Baseball might be coming up short on seeds

[greasywheels121]

http://cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/story/8423759

 

Chew on this: Baseball might be coming up short on seeds

By Scott Miller

CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

 

You know how sometimes things that never crossed your mind before suddenly spring up like a swarm of summer mosquitoes?

 

This is one of those times. Now I don't mean to cause widespread panic, what with the major-league and college baseball seasons already in full bloom and with a summer's worth of amateur and Little League seasons loosening up in the on-deck circle, but ...

 

We are in the throes of a sunflower seed shortage! Quick, run to your local market AND BUY AS MANY BAGS AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!

 

"What?" says Los Angeles Angels equipment manager Ken Higdon. "There's always enough of those."

 

Correction: There always was enough of those.

 

This summer, producers are squeezing together all of their resources -- and still plan to ration what they have to make it through the season. There is a chance some players and coaches actually will be forced to play the game this summer with no seeds at all in their mouths.

 

"It's a possibility," says John Sandbakken, director of international marketing at the National Sunflower Assn. in Bismarck, N.D. "Our farmers didn't have a very good crop last year, and supplies are down."

 

Saturating rains last spring combined with an unusually wet fall to throw the ol' high, hard one past unsuspecting farmers in important sunflower states North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota.

 

The farmers couldn't get to their drenched fields to plant on time last spring, and then they found diseased crops when they harvested in the fall.

 

The result is that last year's sunflower yield was down by 29 percent, according to Sandbakken.

 

Which means America's baseball diamonds face a severe seed shortage this summer.

 

"It's not a situation where we'll be completely out of seeds," Sandbakken says. "But it might be that your favorite brand is out.

 

"There will be less seeds."

 

And all you parents with kids who play on traveling baseball teams, you thought your biggest concern this summer was going to be insane gas prices.

 

Talk about catastrophic.

 

"If we didn't have sunflower seeds, I'm sure guys would be asking why," Pittsburgh Pirates equipment manager Roger Wilson says. "But if there are no seeds, there are no seeds. We do have bubble gum available, and chewing gum. Who knows what would happen?"

 

"You can't see guys out there opening pistachios or peanuts," says Minnesota Twins equipment manager Jim Dunn. "You can't see guys trying to field a ground ball with a handful of pistachios."

 

Pumpkin seeds are always an option. Major-league clubhouses, after all, do stock those.

 

"But guys don't eat those, they just see how far they can flick 'em," says Brian Harkins, the visiting clubhouse manager for the Los Angeles Angels.

 

At the major-leaguer level, the seeds likely will keep flowing all summer long. David Sunflower Seeds, which began roasting in 1926 and remains the nation's largest producer, sends each club complimentary cases of seeds roughly four times a season, ensuring that players not only have a large supply, but a large, fresh supply.

 

(The Twins, meanwhile, signed a three-year deal with North Dakota-based Giant Sunflower Seeds last year and are the only team in the majors that David doesn't supply.)

 

"Our intent right now is to keep the core David items in stock," says Ronni Heyman, spokeswoman for David. "The flavors -- original, barbecue and ranch -- the things consumers are most familiar with, David is well-positioned to meet consumer demand at the conclusion of the supply issue."

 

And at the amateur levels?

 

"They probably are going to have a difficult time getting seeds maybe in the quantities they're used to getting them in," Sandbakken says.

 

He adds: "Normally, we have a lot of retail promotions at local convenience stores or supermarkets. You won't see a lot of that this year so we can keep the seeds on the shelves.

 

"We're not aggressively promoting them. Otherwise, we'd be out in a couple of months for sure."

 

David, whose catchy slogan is "Eat. Spit. Be Happy." and who offers a 22-ounce cup that can be used, depending upon your need at the time, either as a cup for drinking or as a spittoon for seed shells, recently signed the New York Yankees' Derek Jeter to an endorsement deal.

