's a baseball term. Uh huh) and the pretty announcer in the leopard skin camisole with the sexy microphone was explaining how my baby had been injured in the locker room. Or something like that. Now, if I could figure out what happened after he kicked the ball.

I give up.
Thirteen minutes into the game and I have no idea what these words mean.
End Zone
Red Zone
Pocket
2nd down
first first down
first second down (I think I just said that.....)second down and ten
(ten seconds? ten feet? ten people? what??!!)

catch and fumble
(They're not wearing gloves. THAT's the problem. Even I know that.)

tightend

(I think that means I'm allowed to watch the benefits of his gym rat personality skate across the fifty-yard line.)

And then there's the incomprehensible incomplete pass.

What completes a pass? A pass is a pass if you pass it, right? Why does somebody have to catch it to make it a pass? This is not so in baseball. Somebody throws. It travels aeronautically through the night air filled with the smell of popcorn and cotton candy into somebody else's raised or strategically placed glove. Simple. Beautiful. Contact.

I understand that.



Wikipedia answered my question as such: "An incomplete pass is a term in American football which means that a legal forward pass hits the ground before a player on either team gains possession. For example, if the quarterback throws the ball to one of his wide receivers, and the receiver either does not touch it or tries to catch it unsuccessfully, it is ruled as an incomplete pass. An incomplete pass causes the down to advance by one and the offensive team gains no yards. Additionally, the game clock is stopped."

You lost me at wide receiver.

In baseball (which is round, mind you) if somebody throws the ball and nobody catches it, you are not out, you are not down, you are just out of luck until you find it. Then you pick it up and throw it. The only time it doesn't count is when you catch it FIRST and then drop it. Now THAT'S a fumble.

This is the way the world should work.

SEAN M. HAFFEY / Union-Tribune (photo)
I understand popups, flyballs, grounders and hoppers. Strike three. The only signals given are from the pitcher to the catcher and somebody's mama, NOT somebody off the field behind a camera lens making a video with Paula Abdul.


Isn't this nice? Now that's manners. .........

Between Cheetos runs I found myself having to stop and google such terms as 'how many players can be on the field at the same time?' before I could write this story. I discovered the answer is eleven. Eleven??!
Why do they need twenty-two people to throw and catch one little funky-shaped ball that isn't even round. If it's not round it's not a ball.

And pass interference I read must be determined by "clear possession carrying a lighter burden of proof" that both feet, or only one (depending on the league) must be in bounds. Nope. You just need one sober umpire and somebody's mama on the third base line. We don't need no stinkin' lawyers in baseball.

And I was doing just fine until Wikipedia lied to me. Penalties: "...If the receiver (or a defending player) is touched by a member of the opposing team in a way that prevents him from catching the ball, it is ruled pass interference, resulting in a penalty against the touching player's team. The exception to this rule is if the ball is deemed 'uncatchable' by the referees, in which case a pass interference penalty is impossible."


This offends my deep sensibilities. Which brings me back to my original point. Aren't they SUPPOSED to be preventing each other from catching the ball? "Oh! You touched me in a most offensive manner and now I must tattle. But don't worry. I'll be back in thirty seconds to smash your brains out when the striped suit man isn't looking."

And we all know it does not result in a penalty. It results in a barroom brawl shoulder-to-shoulder while an unpadded whistle blower interferes with what everybody came to see anyway. I thought President Bush was going to call for the National Guard yesterday to restore order.

I do know what a touchdown means. That happens when somebody runs to the end where you can't go any farther. I think they have to be carrying the ball. It's like a homeroom  homerun without the bases and no fences. Right? I think I should go back to following number 3. I haven't seen him in a while. I'm sure he's underneath one of those piles somewhere and desperately needs me by now.

All in all, I think I did pretty well yesterday. I made it through twelve hours of crash course football all by myself. I learned a lot. I learned that to love a sport I should forget the analyzing and dictionary-izing and just go with the funky-shaped pass. Follow the curve of the aeronautic beauty through the night air smelling popcorn and rawhide. Or something like that.

See, I'm a global thinker. We're all connected. Synergy. A fumble is to a foul as a strike is to a technical. A fly catch is to an interception as a homerun is to a steal.

And a steal is just a steal.

Ahhh.....baseball.

But folks, I don't know what a down is.
And I never will.





What posted on Mimi Writes one year ago today? Do I Need A Degree For This?

You can participate year round. Anytime!