How will you spend your Sunday?
Yeh, I know. There’s a “super” bowl on.
I know all about your Patriots and your Seahawks. And, your Marshawn Lynch. And, your “Deflategate.” I learned all about it on Saturday Night Live last night. I know about these things.
Today’s Super Bowl will take up hours and hours and hours of airtime. Yet, if you add up the actual football action? Eleven minutes.
Between the Budweiser commercials, the broadcasters jabbering, and Katy Perry, there will be 11 minutes of actual football … 67 minutes of football players just standing around … 17 minutes of replays … and more than an hour of beer and truck commercials. (And, probably a concussion or two.)
SportsGrid broke it down in this easy-to-follow pie chart:
Fun Fact: The average baseball game? 18 minutes of action. That’s 67 percent MORE baseball, people.
I gave up on football a few years back with the ugly revelations of the game’s concussion crisis and the National Football League’s irresponsible inaction.
So, I won’t be spending my 11 minutes watching football tonight.
And, just maybe, you won’t be either. So, here are some things we can do with the 11 minutes we just freed up!
** Make Chocolate Chip Cookies for the nice fella who fixed the coat rack in your Yoga studio. (Or, for any nice person you know.)
Bake for just 11 minutes in a 350 oven.
** Do Yoga.
If you’re in the groove, you’ll squeeze 11 rounds of Sun Salutations into your 11 minutes. (Cat preferred, but always optional.)
** Listen to Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row”.
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
What?
When you’re done, you can tell me what the hell he’s singing about for 11 minutes. But, it’s a good song, even if I don’t get it.
** Read War & Peace.
** Read a CHAPTER of War & Peace.
Just 300 pages left.
** Break in your new baseball glove before heading to Spring Training.
But, if you’re going to microwave it, heed the advice of former Twin-Angel-Tiger and current Twin (again) Torii Hunter who warns you that if you nuke it for more than a minute it will start to cook. He also recommends softening it up in your hot tub first. After nuking, give it some good smacks with your baseball bat.
Just 18 days ‘til Pitchers and Catchers report. So let’s get those gloves in the hot tub, Birdland!
The Baseball Bloggess 
Why, exactly, should we be careful not to cook our gloves? Is it like nuking bread, making it all rubbery? Or is it like zapping tomato sauce, so it splatters the sides of your microwave with little bits of leather, giving your oven a year-round scent of *B*A*S*E*B*A*L*L* )?
I’ve always preferred breaking in my gloves by using them. Go outside and throw a ball around. And leave the ball in the glove when not in use. Heavy rubber bands to wrap the glove around the ball recommended.
(As a Seattleite-in-exile, apparently I’m contractually obligated to watch that football thing. A shame. The weather is absolutely perfect for baseball here: sunny and upper 60s. Sorry, east coast denizens.)
Or, one can always do what Ken Griffey, Jr. did to break in his glove — send it to dad and let him break it in. Unfortunately, I don’t have Ken Griffey, Sr.’s mailing address or else we ALL could do that.
I choose Downton Abbey for my entertainment tonight, though anything would be better than football. It hurts to think of those guys purposely crashing their helmets into each other with their brains (or whatever is left of them) sloshing around inside their skulls. I’ll take my 11 minutes to watch the best of the Super Bowl commercials on the Internet tomorrow.
Good idea!
Great info on the Super Bowl. One of the many reasons the NFL just isn’t for me. The kids and I stick to baseball, hockey, and pro wrestling, I guess (what seven yr-old doesn’t like Cena?). Nice recipe, but I couldn’t make cookies if I was an elf…
-Mike
Hi Mike … I bet elves can’t bake cookies either — they’re too short to reach the oven handle! Just 16 more days til pitchers & catchers report … (finally!)
Just curious, do they play Weather Report’s or Quincy Jones’ arrangement of “Birdland” at Orioles games? Being at a baseball game live beats 11-minutes of Super Bowl game action, and 6+ hours of hype any day. The Seahawks should be ashamed of that goal-line call; that’s enough to switch them to be the 12th man at Mariners games. Pitchers and catchers report in two weeks. We have no snow on the ground in North Dakota, but I still would rather spend the entire month of March in Florida.
Camden Yards stays pretty close to 21st century music — with the only exception being, of course, “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” … which is a song I can’t stand and I just don’t know how it sticks around. I’m always delighted when Darren O’Day walks out to the mound to the Black Keys … and J.J. Hardy comes to bat to Moby!
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