I told her "yes, I watched the game. I've seen ALL the games. All 55 of them." I knew the cashier, being somewhat younger than me couldn't match that. She said that was impressive.
Soon after getting home I got a call from someone who identified themselves as a reporter for the local free newspaper.
I understand you've watched all 55 Super Bowls.
Did your mother tell you that? Yes, I've seen them all in various settings. Usually at home or in someone else's home, never at the actual game.
That's impressive.
How did you hear of this? Did your mother look up my name from the discount card I used today?
Well, yes,. I hope you don't mind.
Not at all.
What game do you remember the most?
Any game the Giants won. I have two very good friends who are absolute Giant die-hard fans. They suffer when they're playing bad, which can be often. But when they rise to the top I always wish them the best and root for the Giants. I'm not a particular football fan myself.
Given that your not a real football fan, why do you watch the game year-after-year? Do you gamble on it?
No gambling. I'm not a sports bettor, (I play the horses now and then) although that's getting easier and easier these days, isn't it? I actually see ads giving odds. Times have changed. A few times I bought some boxes for small amounts—even got some golden numbers—but never hit there.
Do you watch the game with others, like at a Super Bowl party?
No, usually at home Once my friend Johnny M. and I watched the game at a bartender's house in the Bronx some time ago. There was a bit of crowd, and when the lights were turned back on you could see who was sick that their team—I think Oakland—didn't win, didn't cover. They were ashen faced.
I watch the game each year because it's history. It's America. Games that I remember are benchmarks, milestones in my life. Some of the people I watched with are no longer with us, like my father.
One year in Flushing, I think the Dallas/Miami game in 1971, two of my friends came over and we watched the game with my father at home. The games were in January then, and the house was cold. We watched the game with our costs on.
My father didn't pay for oil often. We had no credit. And that January, there was no oil in the tank. He had bought a new Sony color TV however, and we enjoyed watching the game in nice color, but we were cold. My friends still talk about it.
My father was lousy with money. He was continuously employed, so it wasn't a matter of ever being out of work. It was a matter of his not really living with a budget, or obligation, that certain utilities required payments. As a kid our phone was always being turned off. We kept getting new phone numbers by the time the bill was paid and a fresh deposit made. Once, even ConEd came and turned off the electricity. They went right down in our home's cellar and put something in the fuse box that prevented us getting juice. And oil...fuhgetaboutit. No credit there. We were always cold.
Any other games stand out?
Certainly the Jets winning in 1969. They were heavy underdogs, Namath was a bragger, and they upset the Colts big time. I watched that game in Flushing with my father. It really was a stunning upset.
I think that's the first championship game they called a Super Bowl. Prior to that it was the NFL against the new kid on the block, the AFL, a league considered inferior to the NFL, composed of players who couldn't make the NFL.
I remember getting a haircut in 1967 the day after the Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs and there was someone on the radio talking about how close the game was at halftime, and didn't that show that the AFL was just as good? Few thought so.
I watched that 1967 game at my grandmother's where I was living at the time, on a black and white set I had bought at a local appliance store. My grandmother had no use for TV.
There was tremendous rivalry for attention between AFL fans and NFL fans. At the start, the AFL played on Friday nights. I remember going to the Polo Grounds in Manhattan with my father to see a New York Titans game. They were the precursor to the Jets.
My father, never first realizing whatever it was the tickets cost, was stymied at he box office when he tried to buy two tickets. I don't think he had enough money. I could tell because there seemed to some sort of negotiation going on. We did get the tickets, and did get in, but I always took a lesson away from it when I took our kids anywhere. Make sure you can pay for it before you go.
There were Friday night games at Shea when the Jets became the team in New York. The thing about the AFL in New York was that you could buy tickets. There was no such thing as ever buying Giant tickets for Yankee Stadium. Everyone was a season ticket holder, often multi-generational season ticket holders.
