Chances are, if you're reading this post, you're not a sports douchebag. For the most part, Giants fans tend to know better than to act that way. But just in case you need help identifying the closeted Eagles fan in your office or the undercover Redskins fan in your A.A. group, here's a quick and easy reference.

Many sports blogs offer top ten lists of various sorts. But here at Bluenatic, our lists go to eleven:

1) You’re from North Jersey but you root for the Dallas Cowboys, loudly and with much bombast. When pressed, however, you sheepishly admit that you’ve never been to Dallas in your life. Or Irving, where the Cowboys actually play. Or Texas, for that matter. Or anyplace outside of North Jersey, really, except for that one class trip you took in the 8th grade. Or that camping trip when your uncle molested you.

 2) You’ve ever painted your body or face in the colors of your favorite team. This includes the act of being a single letter in a row of likeminded, spelling douchebags of the variety Dick Vitale would describe as “special” (i.e. Dukies). Painting your face or body and going to a game is one thing. Doing the same and going to a place that is not a stadium or arena, like a bar, for example, is something else entirely and borders on Kiss Army levels of scary. (Exception: You are Jessica White; Note: Deduct extra points if you have ever attended a game dressed as Santa.

 3) A team’s logo, name, colors, or a player’s number has ever been incorporated into your haircut. Or you’ve ever sported (or contemplated sporting) a “Bosworth.”

 4) You root for more than one team in the same league, conference, division, or worse, the same city. You’re “a Yankee fan” but you also “root” for the Mets. Or you’re a Michigan grad but you “pull for” Michigan State if they’re in a bowl game as a show of “conference solidarity.” You feel no guilt about having these dual allegiances, and have been known to sport the attire of both teams, sometimes simultaneously (a sin otherwise known as a Double Team Foul). When, inevitably, your two teams clash on the field of play, you write off the game as “win-win.” Win-win douchebaggery, that is.

5) You’re that loud, drunk guy at the sports bar with no rooting interest in any of the football games being broadcast that don't impact your pathetic fucking fantasy team. You cheer (and jeer) players on both sides of the same game, often in a manner which reveals your ignorance of the teams, their fortunes, and the rules of professional football. When finally, an irritated partisan engages you, you concede that you’re trying fantasy football for the first time, playing in a free league with no cash prize, and, when push comes to shove, you “usually root” for the Dallas Cowboys (See #1).

6) You’ve ever worn Zubaz. In public. And then allowed someone to photograph you. Deduct extra points if you've complemented this look with a pair of wrap-around Oakleys, like the douchebag above.

 7) You can’t get over how funny ESPN Page 2 columnist Bill Simmons is. “It’s like that dude is reading my thoughts,” you confess after a few fruity daiquiris. “It’s like he’s writing these columns just for me!” (Note: If this one applies to you, it's possible you might be Bill Simmons.)

 8) You own or desire to own a Fathead. This is one is fairly self-explanatory. (Exceptions: You are ESPN’s Mike Greenberg. Or a darts enthusiast. Or nine years old. Or you have diminished mental capacity.)

9) You regularly wear team apparel not because it reflects your partisanship, but because it matches your Nikes or “looks fresh” underneath your new, leather Scarface jacket. This phenomenon accounts for the unusually large number of Denver Nuggets fans on the Lower East Side and 80% of all non-fan douchebags worldwide who can be seen wearing fitted Yankee caps.

 10) You attend a late season football game without the proper cold weather gear and spend the entire game complaining about how cold you are. You get up several times during the game to buy hot cocoa or coffee from the concession stand, or a $20 stocking cap (w/ pom pom) from the souvenir guy (often to wear on your feet). Then you leave early, presumably to go home and masturbate to Tivoed episodes of The Hills. Or collectible back issues of Savage She-Hulk. Or both. (Note: This also applies if you are "Stadium Blanket Guy" or “Heated Seat Cushion Guy.” Deduct extra points if you are “Oversized Golf Umbrella Guy."

11) Unless you count your five dollar weekly no-spread office pool (won most recently by Phyllis in Accounts Receivable), the only bet you lay down all year is on the length of the National Anthem before the Super Bowl. You then proceed to talk about that bet throughout the entire game except for briefly during the halftime show, which you watch with wide-eyed wonder. You also refuse to participate in the annual box pool because that would mean you'd have to stay to the end of the game and, you know, you’ve got work in the morning. At Douchebag, Inc.

Long before the days of Fatheads and customized laptop skins, enthusiastic young partisans of professional football franchises had no choice but to collect trading cards, cut photographs out of glossy sports magazines, and hang posters of their favorite players on their bedroom walls to show their allegiance to "the cause."

