With kickoff now just about 48 hours away, I'm doing everything I can short of mainlining H to keep my mind off of the Big Game and to relax a bit. And that means, like Happy Gilmore, I need to take my mind to its "Happy Place."

While I certainly enjoy pitchers of beer served by freshly wet, lingerie clad blondes as much as the next guy, for me, my "Happy Place" is Giants Stadium. It's one of the three places in the world, along with Preservation Hall in New Orleans and Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park, where I believe I'd feel at peace to die. And though I'll concede that I've endured some of the lowest moments of my life in that stadium (I see you, Flipper Anderson), none of them have been able to erode the pure, unadulterated joy I felt there on January 11, 1987, when the Giants defeated the Washington Redskins 17-0 in the NFC Championship Game.

Much of that joy, I have to admit, was derived from seeing the look on my old man's face in the closing seconds--a look that I had not seen before and haven't seen since. The look of ultimate redemption.

In 1964 the old man, at the time a young accounting student at Baruch College, bought four seasons tickets for himself and three of his Tau Delta Phi fraternity brothers. Following five championship game appearances in the span of seven years including three in a row, I can only imagine that my father saw great promise in those Giants, and that he envisioned attending many a Championship game over the subsequent seasons. What he did not (and most likely could not) have foreseen, however, is that when their 14-10 loss cinched the last of George Halas’ eight championships as coach and owner of the Chicago Bears in 1963, the Giants would not return to the league’s ultimate showcase for twenty-three years.

In fact, they wouldn't even return to the playoffs until 1981, eighteen years later.

There were, of course, warning signs. Yet despite the retirement of the great Frank Gifford, a Pro Bowl selection at three different positions, and the trade of Sam Huff, the defense’s inspirational leader, to hated Washington, my father fatefully decided to hitch his wagon to a team that would finish the 1964 season just 2-10-2, dead last in the league in points allowed. After a somewhat encouraging seven-win season the following year, the Giants crashed back to earth by winning just once in 1966, their 1-12-1 record still the worst to date in franchise history. Amazingly, Head Coach Allie Sherman was not fired, and my father, resigned to a life of torment and anguish, settled in for the Giants “fallow period.”

In 1981, the Giants finally qualified for the playoffs and even, believe it or not, won their opening round Wild Card game against the rival Eagles before being soundly beaten by Joe Montana and the eventual champion 49ers. The Eagle win must have imbued the old man with a sense of optimism, I guess, because the following season he started taking me to the games. A natural jinx, my freckled presence at Giants Stadium was primarily responsible, I was told, for the Giants winning just seven games over the next two seasons before rebounding with nine wins and a Wild Card berth in 1984.

But despite beating the Rams in the Wild Card game that year and winning double digit games for the first time in 22 years the next, their humiliating shutout loss at the hands of Mike Ditka's Super Bowl shuffling Bears in those 1985 NFC playoffs signaled to Giants fans all over that perhaps we were still a bit further from being true contenders than we had collectively imagined. And then, almost out of nowhere, came 1986--the most magical year of my entire life as a sports fan.

First, in October, came the Mets. Down to their last strike in Game 6 of the World Series, they somehow battled back and managed to defeat the Boston Red Sox in the decisive seventh game. Amazing. But just when my eleven year old self thought life couldn't get any better, the Giants caught fire, winning their last nine regular season games. And after making quick work of the 49ers in the Divisional Playoff Round (49-3 final), they found themselves hosting the Washington Redskins for the right to represent the NFC in Super Bowl XXI.

The first thing I remember about this game is that it was cold and extremely windy. But there was such an electricity in the air that evening that I don't think I (or anybody else) felt it. Never before or since have I witnessed a feeling this intense running through Giants Stadium. And it was all because of fans like my old man--the loyal, long-time season ticket holders who had waited so long for a moment like this--the fans who braved all those cold Sunday afternoons in the sixties and seventies when the Giants were pathetic. When they were the laughingstock of the league. I think that day they all just sensed that their time had finally arrived.

The Redskins, a strong team that would go on to the win the championship the following season, never had a chance. Feeding off of the energy of the crowd, the Giants controlled the game from the opening kickoff until the last whistle, and won 17-0. The game's outcome was never in doubt.

