5:45 pm: Alex, attending tonight's preseason game, texted me the following:
Found: 1 man with child. Child in Witten, man in Carpenter jersey.Foreshadowing? Metaphor? Big Ten - SEC superiority statement? Has Bobby supplanted Jason Witten as team leader?
7:05 pm: Opening kickoff, Cowboys are receiving. Can I say I'm glad the 49ers have returned to a classic uniform? This game is very easy on the eyes. Beautiful.
7:15 pm: The Cowboys have to settle for a field goal on fourth down, but a Proctor hold erases the 3 points and forces the Cowboys to punt. Still no sight of Bobby ... even two seconds after the whistle blows, when he usually jogs into the camera's sight.
7:18 pm: Dallas' defensive starters are announced--Bobby is riding the pine tonight. Someone has to hold Keith Brooking's Skoal, and Bobby doesn't trust #52, Matt Stewart, whom you may remember as Bobby's over-achieving doppelganger .
7:23 pm: Dallas forces a 49er punt for a touchback. No sight of Bobby blocking on the kick return. Does Bobby still have poison ivy? Perhaps David Buehler forged a note from the team doctor stating poison ivy requires a one-game quarantine, and delivered it to Wade?
7:30 pm: As it turns out, Bobby was missing in action because he was told to fetch a tin of Copenhagen from Brooking's Ford F-650. The only problem? Brooking's truck was parked at the Cici's Pizza across from Cowboys Stadium. Anything for a friend.
See if you can solve this SAT question.
Popeye : spinach :: Keith Brooking : ____The answer, of course, is dip. With more dip (courtesy of our Midwestern Mercury), Brooking and the linebacking corps should be unstoppable.
7:35 pm: Romo interception returned 57 yards by San Francisco. Bobby, wishing to help his former best friend, replaces Romo's mouthpiece with a pure-tobacco replica--you know, for the energy. I mean, it works for the linebackers, right?
7:36 pm: Romo rips the tobacco-mouthpiece off his facemask and throws it to the floor. It wasn't too hard, considering tobacco is a tad weaker than a normal mouthpiece.
7:40 pm: I finally see Bobby on TV. His ponytail is hanging outside his helmet. Mini-tribute to Brian Bosworth?
7:53 pm: Romo-to-Witten secret play = completion. Dallas then runs Marion Barber and Felix Jones all the way to the end zone for the first score of the night. Dallas leads, 7-0.
7:56 pm: No sight of Bobby on the kickoff. Until the camera panned to the sideline.
8:00 pm: Today is Jay Ratliff's birthday. Bobby sneaks a pinch of Skoal into a slice of ice cream cake and waits for Jay to come back to the sideline for his birthday boost surprise.
8:01 pm: Ratliff sees the cake waiting for him on the bench, beams, and takes a huge bite. Bobby hides sheepishly behind the Gatorade cooler, ready to spring out in case Jay likes his surprise. Jay spits the cake out in disgust, utters a string of unbloggable profanities, and throws the cake at a uniformed #52 Matt Stewart, mistaking him for Bobby. Crisis averted, Bobby thinks to himself, as he pops in another Big League Chew.
8:03 pm: False start, Dallas offense. Typical--but this time the penalty is on Marc Colombo and Leonard Davis. We still have no pre-snap penalties from Flozell Adams, who usually uses those as a shout-out to his girl back home. Is everything okay in Hotel Flo?
8:07 pm: Field goal for Dallas, now up 10-0.
8:09 pm: Buehler chases a 49er out of bounds on the kickoff, just inches away from a collision with Bobby on the sideline. Next time, Buehler mutters. Next time.
8:15 pm: Rant of convenience here: there is only one instance of black on the entire San Francisco uniform, and it's on that redundant second oval around the helmet logo. Why can't you remove that, SF? I mean, really? You make all these great strides by removing the shadows and extra outlines from your numerals, but then you keep that one remaining flaw? Sigh.
8:17 pm: TACKLE, BOBBY CARPENTER! Is this a result of fresh legs, or the dip he's sneaking?
8:19 pm: Bobby's tackle plays a big part in holding San Francisco to a 42 yard field goal. 10-3, Dallas, at the half. Bobby plans to fashion a second mouthpiece from pure Skoal (Romo destroyed the original) instead of listening to the halftime speech. It's okay--Bobby is a visual and tactile learner, anyway.
8:40 pm: Plenty of time has passed with no sign of Bobby. Too much tobacco ingested sent Bobby to the trainers to throw up and replenish lost fluids. In the meantime, Bobby edited Wikipedia's tobacco entries to include the football-related benefits of Skoal, namely the energy boost.
8:52 pm: Carpenter avoids a pass-interference penalty as he dives to deflect a Brock Huard pass. No flag + no catch = the late '90s WWF "suck it" gesture towards the SF bench, via Bobby.
9:04 pm: SF's Nate Davis runs with the ball and slides into Bobby's feet. Bobby leans forward (still standing), taps Davis on the back, and is credited with a tackle.
9:06 pm: Carpenter is locked up with SF's #76 and rendered impotent, unable to stop the leaping rusher from scoring. Touchdown SF, game tied at 10.
9:31 pm: #52 Matt Stewart is in the game, which means anything good will be credited to fake Bobby, and anything bad will be blamed on real Bobby.
9:35 pm: Isaiah Stanback fumbled a catch away into the hands of San Francisco. I think he just cut himself from the team.
9:50 pm: The past few drives have been a back and forth exercise in futility. We're tied at 13 now.
9:56 pm: Thanks to some untimely flags, SF is approaching the end zone with under a minute left in the game.
9:58 pm: Touchdown, Sheets and the 49ers. SF leads, 20-13.
10:01 pm: Bobby was in on the kickoff return, but he mostly ran into things and flinched in the general direction of the returner.
10:06 pm: Cowboys lose, 20-13.
Final: Well, it was a busy first half of the game for Bobby, but things grew quiet as the game progressed. We can only guess that Skoal provides a strong burst of initial energy, but burns out after a quarter or two. As for Brooking, he spent the rest of the game enjoying some Dodge Hemi commercials on his Blackberry, including one favorite. You know, the one where the Southern girls pop out of nowhere? Mix in some dogs and dip and you've nailed Keith's fantasy. Enjoy, and good night.
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