300 Home Games

I never threw peanuts and peanut shells at Jets hating Paul Maguire when he was announcing Jets games. I never, ever did that. However, if you angled them just right . . . I shot the Sheriff, but I did not shoot the Deputy. Haha, he would take off his headset when the game went to commercial and curse the shit out of us. The skinny is that you would walk up the aisle on the way to the restroom, and then, oops, whodunnit? That was one tactic. The other one was random sniping - and we were about 5 rows away from the broadcasting cage.

The best was when Marv Albert got charged with some weird rough sex thing. Garter belts, white panties, and stilettos. You can't script it. "Hey, Marv! BITE ME!." Brutal. Haha.

EDIT & P.S.: I felt sorry for Marv in a kind-hearted sort of way. But I still laughed. Our tailgate crew has since been disbanded because Fukk Woody Johnson and his idiotic minions. To be truly honest, I never personally chucked peanuts at Maguire, but there were times that I laughed so hard, I almost choked on my own tongue. He deserved every peanut and peanut shell assault that he ever got.

 

I remember the band stand in the one end that played old people’s music. Classic stuff. Also pissing in the stairs because tbe bathrroms were a joke

 

Yup, I mentioned the band in post 47 above.

 

Yep, also see Post #45, Page 3.

Here's one that I've told in some form or another several times. The OJ Simpson Debacle, December 16th, 1973, a four o'clock game. Let me preface the rest by saying the first time I mentioned this game nyjunc jumped all over me because I called it a night game. I was 9 years old, it was snowing in the dead of Winter, it got dark, and they turned the lights on at Shea, so to a 9 year old, it was a FREAKING NIGHT GAME. Details, details . . . Not to go off on a tangent (not only is it my forte, I think I invented it), but I never minded nyjunc the way other people did. He probably could argue with himself in an empty room, and I must admit, that takes special talent. Anyway, I heard he's a very nice person in the material world.

OK, so OJ Simpson might break the rushing record. The Jets were getting totaled. I said to my Daddy, "My feet are really hurting." "Quit your belly-aching. Go the bathroom and warm up." Now the bathroom heaters in Shea was like being in an airplane hangar. It was loud and spit lint all over you. Please note that my Mom bundled me up so much, I could hardly move, homemade knitted hats included. Later, again, "Daddy, my feet are really hurting." "Jesus H! Stop whining!" He lights up a black market Cuban cigar, and I keep stamping my feet. You did NOT whine with Daddy.

My feet were in agony, so I got up again and went back to the bathroom hangar. This was before the day of fagotty hovering parents, mind you. I go back and sit down again. OJ, that wholesome family guy, is running all over the Jets, but not many people left because, ya know, history. It was like the Jets didn't even field a defense, but we stayed until 00:00. I had a lot of difficulty walking back to the car, and my Daddy was pissed over the loss and was getting really impatient with me. So we get home and he pulls off my socks and my boots and I saw the look on his face. Yep, frostbite. He felt so guilty, he almost started crying. My father was a yeller but he was incredible softy. He couldn't stop apologizing to me. Well, I used that card for years. Instead of "Remember the Alamo!", it was "Remember OJ!" Heh. To this day, some of my toes have a real tough time in the cold because of that fateful day. Thanks, Jets. That, and who knew that one day Simpson would turn into a murdering a-hole.

 

I remember it well and the snow was more like sleet and freezing rain most of the time - total misery and that guy just kept running the ball. I had four seats which I split with my brother in law who, if he went to that game, left early. My friend Paul drove that day in his little snot green Volvo P1800 which was a small car with a very small key. I guess he had no problem with the door or he did some damage because when he put that little key in the ignition it broke off. So here we are 40 miles from home in the middle of snow sleet and rain with probably less than twenty bucks between us and a car we can't start. We were also quite pissed because the Jets, well, the Jets.

He decided he could hotwire the car because he saw somebody do it on television once so he spent about an hour lying on the floor pulling wires out from behind the dashboard which required keeping the door open. He couldn't get the car started but at least he didn't set it on fire. After about an hour he finally calmed down enough to do what I suggested initially and pushed a screwdriver into the key slot and was able to turn the stub that was already in the ignition. If not, we'd probably still be there, right about where first base is now.

You had two excuses - you were a kid and your father. We had two also - beer and ...

 

What was the game when Freeman McNeil was involved in a play where an opposing player got his leg broken? McNeil was so upset that the was crying on the bench on the Jets sideline. Saw it through my Daddy's binoculars. Freeman was that distressed upset about it, as in bawling. Joe Walton bitched at him and boy, did Walton get booed for getting on him. I loved Freeman. I would've put this in Jets Trivia, but people hardly visit there.

EDIT & P.S.: Was it vs. the Bills?

 

Shea Stadium. The air was litrally cracklin' with excitement. I twas a mere 11 year ole in the cold dead Winter of '75, angry and precocious, and someone sitting next to me, me in my popcorn hat that me Mum made me was banging the Queens English. "The Jets are terrible." Yea, hares me fist, I know it. Freezing it was, and Charley Winner was our dear Coach - except we ne'r won anything since '69. Dat Charley Winner, how he sailed the seas. Holtz came in the followin' yar after a whalin' expedition up the Hudson and the Shipp came in layter. Michaels, too; but he was thar long before. It was always goin' to be long johns and death in that cold, unforgiving backhouse. It'd been that way since 1970, the first time I was exposed to my nemesis in full person, that being the Jets.

Lou Holtz and his battle rally cry, it was all that was left to me as me and my beloved Pater walked the plank over the ashgrounds to our brown paneled Ford station wagon with the half-lit Taystee Cake Factory neon sign guiding our way out of Hades. May've been Little Debby on a good day. The smell of soggy pretzels burning in lighter fluid in King Kullen shopping carts twere me only comfort. The dead, cold Winter of '75, prospect of 3 -11 in the dead cold Winter of '75. Clarke Gaines and Fro Overall Riggins, I raise a glass to thee on some days, and the dead, cold Winter of '75.

OK, so now that I'm done doing my Robert Shaw/Quint imitation, I think the Jets carry the only distinction of the same loser record three years in a row. 3 -11, 3 - 11, 3- 11! How in God's name did they manage to do that?! GO JETS!!!

 

When Don Maynard got his # retired, damn, that was awkward. He went on this long ramble in a Southern drawl, and we all started kinda looking around like, what? It was borderline painful, as in please get a hook, pull this guy off the stage and put him out of his misery. I felt sorry for him. He got a standing ovation (TOTALLY deserved it), but the speech was like Luca Brasi on the day that your daughter is to be married level awkward. It's OK, Don. I'm not good at public speaking, either. Love ya, and thanks for being an amazing Jet. He probably still smokes cigarettes, lol.