And when it was finally over, when it finally sunk in that we had won the game and were headed to the Super Bowl, when the crowd was going berserk and the confetti was flying around the air and the Giants were dancing at midfield and climbing into the stands to embrace their families, I looked up at my old man and saw the purest expression of happiness I have ever seen on his face to this day. It was an expression that seemed to be possessed of more than just joy, though. The smile spread across his face was also a smile of relief. Of vindication. Of a million emotions and memories converging into one perfect moment. And when I think about that look now, I can still see it as vividly as I did when I was eleven years old.

That's my happy place.

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.

I've been invited to like 16 different Super Bowl parties in the last week and have respectfully declined every invitation, even those of my best and closest friends. And none of them seems to understand my explanation why.

It's not that I don't like these people, because I do. They're good, well-intentioned folks, all of them. And we go back a long way.

I'm also not one of those crazily superstitious dudes who has to watch the game sitting indian-style in his underwear and a ski mask at a precise 34 degree angle from the television while eating only green m&ms lefthanded. That's not me, either.

It's just that for a game of this magnitude, I've got to be in complete control of my environment. And that means I can't be around people. Even old friends.

Like most lunatics, when watching the Giants in the Super Bowl I am to be considered a danger to myself as well as to others, and cannot be trusted around small children or their well-meaning parents and their homemade, nine layer bean dips.

I am liable to drink heavily, shout obscenities, throw things, pace, spit, fume, swing my fists wildly, head butt inanimate objects, vomit, soil myself, bark like a dog, kick a dog, howl at the moon, wrestle an angel, or murder a pizza delivery boy, all before the end of the National Anthem.

And if I'm at a Super Bowl party, I know I can't behave that way. Not in "mixed company," anyway.

As you are all well aware, many of the attendees at Super Bowl parties don't really care all that much about the outcome of the football game. They'll be perfectly content to sit and talk casually throughout the game about things that have no bearing on what's going on down on the field, comment during game action about commercials and the halftime show, walk (or stand) in front of the TV at inopportune times, be female, or commit any combination of these unforgivable sins. Some might even (*gasp*) attempt to engage me in conversation.

And let's not even mention the "hosts" of these absurd shindigs, who are usually so excited to show off their new flat screens and TIVOs that they decide it's not really necessary to show the game in "real time," instead rewinding periodically so that "Sally" or "cousin Irv" can rewatch some inane ad for Pepsi or Ford trucks or whoever the fuck is spending 2 million dollars for the 30 seconds of TV time I'm using to catch my breath, mop my brow, and attempt to stop dry heaving, if only for a moment. Irv was busy checking on the mini-quiches he brought, see, and missed seeing that computer generated hippopotamus share a Pepsi with that computer generated giraffe. So never mind that it's third and seven from the New England 34 yard line. We can always "catch up with the game later, right, crowd? I mean, what's the big deal?"

Then there are the poseur fans at the party to contend with. The "fans" who don't know Eli Manning from Eli Whitney but, in the spirit of the festivities decide to hold court, spewing their uninformed opinion about all things New York Giants. "The Giants are better off without Shockey," one "fan" says as my ears begin to bleed. "And did you know that Brandon Jacobs is 350 pounds?" Adding insult to insult, This person likely also arrived wearing a jersey, but you'd better believe it had never been worn until that day and may have even been purchased in the last 48 hours, if not on the way to the party. Oh well, you think to yourself. At least he'll have something to wipe up his blood with.

Oh, and there will be blood, sports fans. In the anxious, agitated state I will be in during this game, can't you see how incredibly dangerous it would be for me to be in the same room as a "fan" like this? I mean, I'm likely to snap and cut the motherfucker's throat with a jagged Dorito. But only during the commercial break, of course.

Look, people. I'm invested in this shit. Heavily. Way more than I probably should be. I admit that. But it's just the way it is. I live and die with every snap from center. With the exception of my college years spent in the Midwest and away from East Rutherford, I have only missed four home games since 1982. So yeah, I kinda care more than the average fan does about the outcome of this game. And I remember all too well what happened back in February of 2001, when I allowed my buddy Matt to talk me into attending his Super Bowl gathering out in Queens and had to suffer not only the indignity of a 34-7 final score, but pretty much all of the shenanigans and bullshit I've described above. From my best friends, no less.

So forgive me if you invited me to your Super Bowl party this year and I declined the invite. Other than the fact that it's 100% personal, it's nothing personal.

Enjoy the mini quiches.

Welcome to Bluenatic, a new fan blog dedicated to all things New York Giants (and Mets, and Islanders, and University of Michigan athletics.)

One thing that will become perfectly and immediately clear to readers of this blog is that I have a Giant problem. Literally. And blogging is cheaper than therapy.