And there was no local TV broadcast either. In that era there was a TV blackout against showing a local game in its TV market, even if all the seats were sold. There were New Yorkers who traveled to New Haven to watch Channel 3 in New Haven because they could show the game because they were I think 60 miles outside the New York City coverage radius.
Lots of cops and firemen did this, then often wrecked the motels afterward because they were always drunk. They used to say there were always lots of fights at Yankee stadium during games. They were rolling around in the aisles. There was even closed circuit TV shown in theaters. Bad reception, but you could watch the game without going to Connecticut.
Of course the only overtime game so far, when Brady overcame that tremendous deficit and beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in 2017. The poor owner of the Falcons, he's come down to the sidelines because the Falcons looked like imminent winners, only to see Brady and New England keep scoring and closing the deficit.
It was almost like that 1972 Olympic gold medal basketball game with the U.S. against the Russians. The score in that game kept game flipping and forth, the clock kept getting adjusted with time being added, and the Russians won, basically because the timekeeper kept the game going when it should have been over when the U.S. was ahead. At that point, it was the only U.S. gold medal loss in basketball. The U.S. refused to accept the silver medal.
There's the Atlanta owner, a thoroughly good guy who help start Home Depot, watching victory getting eroded away. They kept showing Arthur Blank pacing the sidelines like an expectant father. The Falcons have yet to reappear in a Super Bowl. Only a few get more than one chance.
Are there any other memories, especially of those early AFL/NFL days?
The NFL, to the scorn of many, played the Sunday after JFK was assassinated in 1963. The commissioner was Pete Rozelle, who claimed that JFK's brother Bobby said Jack would have wanted games to be played. It was a big deal, since the nation was basically shut down.
I used to go to Jet games on Friday nights at Shea Stadium. Halftime shows were sometimes contests between women running back and forth emptying refrigerators into shopping carts. The woman who could accomplish emptying the refrigerator the fastest got some sort of prize. I don't remember what. If not that, then a local marching drill band. Twirling rifles and drums sort of thing.
People forget how unique Shea Stadium was to watch a football game. The field level seats used for baseball were repositioned by moving them on railroad tracks to create seats parallel to the field. Most NFL games were played in ball parks with configurations that didn't render that many great seats for watching football. You didn't have the dedicated football-only stadiums you have today.
Halftime shows. What do you think about the current trend in halftime shows?
What can you say. They certainly aren't women emptying refrigerators. Hard to believe that Mary Chapin Carpenter performed at halftime, I think when the game was in New Orleans and she sang "Saturday Night at the Twist and Shout."
Now of course they get a stage out there and do a Vegas show. Certainly last year's show with J-Lo and Shakira was entertaining, even racy, I guess. I mean, a 50-year-old-woman ends up dancing upside on a pole. That was impressive.
And didn't Beyoncé and the flashing lights cause a power outage one year?
I remember Springsteen nearly sliding into the camera man. Now he does a unity commercial for Jeep that was nice. I never know about that chapel in Kansas in what is considered the center of the United States.
I've heard of there being a geodesic center of the country. I thought it was in Nebraska. They must not use the position of Hawaii when determining the center. I'll have to ask my son-in-law who is a land surveyor how they determine the center.
When that Jeep commercial first started I immediately recognized Bruce's voice. I wondered where it was going. He portrays himself as a Main Street guy, looking Western lately.
And what's with Brad Pitt doing a voice over at the game's introduction? He's still in short pants, isn't he? His voice is not Walter Cronkite, Alexander Scourby, James Earl Jones, or even Peter Coyote. I hope that voice over thing doesn't give him legs to start narrating 'American Experience' on PBS. Ugh.
Of course the famous "wardrobe function" lite up the switchboard. I was watching the game at home, alone, and when halftime came on I turned the sound off because I could tell the music was nothing I wanted to hear.
I watched however, and watched, who was it, Justin Timberlake who ripped a piece of clothing baring Janet Jackson's full left breast, long enough for anyone with open eyes to realize what they were looking at.
My wife walked into the living room and I told her," I think I just saw Janet Jackson's left breast." She told me I must be mistaken. I begged to differ.
