Interview with Super New York Giants fan Jerry Vecchia

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1:19I'm proud to be a New York Giant. Very new team. I'm a New York Giant. I'm proud to be a New York Giant. I'm proud to be a New York Giant. Visiting Team. All things to a giant. For the normal. All things to a Giant. I'm proud to stand on. All things to a giant. I'm proud to be a New York Giant. I'm a New York Giant. I'm set in the rules. Hooth your wings and hoot your moves. Hoots will get hit and hoots will get bruised when the giant put on the white and the glue is proud to be a New York Giant. Very new team. I'm a New York Giant. I drive the team. I'm a New York Giant. I'm proud to be a new your giant, visiting King. All things to a giant, for the Lord. All things to a giant, I touch down the line.

2:19All things to a giant, I'm proud to be a new your giant. Welcome to the Total Sports Rea Call Podcast. On this episode, host Harv Eronson interviews. Visa Hall of Fans Award winner, Jerry Vettia, who represents the New York Giants. Now here is your host, Harv Eronson. Welcome to the Total Sports Recall Podcast. I'm Harv Eronson and two weeks go Lou Abraham was my guest and he is a die-hard Cleveland Browns fan who liked the show. His father was a legendary Browns fan, but on this episode I'll be talking with another Hall of Fans winner, Jerry Vettia. Jerry is also a winner of the Visa Hall of Fans award. Only his team is the New York Giants. Jerry was a member of the inaugural class when Visa first presented the award to fans way back in 1999. And on my last podcast, I spoke of the professional ultimate fans' association or Pufa as they are known. And Jerry would become president of Pufa. And Jerry would become president of Pufa.

3:20From 2002 until 2005. It was Jerry who sent me a letter inviting me to join him and other winners at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August of 2002. For what became an annual reunion of the past winners and present winners of the award. Jerry lives in New Jersey and I last saw Jerry 23 years ago. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around how long it's been since we last saw each other. Jerry, I welcome you to my podcast. It's with great pleasure. We're meeting again. And can you believe it's been 23 years? We're those years gone by. No, honestly, I can't. It's definitely time does fly as we had spoke about. And when I first met you, my one daughter was only 23 years ago. She was one. My other daughter was, I think, four. And now one is 26 getting married next October. And the other one is 22 in a college graduate. So time definitely does not stop. Wow, that's crazy. Congratulations on that, by the way.

4:21Thank you. Thank you. For me and Jerry, when Visa advised me that I was a potential winner of the Visa award and then for me that I was, my plaque was presented to me on December 9th, 2001. At the 50-yard line in what was then called Heinz Field. It was an amazing experience here. But what even was better was you inviting me to Canton. And for the two years I spent there, I made some acquaintance with a handful of really great people. How did you learn that you won the award? I believe you received yours at the hall. Is that correct? And also how did you learn of the award? How did you find out about it? Actually, for me, it was a, I received a phone call from Visa since they were running the search at the time. And they said, yeah, we selected you as the ultimate giants fan, which was something I really couldn't wrap my head around. And I didn't know really what to expect. They said we're fine you out to Canton, the beginning of January of 1999. And you're going to meet some other fans and we're going to have some festivities planned. But you never really understood what was going to happen

5:24that weekend. In my right out, so we flew out there and we landed the airport. The shuttle picks us up in November 6th. I believe five or six other fans on the shuttle. And the first fan I met on the shuttle was Lido Starelli. He was a 49er fan. And he was telling everybody his story that he hadn't missed a football game in 49 years. In person, which was just crazy for me. And here I am, just really, just an average giant fan who, yes, I had a devout fandom and I knew my trivia and all that stuff. But when you started to hear the stories, I just was like, I was blown away to be part of that group. Yeah, I'll tell you because you remember the Harry and Kitten Trap. Yes, yes, Harry had passed away a few years ago and this new book I'm writing,

6:24I wanted to see if Kitten was still around and I couldn't find any information for us. I wrote our letter out in California. I couldn't believe it. A couple weeks ago, I got an email from Kitten Trap. He's saying she got the letter. He's going to submit a letter back to me. And day two, you know, as you're saying, you know, you're a diehard fan and all that. I'm writing in my book about how I'm going through all these profiles of these proof of fans, these are fans. And I'm like, what am I doing with this group of people? There are such a special group of people. Not only because they're fans, like you said, but because they do community events, they contribute to charities and their stories are amazing. So the book is going to be really amazing to hear these stories and let people see what these people are about. So yeah, it's definitely like you said, honored to be with that group. You know, with me it was the hogs were in there, you know, people you saw on TV. And then you got to learn really what the hogs were. You know, the day, like you said, we're involved with children's charities.

