Section Two....The Meet
So there's Ron Jaworski, about 10 feet in front of me. I say to Chris, my youngest daughter's boyfriend (and Steeler fan), Hey, that's Ron Jaws Jaworski sitting there!" Chris is 25 and has no idea who Jaws is!
…. and then, there's Mrs. Canuck is telling me I should not bother the man....let the celeb enjoy his privacy, she urges.
So, of course I go over, and start the conversation:
Me: Hi, just wanted to say that I'm a big Rams fan from Canada, and that I grew up 15 minutes from your hometown of Buffalo....on the Canadian side, just west of Fort Erie and the Peace Bridge.
Jaws: Yeah, I know Fort Erie....I actually grew up in Cheektowaga.
Me: You know, I was 95% it was you....but those two rings definitely were the giveaway.....NFC Championship Rings from the Eagles?
Jaws: Yeah, I wear them all the time. So they were the clues?
Me: Yeah, the rings confirmed it for me! I wanted to tell you that I belong to a few Rams Talk Forums and ALL of us babyboomer Rams fans lament the way the 1975 Playoffs went. You had played GREAT in St. Louis beating a very strong Cardinal team with Air Coryell, Mel Gray, Jim Hart, Terry Metcalf....you played great there and we won by more than two touchdowns. Then the following week we finally get a HOME Playoff game against Dallas...…..and we had played them tough earlier that year in Dallas...…...so we all think that the stars are aligning for us and Knox FINALLY in the Playoffs......AND THEN THEY GO AND DECIDE TO START SHACK HARRIS AT QB INSTEAD OF YOU AGAINST DALLAS.....AND HARRIS's FIRST PASS GETS PICKED AND WE WERE DOWN 7-0 BEFORE YOU COULD SAY GROUND CHUCK!!! GUYS IN OUR FORUMS STILL LAMENT THAT AND WONDER HOW HISTORY WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT IF KNOX HAD DECIDED TO START YOU AGAINST THE COWBOYS.
At this point Ron Jaworski looked me in the eye and said "You know, that was one of the biggest disappointments in my life.....just before gametime and Coach Knox tells me I am not the starting QB against the Cowboys. Man that was a tough one." Jaws went on to talk about that 1975 team, players, ups and downs, how he had played well in St. Louis the Playoff week before, etc etc....I just listened while he talked and reminisced about his Ram days. When he was done, I added....
ME: One other thing about 1975, that was such a strong Ram team that year, not only could we have beaten Dallas that year, but the eventual SuperBowl Champs that year were the Steelers....and we beat them in the Season Finale in the Coliseum on a rare Saturday Night game where some plucky Polish guy beat Pittsburgh 10-3 on a 6 yard QB sneak!!!
Jaws: (Laughing) Hey! It was a QB Draw....get it right!! Seriously how did you remember that play from 1975.
ME: I told you I AM A BIG RAMS FAN!!
Jaws: Super! Great stuff!
ME: One other thing I wanted to tell you that I'd written about you in those Rams Talk Forums.....the first time I saw the Rams play live was September 1970 as a 12th grader when George Allen's team beat the Bills 19-0 at the old War Memorial Stadium, that I wrote "War Memorial Stadium which native Buffalonian Ron Jaworski said the locals called The Rock Pile.
Jaws laughed and said something like "Section 20, Row D, Seats 3&4....and I say, your seats? and Jaws says, "Those were my dad's season ticket seats where we went every Bills home game for years." I said, yeah the Bills had some good teams in the old AFL days.....Jack Kemp at QB, Marty Schottenheimer at LB.....
Jaws nodded and agreed about those old Kemp and Schottsy teams....turned out we are near the same age, Jaws born in 1951 and me in '53.
ME: One more story about the Rock Pile. Back in the early eighties, there's gonna be a Hollywood baseball movie with Robert Redford, THE NATURAL....but there's a problem, they cannot find a stadium still standing that can pass for the 1930's movie venue....but they find War Memorial Stadium....so Redford, Glenn Close etc spend the summer shooting the movie in Buffalo....and I remember the local media asking Robert Redford what he thought about Buffalo.....and typical Hollywood snob, Redford said, "the local drivers habits caused me to have sore molars."
Like the guy couldn't say, something like 'Buffalo, great people, great food, Niagara Falls, biggest Polish population outside of Warsaw, great beer Gennesee, Utica Club....no, no...Redford has to get cute and diss Buffalo. Typical Hollywood'
Jaws: I didn't know they filmed THE NATURAL in Buffalo....but I have met some Hollywood types....and yeah, I get what you mean.
I ask Jaws if he wants to come over to our table and meet the family, and he says he might come over later, but he was waiting for some people to arrive. I say "Okay. see you later then?" We shake hands and I go back to our table and then my daughters decide to take over....