Field Trip: Giants Stadium

The House that Dave Meggett Built

I’ve never been to a professional football game. Hard to believe, right? A well-traveled fellow like myself, never having attended a professional football game before? That’s unbelievable. Well, friends of Hefcellence, that was true – until yesterday.

Sunday morning I woke  up at noon after a glorious birthday celebration with some friends and loved ones that ended with me passing out on my couch while drinking a Sparks and watching Predator on HBO. I rolled out of bed, grabbed a Gatorade and cooked a delicious breakfast sandwich. It was a fine start to the day.

Around 1:30 as I was lounging around with The Future Mrs. CRM when her phone rang. She talked for a minute then turned to me and said, “Do you want to go to the Giants game?”

Huh?

Her friend’s boss had season tickets and he wasn’t going to be attending the game that night. So I was being presented with free tickets. The only thing was, I live in Upstate New York and we’ve been in snow emergency since Fetch finished his exams. I had to weigh the options because, the roads were dangerous and NYC East Rutherford, New Jersey was a 2 and a half hour drive away. (With ideal weather conditions.)

After a few moments of contemplation – and research of Weather.com – I realized that this was too good an opportunity to pass up. I mean, this was two 11-3 teams we were talking about. So I went out in the poor weather and picked up the tickets.

Before I went out to get the tickets, I made sure to drop Giants season ticket holding Major League Jerk RomanWarHelmet an e-mail to tell him I would be at the game. It went un-returned until this morning. (/now we’re even for training camp’d)

My roommate and I left at 4 for the 8:15 kickoff. The Albany weather and roads were shit. Horrible. I had doubts about the trip before I even hit the highway. When we finally hit the New York Thruway, the roads started to clear up and by the time we were 5 minutes south of the city, everything was clear. Of course, there were plenty of accidents along the trip. We drove about 15 minutes before we encountered a bus being towed from a snowbank. Then 10 minutes later we slowed to a crawl so we could stare at the jack-kniffed tractor trailer in the Northbound lane.

I was reminded of a conversation I had in a used bookstore earlier in the day (I get the most out of my Sundays). The clerk asked how the roads were and I said “Covered in snow.” He replied, “Yeah, I guess it’s not so much the conditions as the idiots.” He was wise. Must be from reading all those books.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, we got to the home of the Jersey Giants relatively quickly with the help of Tom Tom. I have to say, those things are the fucking shit. I don’t know how people left the house 10 years ago without cell phones and navigation devices.

When we pulled into the parking lot (all of New Jersey is a parking lot/trash pile) we were greeted by some of New Jersey’s Finest who waved us through with flashlight-sticks and told us to keep moving. They were very helpful.

We finally parked around 7:45 and started to make our way to the stadium. It was a long-ass walk filled with hundreds of street vendors and Jersey/NYC douche bags. Bottles and cans were strewn everywhere. It was like scene at the end of Wayne’s World 2 where the Indian cries, but I’m pretty sure no one was going to pick anything up.

My one question is – where the hell were all the bums? At public events in Albany, there are bums everywhere. Shopping carts  full of bottles and cans. They ask you if you’re done with your beer so you don’t have to go through the trouble of throwing your trash on the ground. There’s a fortune to be made at the Meadowlands, I tell you what.

My favorite part of the walk across the sea of parking lots was seeing the extreme forms of fandom up close for the very first time. God, there were a lot of assholes. The “Let’s go G-Men!” chants were just wonderful. The few people wearing Panthers’ gear were told to fuck off and go back to Carolina. “You’re in Jersey now asshole!” (I guess they do understand the geography of the situation.)

The front gate was a mess as we stood in a mass of people all dressed like children going out to play in the middle of the winter.

Did I mention it was freezing?

It was cold as shit. I was wearing two pair of socks, sweat pants under my jeans, a t-shirt, long sleeve t-shirt, sweater, hoodie, winter jacket, winter hat and gloves. I was comfortable, but it proved difficult to fit in the tiny seats. Maybe it’s just my child-bearing hips.

The picture Roman could have taken if only he answered his e-mail.

Once inside, we started our trek up Kilimanjaro to our seats. First an escalator to the third level where we stopped for a couple Jew dogs. (The sign said Hebrew.) We shoved the dogs in our jacket pockets, grabbed some ketchup packets and made our way to our seats.

The stadium stairs were covered in ice. It was an adventure. We kept climbing and climbing before we finally hit row 30 – of 31. We were in the next to last row. Thankfully, when we turned around, we could see everything. It really was a beautiful view.

"Ooh! That first down was sweeter than my mutha's spaghetti! Fugetabowdit!"

The most awkward part of the game was when a fan in front of us turned around after a particularly exciting first down in the first quarter to high-five me. I just looked at him and then extended my hand as a gesture of acknowledgment. My lack of excitement signaled to him that I might not be a friend. He asked if I was a Giants fan and I calmly said “No.” He then proceeded to stare daggers at me before turning back around. It was the closest I have ever come to being the victim of a homicide.

Then there we had the people behind me.

One guys was a father of a pee-wee football player who was going to be playing at half-time. One was a limo driver who had driven clients down to the game from Albany. We listened to the story of  his purchasing tickets off Craig’s List 4 times. He paid 80 for 2 tickets and a parking pass. When he got down to the Meadowlands, he dropped off his clients and sold the parking pass for $20 and the other ticket for $40. According to the people around me, it was the greatest steal in the history of the ticket-buying world.

The father-type kept telling stories about his 11-year old son who may or may not be a “Nancy” – his words. Good parenting. He talks about his 11-year-old lineman son the way I talk about Tony Romo. Good for him and his closeted son.

This guy also shared with the group that he went to see Four Christmases on Saturday afternoon. (I swear I’m not making this up.) This alone made me cringe. But what made it worse was that I knew the guy had enjoyed it before he even said he did. I wanted to turn around, grab him by the shoulders and shake the shit out of him while screaming “Shut the fuck up! Just shut the fuck up!” Then he described an entire scene from the movie to the limo-driver. I should have tapped the guy in front of my on the shoulder and said, “Hey, that guy’s a Cowboys’ fan and he said Carl Banks bangs dudes.”

The game itself was pretty good, but I’m sure you’ve all seen it or at least read about it by now so I’ll spare you the details.

I do have to say the Giants’ fans far surpassed my expectations of Jersey-NYC-douchieness throughout my visit. And while Roman tries to argue that Big Daddy Drew is describing Jet fans, I’m here to tell you they’re one in the same. It’s the personificiation of My New Haircut. It’s just too bad the winter caps were hiding the neatly quaffed Gotti-kid blowouts.

We left after Ward took it inside the twenty and were just hitting the parking lot as Jacobs crossed the goal line for the 3rd time. The trip home was a bitch as we pulled into the driveway at 2:45. The most impressive part of getting home was that none of the streets were cleared. Shit – there’s still a power line down across our street from the big storm on December 12th. It’s ridiculous. Don’t worry though – there’s police tape blocking it off. Of course, that’s buried under 3 feet of snow now. I can’t wait for a plow truck to barrel through it and rip down a couple poles. It should be spectacular.

All-in-all, it was a fun time. I’d definitely do it again, especially at that price. Or if I can find a good deal on Craig’s List.