7:25And you know, the boss hog was a nuclear physicist, which is something you would write. Yeah. And I'll tell you, when I, when I first got there to Canton and I got to the hotel and I see big dog and barrelman and Mr. Boss hogged and Mr. Mr. Seagawk, I'm like, gosh, what am I doing here? Right. You know, I just, because I know who they were. They were famous fans and the world knows them. And it's just wow. I was like, that's some kind of company. Exactly. Let me ask what your immediate thoughts of Poo for R. And are you still a member, Jerry? Not as active as I was. I'm obviously, you know, with family and all that. It's hard to go back. I still keep in touch with most of the fans. You know, like I said, I follow them on Facebook and all that. And I contact, you know, I still contact Panther Man and Miss Pearl. And I still, you know, with Bon Lady and stuff like that. But it's still a great group to be a part of.

8:27Although, you know, like I said, I'm not as much a part of it as you used to be. Yeah. I've been trying like crazy to find a big dog. I have had no luck. And one of the browns fans said he sees him at the tailgate. He's supposed to try to get his contact information for me. So if you are in contact with John, that would be very helpful to get him to reach out to me. Yeah, definitely, definitely. So let's turn to talk to your team, the Giants, your team and mine are two of the oldest NFL, both of the experienced great ownership for the Steelers, the Rooney's, the Giants, the Maris. I also am sure that one of the Maris is married to one of the Rooney family members. What should take on these two franchises? Yes, they were, you know, part of the original, right? You had to have teams that had a strong foundation. And you had to have owners that were willing to take a chance on this. Because nobody knew what the NFL was, was going to develop into. And certainly, you know, back in the 1920s when money was so tight, you know, the story talks about how the Maris bought the Giants for $500.

9:33You know, in today's environment, $500, you think, oh, big deal. But back then, when they purchased it, it was a major financial investment for a sport that you never knew if it was going to take off or not. Nobody knew what football was. And for them, in all of your original owners to take that gamble, to, you know, to beat a founding father. So we could get it to where it is today really shows the faith they had in it. Yeah. And like you said, the Steelers, and there's like a myth. It's never really been proven true. But the Steelers aren't Rooney's senior bottom for $2,500. And there's this myth that he won that money and attract me, betting on track, horses. And then he took the money and bought the team. Right. But, you know, you needed to have those extra things back then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they own racetracks around the country anyway. So staying on the talk with the Giants, I have to ask you probably a dumb question.

10:35Lawrence Taylor. He's probably the greatest linebacker of all time, not remembered for his main, not only remembered for his amazing ability to play the game. But that one play with Joe Thos will always come up when Taylor broke his leg and one of them ugliest thinkable fashions I've ever seen. But here's the dumb question. See the best ever linebacker. I mean, we have Jack Lambert who was a ferocious determined linebacker. But I don't think he was nowhere near as athletic as Lawrence Taylor. See, for me, I think he was because of one thing you just said, the athleticism, but also what he did in the way he played the game sort revolutionized it. It made offenses account form. Remember there was an interview with Joe Gibbs, the legendary Washington coach. And you know, he stated that wherever LT was lining up, we had to make sure we not only put a tackle, but a tight end over there to try to chip him and try to slow him down. So for what he brought to the game and how he revolutionized it because if you look at the past rushes that have come since him, you know, he was the first because they didn't even have.

