LIVING WITH THE GIANTS

It’s been a rough year for the Giants, but nothing like the Seventies when they won only 50 out of 124 games.

I drove a Toyota Corona through most the decade. It probably wasn’t that great a car to begin with, since everybody back then called them “Toy-motors,” but I really beat the shit out of it. It was covered with dings and scratches, it tended to overheat in the summer and when it was cold, you needed to have the manual choke pulled out. Great tape deck though.

At some point a Giants bumper sticker came into my possession and I proudly stuck it to the rear bumper. If must have been summer, since I was driving with the window open, and while waiting for a light, another car pulled up next to me. I was likely staring at the engine heat gauge when the guy next to me yells, “The Giants? Ya gotta be kiddin’ me” and drives off with the light change.

I decided I wouldn’t wear my fandom on my sleeve anymore, while also acknowledging that this beat car I was driving was somehow a metaphor for the Giants’ current condition. When I got home, I peeled off the sticker and tossed it. .

After hitting the 50-year mark of being a Giants fan this past September, here are a few of my favorite players:

HOMER JONES: My first sports crush. Fast, 6-4 and a terror to cover. In these days of silly, often

fussy and pre-meditated touchdown celebrations, Homer invented the spike. When he crossed the goal line (as he did 14 times in 1968), he threw ball down. Nothing flamboyant, just a flick of the wrist, as if to say, “I don’t need this anymore.” I went to an autograph-signing session at Korvettes and stood in absolute awe while he signed his name for me. I still have it.

RON JOHNSON: Homer was traded to the Browns for Johnson and I learned that when one door closes, another opens up. Until Johnson arrived, the Giants relied on lumbering white fullbacks who, as they used to say, could be timed for the 40-yard dash using a sun dial. As luck would have it, Johnson worked in the same office building as my mother and Mom arranged for me to interview Johnson for the high school newspaper. He answered my well-meaning, if sometimes cringe-worthy questions (like did he know anything about homosexuality in NFL locker rooms; I really asked that) thoughtfully and honestly. A year or so later I saw him in the record department at Korvettes, flipping through jazz albums, thus concluding my Korvettes/Giants circle of life.

LAWRENCE TAYLOR: The absolute pleasure in knowing that the greatest defensive player in the history of the league was ours helped make all those losing years (almost) palatable.

ELI MANNING: Here’s the list of Giants quarterbacks for the ten years between Phil Simms and Eli: Dave Brown, Danny Kanell, Kent Graham, Kerry Collins, Kurt Warner, Jesse Palmer. Eli’s consistency and durability kept us from wandering the wilderness looking for a quarterback, a reality that has defined the fortunes of way too many NFL teams, sometimes for decades. Along with the two Super Bowl wins, Eli saved us from being the Jets.

ODELL BECKHAM: Non-Giant fans hate his haircut and histrionics. They’re also scared shitless when their team has to cover him.