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

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."