11:41Sax is a statistic his first couple years. Right. And so yes, I in my opinion he is because of what he did and the way he played. Yeah, he was absolutely amazing. So here's a tough question I asked Lou. I'm going to ask you the same question. Who's your favorite player at all time? See, that is tough. Obviously, but for me, the player who always showed like what it was to be a giant was Mark Bavaro. Right. He was one tough S.O.B. to borrow a phrase from Bill Parcells. You never knew what he was thinking. But when there was a catch to be made, you wanted to throw him to ball his toughness that he exhibited on field. You know, the game where he had his jaw broke in New Orleans. He didn't want to come out. He had a wire shot at half time and played the second half with a broken jaw. And then there was the play on Monday, football redragged Ronnie lot in six or seven 49ers for 15 or 20 yards.

12:48Just the way he carried himself out and off the field, I think it shows it showed the mentality of what it is to grow up in New Jersey. That's why he was my favorite of all time. Yeah, he was definitely a tough character. And that's one thing it just made me think of that when you're talking about his toughness is that one that that's one thing our two teams are similar in. And then the other thing is their toughness and stewards have always known as hard hitting aggressive so are the giants. So yeah, they have that in common that they've just always been aggressive hard hitting tough hard knows teams with their app. And they represent their their their cities. Their state. Right. We're both known for that blue collar tough grind it outside of mentality. And both teams have always represented that. And then the two teams Steers and the Giants. They played 79 times with the first game they came in our very first year 1933 and the Giants won that game 23 to 2. Your team is 144 of those games. We've won 32. There have been three times. The last match up was October 28 two years ago, Monday night football.

13:55We took that one 26 18 but oddly enough, four years before there was another Monday night game, which we won 26 to 16, almost an identical score to the 2024 game. So I think you have been to plenty of giant games at home, obviously, Jerry, but I have to tell you when I was living in New York, I did attend several Steers, Jack games and one Steers Giants game. And the difference in the fans between the Jetsons of Giants was obvious the Jets fans razz us extremely rude. The giant fans were more respectful, even as New York beat us very nice fans. Jets not so much. That said, I'm sure you've been to Steers games in New Jersey, but can you tell me and my listeners about any Giants, Steers games you've attended and your thoughts about those games. Like you said, it's a different environment in a giant game. And I think when the Steers have visited, you know, the Steelers obviously travel extremely well, right? The terrible towel and all that that you see. You know, out of 76,000 people in a stadium at Giants, their Met Life Stadium is called. There was a large portion of Steeler fans and they just travel so well. And, you know, you guys as a group are very respectful also.

15:08Yet no matter what fan base you're going to have your one or two knuckleheads, no matter what fan, but you guys are respectful. It's in you honor the tradition too, right? You talked about how Giants and Steelers have this long tradition. Well, you guys honor that tradition by the by your mentality too. So I think that's what makes us such a good mix. And I know you're talking about how Steeler fans travel. I had this conversation with pumpkin that I don't know if you remember Jeff first year. Yeah. So he and I he's going to be in the book as well. And he and I are having a conversation today about here in Jacksonville. How many thousands of Steeler fans there are. And so it's a lot of live in other cities, but I got a real funny story. If you quick Jerry, when I first moved to Florida and I went to a couple of Jacksonville Jaguar or Steeler games. And I used to call Tom and man and former linebacker of the Jaguars, his radio show. And his sidekick was telling me how much of a myth the Stewards nation is. And I said, what they're playing here Sunday night, how many fans you think I mean the stadium and he said, maybe 5,000. I said, you're crazy.

16:15Jerry, I went to that game and I stood up and kick off and I looked around the stadium. I was like, oh my God. There had to be 35,000,000 Steeler fans there. It was almost the entire stadium. And so I called him back on Monday. I said, how many fans you think we're there last night? And he said, I'm at 15,000. I said, what game were you at? Because that was half the stadium, if not more of Steeler fans. Right. I mean, it's crazy. They just don't travel. We are living in other cities as well. And I know when I was in New York, I actually, in your neighborhood, I was in the fan club for Stewards and Hoboken. Okay. I used to go to Hoboken at the Liberty bar and watch games with these guys and a bunch of Steelers fans. So next question for you is Bill Parcells. You already mentioned him once. Is he the greatest giants coach in history? In my and my lifetime, yes. I can't speak before I was born. Obviously. But what he did when he took over a franchise that was lost.

