This Sunday will be just the 13th time the New York Giants will face the Chargers and the first time in Los Angeles. The other road games in the series were all played in San Diego.
The first matchup hosted by the Giants was at Yankee Stadium in 1971. The second was at Shea Stadium in 1975. The Giants would go on to host the Chargers four times at Giants Stadium: 1983, 1986, 1995 and 2009.
The 1995 game was probably the most memorable. Not for the play on the field but for the behavior of the fans.
The 5-10 Giants were closing out a disappointing season as the 8-7 Chargers came to town on a snowy week in the New York/New Jersey area. The stadium had been cleared of the snow well before the game, but there were still remnants of the week’s foot of snowfall still lingering throughout the venue.
As the Giants’ season circled the drain, the scene got ugly. Giant fans began to display their disgust over the team’s performance. It remains one of the lowest points in the 96-year history of the franchise.
With the Giants about to complete a 5-11 season, several of the 50,243 spectators began to throw snowballs, if not iceballs, onto the field. Soon, hundreds were throwing them.
One of the iceballs struck the Chargers’ equipment manager, 60-year-old Sid Brooks, near his left eye. Knocked unconscious, he regained consciousness in the locker room.
When the snowball throwing continued, the referee Ron Blum threatened to declare a forfeit. He did not, but Wellington Mara, a Giants owner, said later that Blum “would have been justified” to rule a forfeit. The Giants later took a full-page ad in a San Diego newspaper apologizing for the “snowball game.”
The Giants lost, 27-17, ending the third year of Dan Reeves’ four-year tenure as head coach. He would be fired after a 6-10 the next year.
The Chargers would finish with a 9-7 record and lose to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Wild Card game.