When I was a teenager we used to play a Turkey Bowl every Thanksgiving morning against a team comprised of the Fitzpatrick Brothers and their friends. The Fitzpatricks were a huge Northwest side family. One of my friends had worked with the second youngest brother, Larry and that's how we got to know them. Larry and Rusty were around the same age as we were, but the rest of their guys were older. They kicked our asses every fucking year. It was like a joke. I remember one year they made us play on the grass behind Steinmetz and there was broken glass all over the field. These were serious games too. Eleven on eleven. Pretty much regular rules. Tackle football. No equipment.
One year we brought a couple guys we thought would help us win. One was a big motherfucker we grew up with named Paul Schiltz and the other was a brother named Carlton Berry who had been a star cornerback at Evanston. Carlton was so fucking fast it was unbelievable. He set some kind of record for interceptions playing at College of DuPage. I still think he would have made the NFL, but for one thing. Unfortunately, Carlton is about 5'6". The Fitzpatricks kicked our asses anyway. They did have respect for the way Schiltz played though. Poor Carlton must have been tackled for a loss about twenty times. And the Fitz team busted our balls about bringing a "ringer". "You brought that quick little brother and we still killed you!"
Fast forward to the early nineties and my friend Karl, Rickey Fitzpatrick, and I are getting loaded at Quencher's. I'm close to thirty years old now and Rickey has got to be pushing 40. We haven't played a Turkey Bowl for years. Somehow we begin reminiscing about those games and Karl says off-hand, "You know, Rick, you always kicked our asses, but I'd like to think if we played now, things would be a lot closer." Rickey got seriously offended and thundered back, "Fuck you! We'd still beat the living shit out of you guys!" And so a plan to play a game was hatched. A bunch of old guys playing full tackle football in a park. Genius!
So now we have to put a team together. It isn't that easy to come up with eleven thirty year old dopes who want to play tackle football. But I had a part-time kid working for me who was a defensive back at Niles West and he came up with about four guys from his team for us. The Fitzpatricks show up and ironically, this time they have the African-American "ringer" and he's playing quarterback for them. Supposedly, this guy had played college ball somewhere. He was fast as hell. But we quickly figured out he was only fast in a straight line. If you made him cut, you could catch him.
I called all the plays and my friend Dave who we called "the punky QB" carried them out perfectly. We just whipped their asses on the line. I was lifting a lot at the time and was as strong as I've ever been. I lined up against this guy Johnny who I had always looked up to as an athlete as a kid. He played all kinds of sports at St. Pat's. And when we played those Turkey Bowls, he was like a man against boys. Not any more. I just dominated him all day. It was satisfying when he shook my hand and said, "You beat my ass."
We are about 1-10 vs. the Fitzpatricks, but we won the last one.
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