just to be clear about this

[mmegaera]

The Seahawks/49ers Sunday Night Football game is not on rain delay. Not in Seattle, for crying out loud.

It's on lightning delay. We've had more lightning in the last three weeks than we've had in the entire twenty years that came before (she says, having moved here twenty years ago last month [g]).

ETA: The final score, after an hour's delay, was 29-3 Seahawks. Works for me...

Comments

[dfledermaus]

See, this is the advantage of a sport that takes place in a rink. You may sit huddled up in your coat with hat and mittens on, butt freezing to the seat, but there's no weather delays unless something hits a transformer and knocks out the power.

They really clobbered their opponents, huh? Isn't 3 an awfully low score for a football game?

[mmegaera]

The Seahawks used to play in a domed stadium. They tore it down a dozen years ago or so in favor of an open-air venue. So last night's lightning delay is nobody's fault but their own [g].

How to score football according to my mother [g]: "They get four tries to go ten yards down the field toward the other team's end zone. If they go the ten yards, they get another four tries, repeat as necessary. If they don't make ten yards in three tries, they use their fourth try to kick the ball to the other team, called a punt. If they make it all the way to the end, that's a touchdown (six points, then the kicker kicks it through the goalposts to add another point). If they're almost at the end after their third try, they use their fourth try to let the kicker kick it through the goal posts. That's three points." I think I was about eight when she first tried to explain it to me.

The 29 points is actually weirder than the 3, but the first score the Seahawks made last night was a safety (the other team was backed up clear into their own end zone -- which isn't great but not awful unless the other team tackles you there, which gives the tackling team two points).

More than you wanted to know? (she says, grinning because I know my late father is out there somewhere ROFLing because I'm trying to explain football to someone)

[dfledermaus]

I've been around other people watching football enough that I had a vague idea that it scored in 3s and 7s, but not enough to pick up any subtleties. It's one of those games I don't mind watching in ignorance if it's important to someone else. It doesn't move me, but I can at least read the ebb and flow of the game: the movement up and down the field, and the success or failure of each phase.

Baseball and tennis I have a sentimental attachment to, as my sports-mad grandmother used to take me to games when I was a child. I'd go to a live game if I was given tickets, but wouldn't make the effort on my own, or watch on TV.

But basketball is the one that baffles me completely. I watch it and it just looks like a diagram of Brownian motion, all random movement on the court. Even when it's explained play by play, I can't grasp any strategy. It seems to be just a bunch of tall people hopping up and down, sometimes with the ball, sometimes without.

[mmegaera]

I understand at least the basics of baseball, but it bores me to tears. There's way too much just standing around in baseball.

Tennis is okay. I don't go out of my way to watch it, but I'll watch it with someone else. I sometimes end up watching golf with my mother when visiting her in Texas, but I wouldn't watch it on my own, although I do enjoy seeing the various golf courses (the US Open is going to be about ten miles from my house in 2015 -- I'm more dreading it because of the ensuing traffic than anything else [wry g]).

Basketball doesn't do anything for me, either [g]. I'm afraid hockey and soccer aren't my cuppa, either -- any game where they play for that long and run/skate up and down the field that much and a high score is two-zip...