17:19Right. Yes, it coincides with them hiring George Young as the general manager. But before that, they just were, you know, spinning their wheels, whether it was the fumble or whatever. There was so much misery associated with his franchise. And even, you know, his first year, he was worried that he wasn't going to survive this first year. They, you know, they went three and 12. So he, again, being a Jersey guy like he was knew what the fans wanted. You know, the fans wanted team. Yes, one, but also competed, gave everything they had every Sunday. Because you were spending harder and dollars to see them play. And he understood that he got that being from Unaki like he was. And he turned him around and made them, you know, winners. He got them their first two Super Bowl titles. And, you know, he also hit his tree lead to their second set of titles with Tom Cofflin. So in my, like I said, in my lifetime, without a doubt, he is.

18:27Yeah. And when you speak of the fumble, if my listeners aren't aware, I'm sure most die hard fans are, you're talking about Joe Persarge. Right. That is correct. In Herman Edwards, Herman Averis, kicking up a ball that bounced into his lap when the Giants had no business turning around, particularly Joe Persarge. And trying to hand it off to Larry Zonko, when all you had to do was take a knee. The Eagles had no time out. Left. And the Giants would have won that game. But the fumble changed history in the Giants. Yeah. And I know this might not be a worse play, but it is definitely a funnier play. And everybody's probably aware of it, the butt fumble. Yes. That every time I watch it, I get a laugh. I mean, it's one of the funniest clips I've ever seen. Yes. Yep. Definitely. Yeah. So talking about Lawrence Taylor again, previously we were talking about him. But would you say he's the best all around player in Giants history? You know, that's a, that's a really difficult question to answer. But again, I think when you look at all the other players in history, you know, certainly some before, before I was born, you know, players like Frank Efford, what they did to the game in their era, how he revolution by playing two or three different positions.

19:46But again, when you get back to Lawrence Taylor, he made other coaches change what they did. So that's why I think he was probably the best all around player. I think if you asked him to go play wide receiver, he could have done it, right? He was certainly athletic enough, certainly gifted physically enough to do it. He could have played any other position. So yeah, I would think so. My mistake is he have a son that's playing football. I know he has a son. I don't know if the son plays. I know Notre Dame has like every one of their wide receivers is a former NFL receiver son. There if it's Gerald son plays there, Plexico son plays there. It's crazy. The second generation in Notre Dame. Yeah, I kind of wanted to saw it somewhere. So we're getting a little short time, but it's been a thrill seeing you again after all these years, Jerry, and an honor to have you a guest on my show. And perhaps you can come back again. We'll do it again one day, because I always give my guests a second chance of opportunity. But for any parting words, I'd like to just know what you're up to these days and which you're up to bat, my friend.

21:00Well, you know, I'm still working. You know, have to keep paying the bills. Like I said, my daughters are doing wonderfully and that's, you know, that's a large part. That's the large part of my life anymore, just making sure that they're have everything, you know, that I can do to help them. I try to do and we just keep going on from there. And are they football fans? Yes, not as crazy as me, but they will watch the Giants. We, you know, usually they'll be over in their cousins, we'll be over to watch the Giants on Sundays. Again, not as crazy as I am, but definitely they, they bleed, but blue like I do. Were you a seasoned ticket owner or are you? I was, but unfortunately, when they moved to MetLife, the PSL's just, yeah, I heard that it's not a like 25,000 or something. Yeah, and then you have to buy it. And that's just to write for you, the, let me rephrase that, that's for the right to buy the tickets.

22:06Yeah, you know, and if one year you can't do the season tickets, you're still lost all that PSL money. It's not like you get it back because you can't do the tickets anymore. So it's crazy. It's unfortunate that that's become that way in a lot of stadiums. Oh, yeah, Pittsburgh got the same thing. You got to buy your seat. I mean, buy your right to the owner ticket. So I mean, it's crazy. And then years ago, when I was back in Pittsburgh, I put myself on the waiting list for season tickets. I think it was a 13 year wait. I heard a giants must be much like I hear that the packers is like forever. You got to wait like 50 years to get a ticket. Right. But again, the packers, I don't believe they have the PSL. The giants had that long list, like you had said. But as soon as the PSLs came on, there is no more season ticket waiting list. You can buy individual game tickets because of that fact, people couldn't pay that type of money just for the right to buy the tickets.

