Talked to Manny

I check the site almost daily but don't really post a whole lot, but i had to get this on here. I get a phone call and my caller id says mom, so i pick up and some guy says "hello is this andy?" and i was a little thrown off because only family calls me andy, my actual name is chris. So i say "ya who is this?"................. "Its Emmanuel Sanders"................... "Are you ****tin me, is this really 88?!" and basically just said hey and that we needed to be ready because our playoffs start this week, ya know just overall stuff he already knows. what can i say i wasn't expecting to talk to part of our receiving core today. But he was super nice and we only spoke for about a minute before he handed the phone to my mom. apparently she went shopping for some steeler stuff with a friend of hers and manny was signing autographs. She got me a steelers Guinness sign autographed by him and a couple picks of her and him and then one of him on the phone with me. immediately after i hung up with her i was thinking how that was only chance to tell him and the young money crew to get their heads outta their tails and ball up, oh well. just thought id share with y'all.

also met hines ward and jerome in tampa about 8 years ago. Super nice and even though im 6'1'' 230 they still look huge. anyone else have any run ins like this?

 

thats pretty cool. yea i've had quit a few. their just guys like you or i off the field. some players are real a holes though, but they don't interact anyway. i'm friends of several ex players.

 

You should post the pics - that's a great story. I met Mean Joe Green at a department store signing autographs back in the late 70s. He was standing behind a kiosk, and in street clothes he didn't really look that big. Then he came out from behind the kiosk and you could see that his legs were like tree trunks, and then he looked huge! Nice guy (at least off the field).

 

My mom and Manny

 

I think the first thing I would have said is "what have you done with my mom?!".

Actually, that's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.

 

Cool Story.

Ive had numerous run ins with players. My policy is that I leave them alone though, except for the one time I was entering a Disney show at the arena and Mike Logan and his family got between me and my wife and kids as we went thru the turnstiles. Had to wait on his crew so wished him good luck the next week as I waited and they entered. Shook my hand and said thanks. But yes, Ive seen Bettis, Fu, Olsavsky, Carnell Lake, DJ Johnson, Mark Malone, Darius Kasparitis (both went to my gym) etc, etc, etc.

BTW, Sanders dad works in the Bakery at Market District in Giant Eagle in Robinson Twp. Moved to Pgh to be near his son and (I guess) needed something to keep him busy. A little bit of trivia if you will...

 

Yeah dam cool story

 

Great story. Good for you!

I've met many of the Steelers over the years, as well as the Rooneys. Jimmy Allen (1974-77 Steelers), to whom my username is a tribute, has been a friend of mine for a number of years now, and because of that connection I've met a number of players from those teams. I've had great phone conversations with Donnie Shell (regarding Jimmy) and also had some email/mail exchanges with Bennie Cunningham, Andy Russell, and others. I met Franco in 1994 and it was about as good a meeting with your all time sports heroes as you can have. Brentson Buckner also comes to mind as a particularly good meeting, and Todd Kalis, of the Steelers alumni, is also a great guy.

When I was a kid, if you told me that as a adult I'd know several of the members of my beloved 4 Super Bowl teams, I'd never have believed it. As an adult, I still can't.

 

Me and my wife have a Disney Timeshare and we were on a plane a couple of years ago and my stepmom was up in the front of the plane and I was in the back. So when we got off the plane she said "I sat with this woman that had on a Steelers jersey and I told her that my stepson REALLLLY loves the Steelers." She said "Yeah me too." My stepmom said "You don't understand. He goes all the way from TN to watch them play and knows all their names and wears their clothes and has a son named after their qb." She said "Oh I know a lot about how dedicated their fans are. My husband used to play for them" She said "what was his name?" She said "Jerome Bettis". My stepmom told me when we got off the plane that she sat with a players wife and I said "who?" She said "uhh... something like Jerome....Bettis???" I almost crapped on myself and said "You GOTTA be kidding me!!! Why did you not hold her up so I could talk to her?" She said "I didn't think he was some popular player so I figured you wouldn't care." I just wanted to cry. LOL. But he has a football camp in FL apparently and he was down there for that. But MAN I would love to have met him! So I guess that's my close encounter story.

 

Kewl!