Andy Rooney's Experience At Super Bowl XLIII

Apparently there was one person who wasn't that impressed with all the excitement of Super Bowl XLIII and it had nothing to do with the outcome. It's "60 Minutes" professional curmudgeon, Andy Rooney.

Here's a second-hand story from Anthony SanFillipo of the Delaware County Times.

Mr. SanFilipo is a hockey writer for the Delaware County Times. He was in Tampa during Super Bowl Week to cover the Lightning versus the Flyers and was asked to stay down there to cover the game by the paper. Lucky for him, Section 206, Row V, saw him seated directly next to the 89-year-old Rooney. SanFilipo said Rooney hunched in around 4:30, they exchanged scant pleasantries, and soon after Rooney sat down in his seat, he immediately dove into the boxed lunch provided to journalists seated in the auxiliary press box. Rooney was muttering about the choices they had in the box lunch, but soon took out an orange and went to town on it. After he finished his lunch, Rooney leaned back, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. SanFilipo said Rooney's "mouth was open" and there was a "slight snore." At that point, most of the other spectators recognized who he was. They all brought out their camera phones and began snapping pictures of a sleeping Andy Rooney. Some even ran right up next to him and flashed a thumbs-up signal for their photos.

A little after the first quarter began, Rooney woke up. He never showed any real interest in the game the whole time, but that didn't prevent him from getting very annoyed when the group of Steelers' fans a couple rows in front of him began to stand up and cheer. At one point, San Filipo said, Rooney is yelling at the Steelers fans to "Sit down!" but to no avail. Rooney summoned an NFL PR person to complain and that person offered to give him a new seat. He swooshed her away and stayed put. Rooney sat there the whole game, emotionless, and just before halftime, tried to make his exit. Unfortunately, shimmying through the crowd wasn't something he wanted to do. He instead attempted to climb over the seats. Wasn't happening. San Filipo said he offered Rooney help stepping up on his seat, but was ignored. Instead, Rooney just made his way toward the exit the regular way and filed out.

Hopefully, he'll share his impressions of the Super Bowl XLIII with America this Sunday.

And if any Steelers' fans have photos of Rooney snoozing in his seat, please send them along.

****

Tomorrow: Pete Gaines is subbing in for his first live action blogging on Deadspin. It should be fun. How he will be able to comment so much and write at the same time will be something to watch. [Pete's note: you can start sending me your tips and tidbits; my email address is pete@deadspin.com. Thanks.]

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. And K.W. Donovan's dick.

(Apologies for the late posting, but there was furious amounts of reporter-like activity occurring late in the day, all of which you will hear about on Monday. Be good. )

Send an email to A.J. Daulerio, the author of this post, at ajd@deadspin.com.

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