By Alex Berger
Giants fans are a loyal bunch. I know one who never pays attention to his wife unless she is wearing a Giants-blue nightie made of Astro-turf.
Do you realize that the New York Giants will begin training for the upcoming season on July 27, on the football fields of Albany State University? Yes, dear readers, my long wait will finally be over.
As everybody who regularly reads my column knows, I am a football fanatic, particularly when it comes to my beloved Giants. I have followed the football fortunes of this team for many years.
It began when I was a wide-eyed, bushy-tailed teenager, who was only interested in baseball at the time. My love affair with the Giants was initially sparked when I attended my first football game in Yankee Stadium with my brother, Milt, in 1958. This romance has since grown into a bonfire, especially when the Giants moved into their own stadium in 1976. To indicate my absolute bond with the team, I took a blood test immediately after the Giants qualified for the Super Bowl last January. The nurse verified that the color of my blood was 99 44/00% Giants Blue.
My strong relationship with the Giants affects my personal life. Before I consented to marry Gloria, who was a non-football fan at the time, I advised her that she first must pass an intensive quiz about the Giants. Gloria had to name, by memory, each and every active player, his number, his position, the Giants record for the past three seasons, and other sundry but vital statistics about the team. After all, how can a guy marry a girl who does not know this foremost and vital information?
Gloria struggled with the profusion of material I threw at her, but she proved to be a quick study and she passed my final exam with an A-minus. She then agreed, although passively, to accompany Milt and me to all future Giants home games. I sighed with relief when the pre-nuptials were out of the way, and our marriage took place in 1963, in the Bronx (only a few short miles from Yankee Stadium where the Giants played at the time).
Regrettably, ’63 was the year the Giants lost to the Chicago Bears in the NFL championship game (before the merger of the NFL and the AFL, and the creation of the Super Bowl format). I gained Gloria, so the year was not a total loss.
With the arrival of our two sons, who soon became Giants fanatics also, Gloria eventually saw the light. She knew that she either had to unite with us or forever sit alone on Sundays during the football season. Gloria joined the fold and has looked forward to the football seasons ever since.
We made many friends at the games. Two in particular were Sy Reisman of Rockaway Beach, and Mack Hartman from Parsippany, N.J. Curiously, Sy and Mack never knew one another since they sat on opposite ends of Giants Stadium. Yet they had one thing in common — both were die-hard, true-blue, beyond the pale, 50-year plus, New York Giants football fans.
We first met Sy and his son, Russell in 1978 at a Philadelphia hotel awaiting a Giants-Eagles game. Sy drove us to the game since I did not want to drive my new car into hostile Veterans Stadium. We met Mack, a professional comedian, and his wife, Lolly in 1989 at the Giants Touchdown Club. He kept us laughing at every Giants home game for many years. Each of these two friends knew football, and we loved talking Giants with them. Curiously, we never managed to get together with either one once the football season ended.
But every year, at the start of a new football season, we looked forward to seeing both guys and renewing our Giants kinship once again. It was unimaginable to think of ever going to a game and not conversing with Sy and Mack. They were as much a part of the Stadium as the goalposts, the Giants’ logo and my canteen of piping hot soup.
Both were getting on in age, but in sickness and in health, they always managed to be where they belonged, at the games. They both joked that when they finally go, they will come back and help the Giants reach the Super Bowl
Well, as fate would have it, before last year’s football season began, both passed away within a few weeks of each other. No longer would Gloria and I listen to the football expertise of Sy. No longer would we laugh at the humor of Mack. No longer would the Giants have two of their most loyal fans rooting for them.
But, although picked to finish last by many sports writers, the Giants went on to win the conference championship and to be able to play in Super Bowl XXXV last season.
I guess Sy and Mack kept their word.
