Jack-- This right here is another pizza delivery boy, weighing in on the infamous Flu Game, which I attended in Salt Lake City as a columnist for the Sun-Times. For three years I shagged pies for The Spot Pizza, on Noyes St. in Evanston, delivering pizzas while attending Northwestern on a football scholarship, mainly because I was hungry and there were no meals after dinner on campus, and at The Spot you got to eat as much as you wanted at the end of your shift. A pie a night, plus milkshakes, cokes, fries, etc.. Great characters there. There was a really fat guy who worked the phones, named Heavy, and he’d take a whipped cream cannister and squirt it straight into his mouth. Also a transvestite guy making the pizzas named Clyde whose ``girlfriend,'' Miss Fifi, was an ocasional worker. Clyde was great. Sassy. Place was owned by Jerry Herman, funny guy who even made Spot bowling shirts embroidered with a giant Red pizza dot on the back and individual names on the front pockets for my band, the Del-Crustaceans.
I used a Spot delivery car at first, made less on each pizza because of it, then bought my first car, an old beater, and on one hurried delivery was looking at the receipt address on the box, made a left hand turn in front of a Mexican guy named Emilio on Sheridan Rd at Chase Avenue--the limits of our routes since that was already Chicago--smashed up my car and ruined Emilio’s worked-on bright orange tiny sports car--he worked in an auto shop and had slicked up his old beater, was in love with it. I felt terrible. Anyway, I worked and worked to pay him off, no insurance of course, and we became pals through it all and hung out at times when the Dels played at the Buckhorn Bar off Howard Street. Emilio had a loud, blond girlfriend from Tennessee about twice his size, named Beverly. But I digress.
Point here--I talked to Jordan about the Flu Game, which I witnessed, and if he wasn't sick during it, it was the greatest con job of all time, to no apprent end, except legend-building, I suppose. He blamed the pizza, the last thing he ate before getting ill (stomach pains, fever, diarrhea, I believe was the deal), and then he said he blamed not drinking Gatorade pre-game and during the game, to rehydrate, but mistakenly drinking GaterLode, something I’d never heard of, but I guess is a heavy, calorie-rich drink similar to a smoothie--not what you want when you’re dehydrated.
But most of all Michael blamed--guess what? guess who?--Jerry Krause! for the entire incident. You see, if Krause hadn’t made the players stay in Park City, 40 minutes up in the mountains, to avoid distractions, they would have been in downtown Salt Lake City, close to civilization, to comfort and ease, and they (okay, Michael) theoretically would have had a wide array of late evening food choices, not just some lone, stupid pizza joint that obviously made a pizza with the clear designs of killing him before a huge game.
Food poisoning can come from almost anything that goes in your mouth at any time. Somebody can eat from the same chip bowl or buffet or mayonnaise spread and not get sick, even though others did, simply because some virus or bacterium wasn't equally distributed. So it goes in life.
But Jack rightly defends pizza delivery guys. To poison a pizza would be a tough deal. (Hey, Joe, got that bottle of botulism handy? Used it all? How about the rotovirus?) Guys crammed in a car just to rubberneck a star? Only Jordan gets sick? Park City pizza conspiracy? All kinds of ridiculous.
I will say, for historian Jack’s sake, that back in 1961 Bradley’s All-American forward Chet Walker was allegedly poisoned by spiked orange juice brought to him by a phony bellhop the night before an NIT semi-final game at Madison Square Garden. (I remember this because I was a kid back then in Peoria and a Bradley Braves hoops nut.) But that alleged poisoning was in New York City, back when crazy stuff happened in that gambling cesspool with game-fixing, point-shaving, etc.
So techniclly it’s possible Jordan was poisoned. Anything’s possible. But very, very dubious. I mean, like, nah. Food poisoning? Sure, most certainly. Accidental, though. Whatever. Hey, it happens. He lived. He won. He’s feisty. And he still detests Jery Krause.
This is excellent. Thanks for writing!
Thank you Jack! Make sure you check out Rick Telander's comment at the end on his own pizza delivery days.
