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Article IndexThe bottom line: we lost our mezzanine location. . . .and our section . . . .and that side of the field. But the Giants business office treasurer called me personally. Because we had been longtime Giants season ticket holders, he explained, we wouldn't lose the tickets. He said he'd give me another location. Then the other show dropped - seats in the upper deck, end zone.
Upper deck? End zone? I saw red. My brother and I didn't talk — and I refused to go to a game — for years!
Well, one day my older son, Chris, wondered why we weren't going to any Giants games. He knew I had season tickets. I explained what had happened. He wondered if we could at least try the seats, so I agreed to take him. But I was dreading the move.
We drove to Giants Stadium and were directed to section 301 in the upper deck. Lo and behold, my seat numbers, 10 and 11, were in the third row, directly in the middle of the goal post uprights. Third row! No seats were even in front of us. Just a televison camera. What a view! When a player kicked a field goal, you stood up and thought you could catch the ball! Man alive, I thought, this was certainly a different way to watch a football game!
I grew to love the end zone seat location, and I never asked to have it changed.
Over the years here at Giants Stadium, we came to recognize the same fans in our section. It was a friendly section.
One season, another Giants fan who had the seats next to me gave his seats away to someone else — a non-Giants fan, we quickly learned. Seems this new guy hated the Giants, so when we played Philadelphia, for instance, he showed up wearing a Philadelphia shirt and helmet and proceeded to loudly root for Philadelphia — and against the Giants. And so on and so forth through Dallas and San Francisco and every other team in our division. I finally had to tell this guy to stay home, because Giants fans in the rows behind us showered the guy with beer, soda, water, anything they could throw — and I got hit too. I think a nearby Giants fan threatened him, and we never saw him again.
We had a unique rooting section. We had Crazy Tony. For as many years as I could remember, every time the Giants scored, Crazy Tony — we all knew his name because it was on the back of his Giants uniform shirt — would hop up on a railing and lead end zone fans in a cheer:
G - I - A - N - T - S — GIANTS! Once, maybe twice in a row. It would always bring a smile to everyone's face.
Like Yankee Stadium, that's all gone now. When the final game ended yesterday, the Giants losing 41-9, it was kind of like a wake in section 301. A lot of handshakes. A lot of photos, especially with Crazy Tony. A lot of goodbyes. The last game in Giants Stadium was a torture, to say the least.
Come next season, it'll be a new Giants Stadium. New fans to meet in our new seating section. But for those of us who follow and cheer on the football Giants, one thing will never ever disappear. Giants memories will be passed down from generation to generation. And those memories will last forever.
