We all get bowled over by this game

OK, so your plans for this Sunday include the usual weekend routine and then you'll join 140 million other "fans" and watch the Super Bowl. I'm not at all sure what magic the Super Bowl holds but whatever it is, it's for real. More people will watch the Super Bowl than any other single televised event this year. In fact, the largest audiences in television history always come during the Super Bowl.

Here's what amazes me about this much-hyped event. Even those among us who are at best casual football fans, will watch. And bet a buck or two. We may not be able to name the two teams playing much less name three players on each team. But it's as if we'll miss something very special if we don't watch.

Like many others, I confess I'll watch the game for the commercials. The best advertising agencies in the world save their very best for this one event. And then, there also might be another "wardrobe malfunction" aka Janet Jackson. Who wants to miss out on that!

I'll confess that I am an unabashed baseball fan and would rather watch the Cardinals play a farm club than watch the Super Bowl. But it's easy to get caught up in the hype and hoopla surrounding the Super Bowl. The Masters golf tournament nor the World Series nor the Wimbledon finals attract half the audience as the Super Bowl. In fact, it's not even close.

So there's something about the Super Bowl that creates this mass appeal. And interestingly, to me at least, it really doesn't matter which teams play in the big game. It still attracts millions upon millions of viewers.

If baseball is the great American pastime, then how do you explain the viewing gap between the Super Bowl and the World Series? Maybe with a 162-

game schedule, we're simply tired of baseball come October. The entire football season is less than two dozen games counting preseason. So maybe that limited exposure holds our interest. I'm just not sure.

An entire cottage industry has blossomed around the Super Bowl. Ticket prices are astronomical, beer sales are unbelievable and the food industry has created more suggestions for our appetite than you can imagine. All in all, the Super Bowl spells big, big bucks.

There's a suggestion to move the big game to a Saturday but that movement has little traction. A columnist elsewhere in today's paper suggests making the day following Super Bowl a national holiday. He may well be onto something there.

Despite a genuine lack of fondness for football, I must confess that the Super Bowl is indeed the gorilla of sports. And so for one solitary day, I too shall become a football fan. I'll wager a dollar and enjoy some food that will likely come back to haunt me. And a month from now, I'll not remember which teams played.

The Super Bowl has special meaning to me. It means that baseball season is right around the corner.