Unreal what decades of Giants football does to people.
My Dad passed away in May 2005. He instilled this disease in me and my brother. Dad bled Giants' blue since the early 1930s. Met Mom around 1960 and since then, Mom suffered through hundreds of game-day Sundays.
Funny how she'd always complain about the way we'd behave during games, me, Dad and my brother. For years, we lived and died, more or less, depending on the game's magnitude, through many years. And Mom complained.
We enjoyed '86 and '90 together and suffered through 2000 in the same room. Tonight, as Tynes' 47-yarder sailed through the uprights, putting my brother and I into a mild state of shock, the phone rang right away. It was Mom. She was alone in her living room just a few miles away, watching these Giants win ... the same team she'd cursed for decades.
This team, she used to say, upset her family so much. So for that, she hated them. She just couldn't understand, she had said. She despised these Giants for all that pain they caused her men.
But in May 2005 it was the '86 Super Bowl video that played on a TV in the lobby of a funeral home as literally hundreds of folks lined up to pay their respects to Dad. Just a few of them understood. They smiled and nodded.
Tonight Tynes' 47-yarder was true and the phone rang.
"Look at that ball go," was all Mom kept saying into the phone. "Look at it ... look at it," she said, while she cried on the other end, watching the endless replays just afterward. "I'm bawling my head off over here," she said. "This is ridiculous."
I don't know what else could possibly show that this isn't just a game, or just a football team. The Giants are so much more, to so many more.
I know you understand. This is so great. So great.
Sounds cheesy, but man, we live and die with these Giants. And the great thing is that it seems this team cares as much as we do.
Moms...gotta love 'em...
:)
Beez, our fathers are up there toasting our boys in Blue and are damn proud of of the giants and I am sure they are damn proud of us, the next generation to carry the torch and pass this "disease" onto the next generation...
God bless your mom!!!
I laughed with him and said that for 16 weeks we said this team sucks, he replied to me laughing, "they still do suck!"
Superstitious to a fault we are....
There are a lot of very special people watching this team from heaven. Well Mara, Bob Tisch, some of our parents, some of our grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cherished friends, I can just picture what kind of party they've got going on.
Scott, my Dad and Mr. daras are calling your Dad a "pup" at that age, and enjoying this one to the hilt!
I swear, the best ones are the unexpected ones.
This is vindication, this is validation, this is pure unadulterated joy. These moments are why we are sports fans. Soak this up Giants fans, because it doesnt happen very often.
Link - ( New Window )
There were no words. No screams. No curses and no punching walls. Dad, in jeans, a white T and moccasins (no socks) just walked out the front door. It must have been 20 degrees outside. We lived in the country, so when I say he walked around the block, it was 2 miles if it was a foot.
After what seemed like forever, he appeared again at the front door. We never spoke of that game again. But it was a learning experience for me. Silent pain.
She had to call, but she knew.
"Daddy, if the Giants win, are you going to be happy?"
Me: You know it, buddy.
"If they lose, are you going to be upset?"
Me: Well a little, but it's been so much fun so far, I won't be too upset. But I sure hope they win. That'll be a LOT better.
"Well, I hope they win."
This is just good, good shit.
I told her "Eli is playing fine, but we need some touchdowns to win this one"
her reply? "Dad. Eli Manning is perfect or why else would they give him the number 10? Eli will win this game"
I can`t argue that point tonight, and she has the "disease" too
I haven't got any kids (though there are some nieces and nephews I can still work on.) My dad passed away very young (39) in 1964; my mom went 30 years later, and both her brothers are gone, too. My dad's only brother lives in Arizona with his wife, but he's not a Giants fan, especially. The funny thing, though, is that my mom's sister, my godmother -- whom I talk with every week -- lives in N. Kingstown, R.I. -- and is a major Pats (and Red Sox) fan. I guess we're going to have to figure out how to agree to disagree for a couple weeks.
deadbluefish : 1/20/2008 11:38 pm
Was crying after we missed the field goal in regulation. I couldn't get him to stop. He cried harder after the OT coin toss. The funny thing is, after we won he started crying even louder. And I thought I was a Giant fan!!
WE'RE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL ... TO WIN IT!!!
gidiefor : 11:28 am
Well last night I was on the edge - as we seesawed back and forth with the Packers. In the second half I watched as age and the frigid ice-cold set into Brett Favre and his entire body, and as youth matured and blossomed in Eli Manning.
I was on the edge of my couch for the entire fourth quarter and then overtime. I watched and erupted incredulously with joy as we kept stopping Green Bay and finally at Webster's interception. I could hardly watch the third field goal attempt -
In the joy of the aftermath I shared phone calls with a couple of pals - a radio personality in our area and Berrylish2 - who was partying with JonC and Joey in Va and Mrs Joey - all of them with a few other BBIers in NYC - and during the phone call with Berrylish gidiefor jr calls and leaves a message and then he calles again this morning.
For those of you who haven't followed this gidiefor jr is an infantryman in the Army. He was recently injured over there and flown to the Army hostpital in landstuhl Germany. Well he called me from Washington DC last night and this morning - he's back in the states - and he says to me, "Dad, I watched the game last night and I was pulling for the Giants and thinking of you all the way through. Let's get together and watch the Superbowl together."
This from a kid who has told me he hated football throughout his youth and who would never watch the game with me.
I've been there too my friends - my dad stopped following the Giants when they moved to NJ - he labeled them traitors like the Dodgers. In my youth I did not follow the Giants because of this and it wasn't until I met my first wife and her father that I started following the Giants in 1979.
So here I am today basking in the glow of a Giants Superbowl and also hoping that this is the start of a fan bond that is forged between a father and son.