An anonymous person — anonymous to you but I know his name — wrote…
I'm expecting your usual infallible Super Bowl prediction that you won't be watching but I'm curious why. You're an American Male. How can you not be interested in football?
I'm just not and I don't think that's as rare as you probably do. I'm not much of a spectator of spectator sports…and to the extent I do watch, it's a smidgen of baseball — and a smaller one since Vin Scully stopped broadcasting. I also like to watch gymnasts from time to time but not even live. I like to watch clips of past excellence. I can't tell you the last time I watched an entire sporting event and cared about its outcome. Most likely, Sandy Koufax was pitching.
I was trying to think of a good reason to give you, my anonymous friend, about why I have so little interest in football. At first, I thought it might be because of my father. He had no interest in football but he loved baseball. Maybe the fact that I have even that teensy interest in baseball comes from the fact that he loved it and it was a father/son bonding thing once in a while. Then again, he loved basketball almost as much and I know as little about that sport as I do about football.
Or hockey. Or golf. Or any other sporting event. I never "got" how people could get so head-over-heels ecstatic when "their team" won. I always think, "Unless you had money on the game, you didn't win anything!" And clearly most folks' love of sports is not based wholly on wagering.
Later today when the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles square off — and yes, I just had to Google to find out what teams were playing — I can see no reason to root for one over the other. Even if there was an L.A. team in there, I couldn't gin up a gram of caring. And approaching the age of 71 in this country, I still haven't paid enough attention to football to know how it's played.
This is not intended to lessen anyone's enjoyment of the game today and I'm sure it won't. I don't care about the game and if you do, you don't care that I don't care, nor should you. I'm just trying to answer the question for my anonymous-to-you correspondent and maybe for myself as to why I don't care. And I think the answer is that I simply don't…nor do I care why I don't. Enjoy the game if you might.