Fun. Much needed. Here are 2 games that probably other people would think about, but with my personal stories of them.

So, I’m going to list the 2 Giants games of 2001. MNF, October 2001. The Eagles had lost like 9 straight to the G-men, including the 2000 postseason. The defense kept the Giants out of the end-zone, but their defense was even better, holding the birds to just a field Goal.

Roughly two-minutes left. McNabb-to-Thrash, corner of the end zone. 10-9, final. The bar I was at, the now-defunct Tin Alley Grill in Lindenwold, NJ, my favorite Monday Night spot, went absolutely apeshit crazy.

I had like 7 beers that night. My friends and I call that game “The Beeracle at the Meadowlands”. I stole my mug (probably why the bar went out of business) and it remains my favorite piece of bar-ware to this day.

I’m also going to mention the Christmas 2006 game w/Dallas. Not because of the game itself, though. But because on Dec 27th, my wife and I headed to Jamaica for our 5-year anniversary. Not only was “Invincible” was shown on the flight down, but when we got to Sandals, I was wearing an Eagles shirt and visor and a bunch of people ran up to me and wanted me to sing the fight song. There were 2 huge groups from Philly down there, and everyone was fired up from the big win over Dallas. They’d told me about how they’d basically over-ran the resort and made the Jamaicans re-position the satellite dish so they could get the game.

One of my favorite Eagles moments was Christmas ’92. I was in a car listening to Merrill Reese.

We were playing the Redskins and the winner would go to the playoffs.

Eric Allen’s break-up of a pass in the endzone won us the game, and it was that very moment where I learned how special Merrill Reese was. (And I agree with others that his best calls are: “its gooooooooooooood!!!”)

But to use Merrill’s metaphor… the “exclamation point” on this game was the noise I heard while driving through Juniata. Merrill announced repeatedly that the Eagles are going to the playoffs. And instantaneously everyone’s car horn was honking, and people were running out of their houses and standing on their stoops cheering.

Good stuff.

And thats what makes me proud to be a Philly fan.

The day before the game was an enormous snowstorm. We live in Baltimore and had a lot of concern about getting there. I, at the time, had an Escalade EXT to make the trek! It normally takes about 1.5 hours to get up there, but this took almost 4 hours, trudging through 12+ inches of fresh snow to get to Mayfair to stay with my aunt. (And hit McNallys of course. my spelling may be wrong. its my dads childhood bar.)
We got out early and hit the parking lots as soon as they opened. Tailgating was awesome, and the game turned out to be even better! My “moment” was at the end of the game when the Eagles had everything under control. With under 2 minutes, TO got up on the bench (broken ankle and all) and began waiving his towel over his head! Everyone went nuts. It was the “We did it” moment! I’ll never forget that 2 day Eagles adventure.

sidenote…Not one person in that stadium sat down for any of the game. The place was electric. everytime we scored, we’d all slapped high fives. I guess someone (maybe even me) got so excited, and it was just so cold, that may dad actually went to the doctor the day after we got back. He broke a bone in his high-five-hand!!!!

700, I’m going to pick the same game but for some different reasons; more so the way I ended up there. Now, I haven’t been to a ton of Eagles games, but that’s mostly due to the fact that I live in Scranton. Winter brings bad snow here, and if I can get tickets, I usually got them earlier in the season. Wouldn’t want to buy tickets and be snowed in. Other reasons as well, though. I got to see a few games at the Vet when I was younger and I got to go to the first preseason game at the Linc, complete with a limo ride from Scranton and access to a luxury box. Then I got to see a game in ’05. Usually, due to the expense and travel, one game a year is my limit.

I started seeing my current girlfriend in 2005. She really wasn’t into sports at all and had never been to any professional sporting venue. Well, we couldn’t have that now could we? She wouldn’t watch games on TV with me, mostly due to the commercial breaks and the fact that she didn’t understand the rules; she’d get bored easily. Breaking her in was fairly easy given my location. At that time, the SWB Red Barons were still here, so we went to a few baseball games. Good for me because I got to see up and comers in the Phils system and she got to go to games. We also have the WBS Penguins, so we’d go to some hockey games too, especially when the Phantoms were in town. She found out that going to games is much different that watching them on TV, slowly started learning about each sport and had a good time. Over the next year or so, she’d surprise me with Phils tickets and Flyers tickets a few times and we had a great time. She still couldn’t do football though. So the circumstances of this trip were even more surprising, as I was definitely not expecting it.

This may sound corny or whatever, but here goes. We had just bought a house in November of ’06, so money was extremely tight around Xmas time, so I wasn’t expecting a whole lot. How we work gifts is that we stick everything under the tree, except for one gift a piece (usually the best a.k.a most expensive gift we got each other) so we save them for last. Xmas morning comes and we’re opening gifts. I get a big Eagles blanket, an Eagles hoodie, an Eagles knit hat, an Eagles desk calendar, a light up Eagles ornament for the tree, and two other small gifts. So I have the Eagles mother load here, and I was happy with that. So we get down to our last gifts. She opens hers and it’s a nice new (very expensive) Sony digital camera. She’s thrilled; awesome. I get my box, and open it with anticipation to find… Eagles Monopoly?!?! $400 digital camera?!?!? Eagles Monopoly?!?!?! WTF? It’s still wrapped in the original plastic and my reaction was just, "Oh, that’s cool." and I put it down and got up to get some coffee.

She stops me and tells me to open it and check it out, to which I reply, "Naa, I’ll check it out later…" (After all, it’s only Monopoly)… She insists that I open it now, so I sit back down, grab it, look at it quick and take the plastic off. Well, there’s two tickets between the plastic and the box. I figure they’re just replicas or something, so I glance at them quickly, say something like, "Oh that’s nice, replica tickets…" toss them to the side and open the Monopoly. Well, she started getting figitidy and told me to look at the tickets again. So I pick them up, look and say, "Yeah they’re cool… cooler if they were real though…" and start laughing… Then I take a closer look, and sure as shit, they’re real tickets to the New Year’s Eve game that’s a week away. She had Exacto knifed the plastic wrap and slipped them in there. Best… Xmas… Gift… Ever. And they’re awesome seats. 4th row, center of the endzone that the Birds come out of the tunnel by.

We went down the next week, went really early, took a good walk around the stadium, and then found our seats. We were there before most people, and I was down by the railing sporting my B-Dawk jersey. Well, low and behold, he came out a little before warmups came over by the railing, pointed at my jersey and said, "Hey what’s up?" and just went about his business. Awesome. The game itself was fantastic when we clinched, and she had a great time. Still has a tough time watching it on TV, but will do so occasionally, but loved it in person.