Today's fan essay comes from Dave Rosenbluth, an occasional commenter known around Big Blue View as 'Rosey24.'
Being a Giant fan is a family thing for me.
My dad followed the Giants as a young man in the early '50s, going to games first at the Polo Grounds and then at Yankee Stadium.
His earliest stories to me about the Giants centered around the 1956 NFL Championship game when the Giants ripped the Bears, I believe 47-7. It was sneaker game 2 as he told me; a replay of an earlier championship scenario where the team used sneakers to overcome the slick field conditions.
The image that stuck in my head from that story is of my father telling me that to combat the fierce cold that day, people used trash cans as heaters, setting a match to the garbage and then standing close to them to warm their hands!
I grew up in Queens and my earliest personal Giant memories go back to Giant training camp at Fairfield University in the early '60s. My mom and dad would take me up for the day to watch the day of drills and scrimmages. Things sure were different back then. You could stand on the far sideline right on the field behind a single rope that separated you from the action on the field! My mom, no real football fan, baseball was her game, seemed preoccupied with Del Shofner. It seemed to her that Shofner was way too skinny to play football and she constantly mentioned that he was going to get hurt. My dad would give me a knowing smile; a smile only football men would understand.
During a break we walked over to a hot dog stand to get a bite. As I was ordering my dog, none other than Alex Webster in sweats but not in pads, offered to buy my dog for me and my dad! We thanked him, shook hands and talked for a minute or two. From that moment on Alex was my favorite player and without a doubt, the Giants would be my favorite and lifelong team.
Two of my sons have become Giant fans and I expect if they have sons, they will pass down their allegiance to their boys.