When the kerfluffle over that broke, instantly, there was the fact that the song Justin and her were signing about had something to do with rape. Yikes.
Explanations were weak, and the "wardrobe malfunction" explanation had all the qualities of government speak. That was something. But we moved on.
But really, what the hell was that halftime show this year? I went out and cleaned off the car from the day's snowfall, like many others. I knew it wouldn't take long and the show would still be on when I came back in. It was.
A field full of guys? in red jackets and black pants whose heads were wrapped in what looked like bandages. I mean, it looked like a field full of people with head wounds. Or the Invisible Man multiplied. Or a 'Twilight Zone' episode where everyone is ugly and the exception is the normal looking person. A classic episode.
I get it about blending the pandemic mask into the appearance, but really, they looked like they were going to jump out of a vehicle and shoot up a bank.
I never heard of Weekend. Seems like a strange name for what, one guy singing? I didn't get it. Someone else I know said it "sucked."
Did you notice the female official?
Yes I did. I saw this blonde ponytail flopping around under a cap and realized it was a woman official, Sarah Thomas. I thought someone told me, or I read it, that there was a NFL female official. My guess is if it was mentioned, it probably was before the game, and I tune in right at the start. No pre-game banter for me anymore.
What did you think of the anthem?
It was fine. I don't know who those people were, but it was fine. No controversy. I remember when José Feliciano caused an uproar when he sang the anthem in 1968 before a World Series game. At the time, everyone was used to hearing a Robert Merrill-type rendition, and here's this blind Spanish guy playing a guitar and singing. Now, everyone loves his Christmas song, Felize Navidad. Everything changes.
What do you think of the Roman numeral designations of the edition of the game?
That was Pete Rozelle. When they decided to call it the Super Bowl they wanted to promote the game as an epic battle, something that would be fought in the Roman Coliseum. Rozelle was a showman. All those owners own a deep gratitude to Rozelle. He made the NFL into what it is today with all the TV contracts. Now you can watch a local home game, no matter if all the tickets are sold or not. Those owners are rich because of Rozelle.
But really, who's the dummkopf who designed this year's logo? It looks like the Roman numeral means 54. That stupid vertical line with the Lombardi trophy atop it makes it seem like there's a one in front of the V, which would mean 54 with the leading L. I was confused leading up to the game.
But I guess that's how they portray the logo. Jason Guy wrote a beautiful piece in the Friday January 29th WSJ edition about the few remaining guys who have been to the games, in person, ALL the games. Viewing all 55 games on TV pales compared to their allegiance.
The photo of the 5 looks like a meeting of Masters winners, only wearing blue blazers instead of green jackets.
What can a you say, it was the Tom Brady show. They wanted to hype is like a heavyweight fight between a highly seasoned quarterback and the youngster who they're anointing the heir apparent. Patrick Mahomes did win last year, but winning two years in a row is tough. Like good thoroughbreds, a two race winning streak is sometimes rare.
A good deal is make of Brady's age, 43, but there are figures in other sports who seem to defy age. Gordie Howe in hockey, George Blanda in football, Gaylord Perry, and others in baseball seem to go on forever. I'm sure there's some in soccer, but I don't follow it. Boxing had George Foreman who was still teaching his opponents lessons as he got older. And Ali, although he faded badly.
But people like Brady only come along once in a generation. No interceptions, three touchdown passes, he was a hot knife through butter.
And the Chiefs were snake bitten with penalties in the first half. They were handing the ball back to the Bucs. Mahones got his bell rung more than once. He looked beat up at the end, just hoping it would be over. And eventually it was. Brady all the way.
Anything else?
Of course Tampa is the championship capital of the United States now. Hockey, in the World Series, and now winning the Super Bowl. I remember in the '70s Baltimore had it that way. The colts won their Super Bowl, the Orioles won the Series and I think the Bullets were in the finals for NBA championship. Sometimes it just works out that way.
It's been a pleasure talking to you.
You too. Say hi to your Mom.
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