23:06Yeah. Well, while we still have a few more minutes, I just some another another question just popped into my head. Your thoughts on John Harboh new coach. You know what he I really like what he's done just just the past two games has shown a difference right the giants last year lost. I believe it was six or seven games into fourth quarter when they had the lead right so the past two weeks they play Tennessee and they played Arizona. Same thing late in the game they had a lead and you're like repeat of last year, you know the team the other team is driving for a chance to win with less than a minute left. But both weeks the defenses come up and made plays and I think that's the type of mentality he is instilled in them that you guys can all make these plays, but it's expected right it's not like all what happened and you know whatever. But it's expected of you because you're in the York giant in his opening press conference he had one of the best lines ever.

24:12If you like football, you're going to love it here. If you don't, you're going to be on another team. So I think that's what he has brought. That's why I really, really am happy with him as a head coach. I'll tell you what I think it'll be fantastic if the giants finish with a better record than the Baltimore Ravens and very well. It happened. Yes, they're hurting the quarterback right now and you guys are you're lucky because you're not lucky, but you're in a good division right now. I couldn't believe Dallas lost the other night. I would have that was crazy lose that game. And so it puts the giants in first place. And you know, we're still dealing with those injuries too, you know, Jackson Dart gone for the year Brian Burns gone for the year. But his next man up mentality and you know, hopefully we can continue to get the good James Winston for the rest of the year and he doesn't always sudden forget what color the jerseys are that he's playing with.

25:12And we can always have you always have Jay Jay McCarthy to turn to right. Yes, yes, we'll see how that plays out. You know, it's obviously with Jay Jay, you know, learning the offense and all that will see how long it's going to take. But yeah, and then we hopefully Jackson comes back healthy next year. Well, I'd like to thank Jerry Betje for being a gracious guest on Total Sports Recall. And I give thanks as always to the Sports History Network, sponsoring this show. I'm now compiling a mailing list for my listeners to provide updates and announcements and any new shows. And if you would like to be placed on that list, simply send me an email to show the official email address, which is Total Sports Recall at Outlook.com. That is again, Total Sports Recall Outlook.com. So with thanks to Jerry Betje one more time. This is Harv Arenson in two weeks. I'll have a new podcast and the topic will be remembering the five Pittsburgh Pirates World Series championship teams. Until then I wish all my listeners the best two weeks you could have possibly have. Thank you, Harvey. And I'm going to give you a few minutes of this podcast. Do not represent the opinions of others and are solely the opinions of Harv Arenson based on his experience, knowledge and research.

26:37Hey there Sports History Fan. This is Arnie Chapman, aka the Flip bottle history dude. And I hope that you enjoyed this recent episode presented by the Sports History Network. And we're able to learn some good old fashioned sports history knowledge nuggets. I started the Sports History Network back in 2020 with the mission to help podcasters find a community of like-minded sports history nerds as well. As well as helping aspiring podcasters to start their own shows. We have a little bit over 30 shows on the network right now covering all sorts of sports history. But as far as I'm concerned, we're just at the toothpick in the ocean moment. You know that can't even figure it out because there's so much more coming. We wanted to create the ultimate headquarters for sports gesture year. Starting with podcast network and our website, but we're going to continue to move into other mediums as well. And here's the cool part because we want you to be part of our team. So if you're interested in starting your own podcast or maybe being a guest on one of our shows or who knows maybe even writing an article for us over on the website.

27:42Seriously, all you gotta do is reach out to us on the contact page of sports history network dot com. You can be as technologically savvy as a Neanderthal tapping out a stone trying to figure out this whole higher-agglifix thing back in the day. Again, it doesn't matter because even if you don't understand the whole podcast base, we have a production team that can pretty much help you out with doing everything. All you gotta do head over to sports history network dot com head to the contact page fill it out. That message goes right to me and I'll reach out to you as soon as I can. But for now, dude, I have to refure it through.