Jack-- This right here is another pizza delivery boy, weighing in on the infamous Flu Game, which I attended in Salt Lake City as a columnist for the Sun-Times. For three years I shagged pies for The Spot Pizza, on Noyes St. in Evanston, delivering pizzas while attending Northwestern on a football scholarship, mainly because I was hungry and there were no meals after dinner on campus, and at The Spot you got to eat as much as you wanted at the end of your shift. A pie a night, plus milkshakes, cokes, fries, etc.. Great characters there. There was a really fat guy who worked the phones, named Heavy, and he’d take a whipped cream cannister and squirt it straight into his mouth. Also a transvestite guy making the pizzas named Clyde whose ``girlfriend,'' Miss Fifi, was an ocasional worker. Clyde was great. Sassy. Place was owned by Jerry Herman, funny guy who even made Spot bowling shirts embroidered with a giant Red pizza dot on the back and individual names on the front pockets for my band, the Del-Crustaceans.
I used a Spot delivery car at first, made less on each pizza because of it, then bought my first car, an old beater, and on one hurried delivery was looking at the receipt address on the box, made a left hand turn in front of a Mexican guy named Emilio on Sheridan Rd at Chase Avenue--the limits of our routes since that was already Chicago--smashed up my car and ruined Emilio’s worked-on bright orange tiny sports car--he worked in an auto shop and had slicked up his old beater, was in love with it. I felt terrible. Anyway, I worked and worked to pay him off, no insurance of course, and we became pals through it all and hung out at times when the Dels played at the Buckhorn Bar off Howard Street. Emilio had a loud, blond girlfriend from Tennessee about twice his size, named Beverly. But I digress.
Point here--I talked to Jordan about the Flu Game, which I witnessed, and if he wasn't sick during it, it was the greatest con job of all time, to no apprent end, except legend-building, I suppose. He blamed the pizza, the last thing he ate before getting ill (stomach pains, fever, diarrhea, I believe was the deal), and then he said he blamed not drinking Gatorade pre-game and during the game, to rehydrate, but mistakenly drinking GaterLode, something I’d never heard of, but I guess is a heavy, calorie-rich drink similar to a smoothie--not what you want when you’re dehydrated.
But most of all Michael blamed--guess what? guess who?--Jerry Krause! for the entire incident. You see, if Krause hadn’t made the players stay in Park City, 40 minutes up in the mountains, to avoid distractions, they would have been in downtown Salt Lake City, close to civilization, to comfort and ease, and they (okay, Michael) theoretically would have had a wide array of late evening food choices, not just some lone, stupid pizza joint that obviously made a pizza with the clear designs of killing him before a huge game.
Food poisoning can come from almost anything that goes in your mouth at any time. Somebody can eat from the same chip bowl or buffet or mayonnaise spread and not get sick, even though others did, simply because some virus or bacterium wasn't equally distributed. So it goes in life.
But Jack rightly defends pizza delivery guys. To poison a pizza would be a tough deal. (Hey, Joe, got that bottle of botulism handy? Used it all? How about the rotovirus?) Guys crammed in a car just to rubberneck a star? Only Jordan gets sick? Park City pizza conspiracy? All kinds of ridiculous.
I will say, for historian Jack’s sake, that back in 1961 Bradley’s All-American forward Chet Walker was allegedly poisoned by spiked orange juice brought to him by a phony bellhop the night before an NIT semi-final game at Madison Square Garden. (I remember this because I was a kid back then in Peoria and a Bradley Braves hoops nut.) But that alleged poisoning was in New York City, back when crazy stuff happened in that gambling cesspool with game-fixing, point-shaving, etc.
So techniclly it’s possible Jordan was poisoned. Anything’s possible. But very, very dubious. I mean, like, nah. Food poisoning? Sure, most certainly. Accidental, though. Whatever. Hey, it happens. He lived. He won. He’s feisty. And he still detests Jery Krause.
The pizza world characters are the best! Those escapades are the stuff short fiction is made for.
In other news, YOU JUST CONFIRMED THE GATORLODE QUESTION. Talk soon...
I want to listen to the interview!
Thank you! I'll look into getting it up.