"Baseball and spittin' go hand in hand."
-- DavidSeeds.com
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| Sunflower hulls 9-16-14 |
"In the United States, they're mostly seen
as an alternative to chewing tobacco
for baseball players and other bored people
with a penchant for spitting."
-- Mental Floss,
"When Did Baseball Players Start Chewing Sunflower Seeds?"
When you watch a shit-ton of baseball, you also watch a shit-ton of dudes spitting.
They spit a lot.
They spit constantly.
Spit. Spit. Spit. Spit. Spit.
Bubble gum spit. Tobacco spit. Regular spit.
And they spit out lots and lots of sunflower seed hulls.
I have watched a shit-ton of baseball this season.
And maybe it's simply the power of suggestion, but I've been craving sunflower seeds. So I got some of the in-the-shell kind just like the teams have in the dugout. Then I taught myself to crack them open with my teeth, extract the seed with my tongue, and spit out the hull without losing the seed. Just like the big-leaguers do it.
Right now I can only do one at a time. The most I've done is three or four. I'm working my way up to holding a fistful inside my cheek, chipmunk-style, like the players do.
I set my goals, I go for 'em.
I know it's not that sexy of a trick for a girl. It'd probably be much sexier if I could, say, tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.
But I'm not that girl.
I'm me.
And sexy isn't really my thing.
Here is my thing, though.
I have a strong tendency to overdo it with snacks. I especially like to nibble on salty stuff while I am cooking supper, thus ruining my appetite for the real meal. And I am no stranger to the late-night chip binge.
But eating sunflower seeds in the shell slows me way down. I can't eat a bunch of these little guys all at once. Extracting each teensy weensy seed one at a time takes a while, which means I won't go overboard, even if I eat them through all nine innings.
Plus, sunflower seeds are a lot healthier than, say, pretzels or potato chips. They're packed with all kinds of vitamins and other good things.
Spit.
