You Don't Even Blink!

Forty-Five seconds, in the grand scheme of things, it not a terribly long period of time. I mean after all, even in the world of sports, 45 seconds of game clock comes and goes fairly quickly (with the end of an NBA being a very notable exception). Two minutes is the gold-standard in football for the time needed to put together a quality scoring drive, unless you are playing the Vikings, in which case all rules for a defense being out of the woods go, well… out the window (seems like one too many figurative phrases, but oh well). But forty-five seconds is a very long time for two grown men to stare at each other!

For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Washington Nationals Manager (why are they managers, why can’t baseball just be like everyone else and call them head coaches? And why do baseball fans get upset when you misspeak and call a manager a coach? Come on…) Frank Robinson had a 45 second staring contest with a Home Plate Umpire (forgive me for being too lazy to research and find his name). Who, I ask you, in the middle of a Major League Baseball game, gets upset at a call and pulls a Robert Goulet and is just like “Quick, staring contest!”? Some managers yell, some knock over water coolers some even run onto the field and kick dirt. Not Frank Robinson, Frank’s a crafty veteran. He’s not going to cause a stir, he’s not going to waste his energy running onto the field (he’s an elderly man; he has blood pressure and cholesterol to think about). No Frank Robinson had an ace up his sleeve. He’s going to bore a whole in the umps head, make him feel the heat. Only, on the way to doing so, something unexpected happened; the ump stared back…

Now I’m not going to take the high road and start critiquing who was more wrong in this situation. Which is more childish, a 60’s something manager/legend initiating a stare-down, or an ump having too much pride to just walk away like he’s trained to do in most situations. It’s not really important because, right or wrong, this was entertaining stuff! I’m not a big baseball fan, personally, but I was going crazy when I saw this. Heck, it was almost enough to make me sit up in my recliner, almost…

But as it sunk into my how incredibly long of a period of time 45 seconds is to have a staring contest between two “mature” adults, I got to thinking; what all can you do in 45 seconds or less? I mean, in order to give real significance to anything, it has to be put into context right? So the only real context for a 45 second stare down would be other things that can be done in 45 seconds or less, right? Made since to me, so here it is…

1) Takeru Kobayashi ate 50.5 hotdogs at this years “Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hotdog Eating Contest” in 12 minutes. Over FIFTY hotdogs! If he maintained a somewhat constant consumption rate throughout the competition, he would have eaten over 3 hotdogs during the Robinson-ump slugfest. And I’m guessing he slowed down as the day went on, so 5+ hotdogs is a real possibility.

2) Robert “Tractor” Traylor can run up and down the court in less than 45 seconds. Well, up OR down the court…
3) A bag “Ultimate Butter” microwave popcorn can go from greasy-tasty-butter goodness to over cooked, “I’ll eat it only because I’m a cheap grad student who doesn’t believe in sunk costs” in about 25 seconds of cooking time. Balance, balance, it’s so important, yet so hard to maintain.
4) I don’t have ACTUAL documentation of this, but I’m pretty sure that Isaiah Rider shot his free-throws in less than 45 seconds. Let me remind you, for those of you who (understandably) don’t remember “J.R.”, that before shooting a free throw he would dribble… pivot his right foot to the right, pause, and then pivot back. Look at the rim. Dribble once, pivot his right foot to the right, pause, and then pivot back. Look at the rim, and repeat one more time (you get the feeling)… then he’d finally look at the rim one last time, pause, and shoot. This made me want to throw something every time I saw it. Thankfully for all of us, Kobe ended Rider’s career early, when the Lakers gave him the “opportunity” to be part 3 of the Laker’s Triangle offense. All that to say, even that took less than 45 seconds (which reminds me, why have a rule of 10seconds to shoot a free throw if you aren’t ever going to call the infraction?)
5) An average NASCAR pit crew can easily change 4 tires, refuel, and even wipe down the windows in less than 15 seconds.

6) Reggie Miller (one of my personal favorites and, I think, one of the most underrated pros of our era. Thanks for knowing how to go out in class Reggie, do you wanna teach Lance Armstrong a lesson about just walking, or riding, away?), playing against the Knicks, scored 8 points in 8.9 seconds to steal the Game 1 Eastern Conference Semi-final in 1995. Okay, 8 points in, lets just round up, 9 seconds pro-rates out to 40 points in the short 45 seconds that made up the duration of Frank Robinson’s staring contest.
7) I have, on several occasions, studied for a grade-determining test for a cumulative time total of less than 45 seconds.
8) The world-record for beating Super Mario Brothers on the NES is 5 minutes, 9 seconds. So let’s see here, 5 times 60 seconds equals 300 seconds, plus 9 equals 309. So, divide 45 by 309… anyways, that means that instead of starting is little ocular duel with the ump, Frank could have more wisely devoted his time getting 14.5% of the way through the original Super Mario Brothers. By the way, is there any dispute that Mario 3 was the greatest of all time? I guess that’s a whole ‘nother article.

9) It took me significantly less than ¾ of a minute to decide if I thought Dave Wannstedt being hired as the new Pitt Head Coach was a good idea. Turns out my quick decision gave more than adequate thought to an easy question. As of press time, Pitt was 0-2. Ewww, Dave, ew ew ew ew ewwww…
10) It took Rafael Palmeiro one finger wag/point, five words, and significantly less than 45 seconds to completely tarnish his career (quite possibly earning him a Hall of Fame snub in the process). Wow Raffy, I know players are supposed to get judged by the body of your work, but somehow I feel like all those 6-8 year olds out there will always only remember you as the guy who pointed his finger and told a big fat lie. Oh, and I’ve been wondering about this; which is worse, Raphael Palmeiro’s getting caught with steroids or his Viagra commercials? I mean with the one hand, while lying, he pointed his finger at congress, and with the other hand he… It’s not like this should have been too shocking anways, we already knew he was taking performance-enhancing drugs…
11) It took my about 3 hours to but together my IKEA kitchen table, just in case you wondering…

12) I can go from completely nude to fully dressed in forty five seconds, I just tried it.
13) This is truly impressive: the 400m dash was run in 43.18 seconds by Michael Johnson. Let’s give this some perspective here. That’s one full lap around a regulation track. That’s a quarter of a mile! And with time to spare before the stare-down was called off. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that Kevin Young (USA) ran the 400m HURDLES in 46.78 seconds. Wow, for anyone who has been a hurdler, tried walking over men’s high hurdles, or just looked at a 42” hurdle, you know how impressive that is…
14) Had regular play continued during the stare-down, there most likely would have been one ball pitched, or at least the catcher would have signaled two different pitches to be waived off by the pitcher. Guess all the distractions really cost us some good action.

As you can clearly see, from my extensive evidence, there were clearly better things that Frank Robinson could have been doing with this 45 seconds. Unfortunately for you and I, we don’t have anything better to do than watch and laugh, and then watch it again on SportsCenter. So I guess I have to admit it Frank, “you win, you always do!”…