For myself and countless other young fans, there were no more prized posters than the white-bordered works of art released by Sports Illustrated in the late 70s and early 80s.  And though I had several of them adorning the walls of my sports shrine of a bedroom (Giorgio Chinaglia, Dwight Gooden, Billy Smith), it was the poster of New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms to the left that held (and still holds) the top spot in my sports-addicted heart of hearts.

In 1982 my old man, by that time already a long-suffering Giants season ticket holder, took me to my first game at Giants Stadium. I was seven years old at the time and I don’t remember all that much about that day beyond a feeling that the Astroturf field laid out before me was the greenest thing I had ever seen, and being rather awed by the whole dramatic spectacle. I also remember my father repeatedly telling me to "watch number 56," yet not being able to take my eyes off of number 53.

Shortly after that game, my father purchased for me the poster of quarterback Phil Simms seen here. It instantly got thumb-tacked to my bedroom wall and remained there until the day, some ten years later, that I left for college. 

After that, the poster graced the walls of an otherwise unremarkable dormitory room at the University of Michigan, several rooms in the dilapidated fraternity house I called home for two years, a bedroom in an Ann Arbor apartment located above a popular pizza joint, and finally, for eight years, the bedroom of the Manhattan apartment I moved into shortly after graduation. It wasn't until 2006, when I moved with my now wife into a small, East Village one bedroom, that I finally rolled it up and retired it to my parents' basement out on Long Island.

If you're keeping score at home, that's 25 years of Phil.

Now that the Giants are back in the big game, and are once again led by an "aw shucks," country boy quarterback, I've been thinking a lot about Phil Simms lately. And when I think of Phil Simms and his unbelievable performance in Super Bowl XXI, I can't help but think about this poster as well.

The first thing you'll notice when examining the poster is the Giants old uniforms, with the too-deep V-neck, longish, striped sleeves, and white pants. You may even also notice that Phil is wearing cleats manufactured by Pony, a brand you don't see on the feet of pro athletes much these days, and that there is some sort of sartorially splendid gentleman (military, perhaps? Security?) taking in the game from the sideline. But a closer examination reveals two startling facts: 

1) Phil's first name is misspelled.

2) His signature is forged (and misspelled).

When you're the quarterback of the New York Giants and the former 7th overall pick in the NFL Draft, it's reasonable to expect people, especially people employed by the country's leading sports magazine, to spell your name correctly. But there it is, clear as day. Phil with two Ls. Phill.

 
And then there's the issue of the "autograph," which I always considered a great value add to these Sports Illustrated posters. I use quotation marks around the word autograph because this is clearly not Phil Simms' signature. The first dead giveaway is that whoever signed the poster spelled Phil with two Ls, which Phil himself never does. But perhaps more egregious is how the autograph bears no resemblance whatsoever to the one Phil has been using on footballs, mini-helmets, jerseys, trading cards and lithographs for years and which I've cropped out of this unforgettable magazine cover and posted here to the left.

For further evidence of the consistency of this autograph, I present to you Exhibit A and Exhibit B. Let's not even discuss the absurd flourish the forger added to the second S in Simms.

The funniest thing about this, from my perspective, is that I didn't even notice the forged signature until 1991, when my father and I attended a day of training camp at Fairleigh Dickinson University and Phil, along with several other players, signed a football we'd brought with us. When Phil handed the ball back to me I thought it looked odd, but I didn't really know what the score was until I got home and compared the signatures. 

 
At first, my inclination was to believe that most of the posters of this era contained forged signatures, and that Phil had not been unfairly discriminated against. Years later, however, when a friend managed to sneak me into a press conference and I had the great fortune to meet former Cosmos/Lazio star Giorgio Chinaglia (a story for another time), this belief was shattered. I brought my S.I. poster with me and had him sign it that day, right alongside the original, printed signature. And guess what? The autographs matched more or less perfectly. 

  

So now the only question is, who was responsible for the Simms forgery and what, after nearly thirty years, can be done about it now?

The answer, unfortunately, is unlikely to come from a representative of Sports Illustrated, though I have made a formal written inquiry. I seriously doubt I'll get a letter back. But if I ever happen to see Phil on the street or elsewhere, and I don't mentally revert back to the seven year old boy who used to pray to his poster around Hanukkah time (Intellivision games, pleeeeease!), I'll be sure to ask him myself. I'm fairly certain he'll think I'm a lunatic, but that's just the risk I'm gonna have to take.

After all these years, I don't think I have much of a choice. Worse comes to worst, though, there's always the Phil Fathead. Nice.