Watchdog

I'm presenting the comment contest award a day early so I can ignore the blog long enough to do my job and write a newspaper column.

The big winner: Alan from Ridge.

After Mike Francesa said Tuesday no one had come within "two football fields" of estimating his salary, and I in turn wondered how many bills and in what denomination it would take to cover a field, Alan did the math.

I have no idea if this is right, and I don't care. It's the thought that counts.

"Great job, Neil. I especially loved the one about the money and the football field. I can't resist a challenge, so here goes. The standard size of American paper currency is 6 inches long by 2 1/2 inches wide (I just measured the currency in my wallet). Laid end-to-end, it takes 720 bills to cover the length of a football field (120 yards = 360 feet x 2 bills/foot). To cover the entire field, you would need 768 rows of bills (football field =53 1/3 yards wide = 160 feet = 1920 inches divided by 2 1/2 inches/bill). Therefore, 768 rows of 720 bills comes to 552,960 bills to cover the field. So it would take a combination of 105,920 $1 bills and 447,040 $2 bills to cover a football field with $1 million.

Now, my lunch break is over and I have to get back to work!"