On Christmas Eve in 2011 I sat down to watch the 7-7 Giants play the 8-6 Jets at the Meadowlands. It was a “must-win” game for both teams if they were to make the playoffs. Trailing 7-3 in the second quarter, Eli Manning threw a short pass to Victor Cruz on third-and-10 from the Giants’ 1-yard line. Cruz turned the completion into a 99-yard touchdown and the Giants went on to win. The next week the Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys and made the playoffs. They then beat the Atlanta Falcons and, improbably, the 15-1 Green Bay Packers, the defending Super Bowl champions, at Lambeau Field. I watched the game against the Packers at my brother’s house in Massachusetts. I woke up the next morning knowing the Giants were gong to play the 13-3 San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship tilt the next weekend on the west coast. My son was living in San Francisco and I decided we were going to the game. I went on StubHub for the first time in my life and looked for tickets. I found tickets in the $400-$500 range on the 50-yard line in the nosebleed seats and in one end zone just a few rows back from the field. I opted for the end zone.

I live in Connecticut and booked a flight on Saturday, the day before the game, from Bradley Airport to San Francisco. I woke up on the day of the flight to a snowstorm and learned my flight was cancelled. The airline could put me on a flight on Monday morning. That wasn’t going to work. I frantically began calling on the phone and went online to find another flight, either from Bradley, or from New York or Boston. My wife joined the effort, got on the phone, and somehow found me a seat on a flight to San Francisco from Bradley early Sunday morning. To help ensure I would make the flight, I drove to Bradley Saturday night to stay at the airport hotel. On Sunday I boarded my flight, which was going to stop in Dallas, and then continue on to San Francisco. There were two guys behind me on the plane wearing Manning jerseys. Going to the game with me, no doubt. The plane landed in Dallas and I turned on my phone while waiting for us to take off again. A text from my wife informed me that my sister had been tracking my flight and had learned that the plane was not going on to San Francisco and that I had been rebooked on a flight to San Jose. The flight attendants had said nothing when we landed and I would have been sitting there in ignorance about my situation and missed the flight. I bolted off the plane and ran through the airport to the gate for my new flight. The empty jetway was still open and I ran down it to the plane. Everyone else was seated and ready to go. It was the first time in my life I was the last person to board.

My son was informed of developments and picked me up in San Jose. The San Jose airport was a ghost town as the 49ers were about to play and my son’s car was all alone outside the terminal. We drove straight to Candlestick Park and found our seats in the end zone amid nearly 70,000 raucous 49er fans. The game, played in rain and wind, was a riveting, rugged, see-saw battle. We never left our seats. We didn’t want to miss a play, and it was almost impossible to move anyway in that cramped stadium, including at halftime. As it turned out, all the points in the game, except for a field goal by the 49ers, were scored right in front of us at our end of the field. We had also clearly seen the muffed punt in the fourth quarter when the ball glanced off the knee of the 49er punt returner. “It hit his leg,” my son shouted amid the silent 49er fans. The play was not ruled a fumble until after the Giants challenged the incorrect call on the field and it was reviewed. On the ensuing possession, the Giants quickly scored a go-ahead touchdown on a third-and-long pass from Manning to Mario Manningham, who leaped in front of the goal posts to gather in the throw. The game went into overtime, and the 49er punt returner fumbled another punt in front of us, giving the Giants possession again at our end of the field. A few moments later, I could see Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes’s eyes as he looked up at the goalposts to line things up before kicking the winning field goal for a 20-17 win. A stunned crowd trudged out of the stadium with us and the handful of other elated Giants fans we saw. I spent the night at my son’s apartment in morgue-like San Francisco. The next day he passed Candlestick on the way to work and informed me how dismal it looked. The place was demolished a few years later. At the airport later in the day for my flight home, I spotted comedian Dana Carvey of Wayne’s World fame. Party on, Garth. Party on, Giants.

Two weeks later, 10 years ago on February 5, I watched the Giants beat the favored New England Patriots 21-17 at my brother’s house outside Boston. He is my twin and it was our birthday. There was no better present for him than beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl for the second time while he lived in their fan stronghold. The Giants became the first team to win the Super Bowl while winning fewer than 10 games during the 16-game regular season and allowing more points than they scored. When the Giants had beaten the Patriots at the end of the 2007 season, our victory cry as Giants fans was “18-and-1,” referring to the Patriots going into the Super Bowl with an 18-0 record. This time, we relished and repeated the frustrated comment by New England quarterback Tom Brady’s wife, Gisele, that her husband could not “throw and catch the ball at the same time.” Sometimes, Gisele, an opposing team just has your number.