 

For every home run hit in the majors this season, David will donate a case of seeds to Kids Café, a program run by America's Second Harvest (mostly this fall, after a new crop of seeds is harvested).

 

When Jeter himself hits a homer, David will donate 100 cases to Kids Café and to Turn 2 Foundation, Jeter's charity in New York City, Western Michigan and Tampa, Florida.

 

"Derek said if he hits extra homers, he'll give us the credit," Heyman says.

 

Hey, better than steroids.

 

Sunflower seeds are high in Vitamin E and protein, low in carbohydrates and, perhaps best of all, carry none of the threats of cancer that smokeless tobacco does.

 

If you remove them from dugouts?

 

"Guys' salt intake might be down," says Denny Hocking, a nine-year major-league veteran currently playing with Omaha, Kansas City's Triple-A affiliate. "That might have an effect on the game."

 

Thing is, this is uncharted territory for seed roasters.

 

"I've been here for more than nine years and I've never seen this happen before," Sandbakken says.

 

Granted, the weather has been weird for the past couple of seasons.

 

But don't dismiss this sinister possibility: Is this seed shortage merely an unfortunate coincidence at a time when Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds are under suspicion for steroid use?

 

Or, being that the National Sunflower Assn. is based in Bismarck, N.D., just up the road from Roger Maris' hometown of Fargo, N.D., might this be a quiet case of Rog's Revenge on the game?

 

"I never thought about that," Sandbakken says, chuckling. "He probably is upset. We got rid of the Curse of the Bambino, now it's the Curse of Roger Maris."

 

Whatever, baseball players at all levels are hereby put on notice:

 

Whatever you do this summer, treat your bags of seeds as you would a $100 bill. Or a gallon of gasoline.

 

"Maybe players who eat sunflower seeds will be more aware now and make sure the bag is complete before they open another one," Hocking says. "The way it is now, a guy might open a bag in the eighth inning knowing he's not going to be able to complete the bag by the end of the game."

 

Conservation always is key in any sort of shortage.

 

"Maybe there needs to be a class on proper usage," Hocking says. "I know on the bags it says how to eat them."

 

Within all of this, there is a sliver of good news for the chewers and spitters among us.

 

To address the shortage, farmers in warmer weather sunflower areas, such as Texas, began planting this year's crop a month or two earlier. So by fall, with Mother Nature's cooperation, suppliers hope to be back up to snuff.

 

"At the World Series, there will be sunflower seeds," Heyman promises. "So we can all celebrate chomping."

Edited April 27, 2005 by greasywheels121

[backman]

o well, back to chewing tobaco

[DonkeyKongerko]

I'll eat em sometimes but I never really understood the point of chewing on a salty seed and spitting most of it out.

[IlliniKrush]

Ironic that i am eating sunflower seeds while reading this article.

 

I was a huge seed eater during HS baseball, and i still eat em now on occasion, especially while on roadtrips.

[SnB]

NO WAY

i eat david's religously.

going through a bag a day sometimes.

[whitesox89]

ya jus give me my Cherry SKOAL and im set lol

 

however i do like seeds

[Chisoxfn]

I've never figured out how players chewed tobacco or did dip. But ya I used to always have seeds, but I'd only do it while in the field, but if I were pitching or hitting or running the bases I wouldn't have em. I thought I'd choke or something

[SleepyWhiteSox]

ya jus give me my Cherry SKOAL and im set lol

 

however i do like seeds

 

lol

 

I chewed for maybe about 2 months about 2 years, just to try it out. It was partly just a bunch of us guys joking around when we went out to play intramural softball (No Ma'am Softball!). The buzz is nice the first couple of times, but chewing tobacco is just too gross. Makes me gag a little when I think about it.

[gettysburg32]

What a disaster, I love seeds! I better go stock up for this weekend, I gotta stand in the first base coaches box for at least 3 games and I gotta have seeds!

 

[ChWRoCk2]

cant remember the last time i ate them, but i know i ate them everyday, eh whatever