Backfield in Motion

I'm not a football fan.

In the vast and varied sports promenade, my one suitor is now and always has been baseball. I'm a rather girly girl, but nonetheless, I know what a designated hitter is and which league uses that position. I can tell you all about the suicide squeeze, and I even know the infield fly rule. I went to spring training in Arizona three years ago, and I'm considering going again this year. My overall love for baseball is so strong that one day I may forgive the Giants for letting my baseball boyfriend J.T. Snow go play for the Red Sox. Not that the Red Sox are a bad team, objectively speaking. In fact, the eight and a half years I lived in New England cultivated enough Red Sox loyalty in my heart that I actually cried when they won the 2004 World Series. But my boyfriend J.T. now plays for a team three thousand miles away, and I'm not into long distance relationships. It's a good thing Mike Matheny is still a Giant...

At any rate, with the exception of an annual passing interest in the Rose Bowl because it is played in my hometown, football has never been my thing. It has always just seemed like a convenient way to distract sports fans until baseball season starts again. So it's just a tad ironic that football has taken even a slightly prominent role in my life this weekend.

Yesterday John Madden was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so for work I got to spend a chunk of my day talking to Raiders fans at a Raiders-focused sports bar in San Leandro. As it was 12:30 in the afternoon, and the Raiders are done for the season, there were only about seven people in the place. But the guys I talked to were very nice, including the 80-year old man who rolled out his best flirting moves when he chatted with me. And talking to fans was definitely better than having to immerse myself in football history as it relates to John Madden's career.

Now yesterday alone would be enough football to tide me over months, but today I am going to my friend Anjolie's house for a Super Bowl party. Anjolie is awesome. She was a year behind me at Brown, but we didn't know each other then. We met at Blondie's in the Mission about seven years ago. The vague recognition from our college days had us eyeing each other, but the ice was only broken when Anjolie's then-boyfriend came on to me. What a peach, huh? Anyway, Anjolie merely sees the Super Bowl as an excuse to watch the commercials and have people over, and I support her perception. Besides, big things happen when I go to Anjolie's. The last time I went to her Super Bowl party, Janet Jackson exposed one of her breasts and as a consequence turned the FCC into modern-day Salem witch hunters. Coincidence? You be the judge.