The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - MJ's Utah Pizza Delivery Guy

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

The man who delivered the infamous pizza to Michael Jordan during the 1998 NBA Finals, which was said to get him sick, sets the record straight.

As I told you last hour, I was listening to our friends up in Salt Lake City because I'd seen some tweets about a gentleman that had called in on 97.5 FM in Salt Lake City. And he claimed that he was the man who made and delivered the pizza. So I called my buddy up Scott Gerard, who works at 975, the zone up in Salt Lake. I said, hey, can I get a hold of this guy? And his name is Craig Fight, and he's joining us right now here on Sports Talk 70. Craig, it's Matt and Ross. First of all, thank you for joining us. You have made quite a few radio appearances here in the last 24 hours, needless to say.

Is that accurate? Yeah, that's accurate. And they're ramping up some more a little bit here and there. Well, I appreciate it coming out because I find the story fascinating. And I can tell you, because people have been asking me, because I lived in Salt Lake City for a couple of years about various places to eat and whatnot. And I enjoyed my time living there. So let's go back to that time.

Let's first of all, let's establish, were in Park City, Utah. Is that correct at the time of this pizza being made? That's correct. And you guys and the Chicago Bull stayed at the Park City Marriott, which back then was brand new. It's been around for a lot many years. In fact, I've stayed there a couple times. It's a great hotel. But you were, at the time you were, how old were you doing? Did you own the place or your manager just an employee? Tell me about the relationship you had with the pizza place. I was an assistant manager there. I had just been hired not too long ago. I was. Not too long ago. I, unfortunately, I can't remember when I started, but I was relatively new to the point that

I hadn't even done a delivery yet for it, so which is one of the reasons why I went on this delivery, and we had two people doing it. Okay, there you just said the first thing. Tim Grover said five, and you say two, so was he seeing people, or did you forget somebody? Well, he was seeing people. There was only two of us, and at the pizza place, we didn't have that many people that would go with us to go do it, especially at the time frame that had happened, which was, I believe, I'm not believe, Michael even said it on there that it was roughly around 10 o'clock, which is correct.

It was towards the, we closed at 11. So it was back, it was towards the evening time. And, you know, there was just the two of us. We don't, you don't send multiple people to go do pizza delivery. You sure is that don't send five. I don't know where that came from. Yeah, that was a, that was a weird number for sure. Do you remember the phone call coming in, or is that something that you don't have recollection of? Well, I was not on the phone. I didn't answer the phone, but what I do remember about the call was that our driver, I mean, to say, and as a reminder to everybody, normally when the Bulls ordered anything from us, it was larger orders, you know, 10 pizzas or whatever, that kind of thing. And so when this one came in and it was that late at night being delivered to the Marriott, the driver happened to motion to me. And the one I remember is the driver motioned to me and had said he pointed down at it, finished the order.

and then looked at me and he says, hey, I think it's one of the, I think it's the Bulls. And he says, it may be one of the players. I said, oh, okay. So that's how I remember the phone call. So you made the pizza like you normally would at any single night. It's 10 o'clock. I'm sure you were closing. You and your coworker get in the car.

And how long, how far is the Pizza Hut from the hotel or was? I don't know if it's still there. Well, the pizza's no longer there. But the pizza was just across the high school. And so the Marriott being down at the base. of parts of the Main Street, you basically just hop on sidewinder, drive, which is maybe five minutes to get up to the Marriott from right there. Okay.

So you and your buddy, not like there was traffic or anything. Yeah. So you and your buddy go upstairs right on, because this is the time where pizza delivery guys can go right to the room, I'm assuming, correct? The pizza guys, yeah, you go up to the rooms and stuff like that, sure. Okay. Generally it was one person, but in this case, obviously, too, you, whenever you send a new delivery or anything along those lines, you always obviously have somebody there.

their training or whatever. But I mean, to be honest, we knew if it was the Bulls, you know, you never know. You get a chance to see one of them. You don't know. But there were two of us. That was it. Yeah, and you knew, and you did not know who what the pizza was for. It could have been for Scotty Pippen. It could have been for Dennis Rodman. It could have been for Phil Jackson. You didn't know it ahead of time. It was Michael Jordan. No, I did not know until we got off the elevator. And again, I think it was the second floor. I can't remember the floor. But where we got off the elevator to go in there, One of the guy, I want to say it was one of the players, but to the effect that somebody asked, hey, pizza, who's that for?

And I told him the room number. I didn't know who, you know, we didn't have a name, the name we had. And I know it wasn't his name, and I don't remember the names that they used. We know that, you know, everybody else used different names. Right. But from that standpoint, he said, oh, that's Mike, no touch or whatever, something to that effect. He's like, we're not touching it. You're out of here.

See it. And so then we went over to the door and, you know, delivered. pizza. But no, I had no idea until that moment until, what, 10 seconds before I knocked on the door, however long it took me to go over there. We had no idea it was Michael. It was for Michael. So you go in, you give the pizza, you get your money, you shut the door, and then you think this was a cool moment in your young life as a Pizza Hut employee that you got to deliver a pizza to Michael Jordan. And my guess is immediately after that, you didn't think twice about it. Is that fair to say? Yeah, absolutely. Except for the whole, what, 10 seconds, 20 seconds it took

you know, and as I've said before the other ones, you know, I just got a quick, hey, thanks, man, from Michael and stuff, and the door was shut, and I'm like, well, that's done, you know, and then we left. And yeah, outside of just regaling what was going to be one of those neat little moments where you had a chance to meet a star or something along those lines or someone

popular, that was it, I didn't think much about it. You know, there's also a theory that he was hung over. Did he seem to have his faculties about him at the time? I, honestly, I did not. His back was to me, when he said, thanks, man, or waived.

And so from that standpoint, I wouldn't know. I didn't have any kind of interaction with them outside of that. I seem to remember when I asked when he said, because obviously it's your one shot, you're sitting and I said, hey, would it be all right if I said hi to Mike or something to that effect. I want to say hi to Mike. And I remember how recollected,

is, you know, the trainer opened the door a little bit more, and he could have said something, or Mike had heard the conversation, he just said, thanks, man. But we're talking five seconds worth of time frame right there. You know what I mean? Okay. So that's all that happened there. So everything sounds pretty normal then.

You go home, you close up the Pizza Hut, you go home, get some rest, and then you turn on the television the next day. And I heard you on within the Salt Lake Station. You were a Michael Jordan fan going into this, correct? Absolutely. Yeah, I saw him back when I lived in Virginia, And I remember when I really, I can tell you when I first heard about Michael was when he hit the shot against Georgetown because I was a Hoyas fan, Big Patrick Ewing fan. Oh, yeah.

When he did that, you're like, oh, who is this guy? And then, of course, everything went on from there. Okay, so you sit down, you're going to, you're going to turn on NBC. You're going to watch a Delta Center with all your fellow U-Tons. And Michael Jordan comes in sick as a dog, complaining of flu-like symptoms. Did you think about at any point during that day or right after, I hope it wasn't my fault. I hope we didn't serve him a bad pizza. No, I didn't think it was my fault.

And I'll tell you, because this is obviously a key part for a lot of people. What happened was I remember watching and we found out he was sick. I did get a phone call pretty much as soon as it was announced. And again, you have to forgive me. I can't remember the exact details. I want to say it was someone from work laughing saying, hey, wait a, way to get Michael sick and, you know, try to win the game for the jazz kind of thing. Because I was the only Bulls fan inside the store. And so from that standpoint, you know,

uh, no, I never thought we, we got him, you know, it was whatever, but right, I guess everyone kind of insinuated because they're all like, I guess at that point, the way I have always remembered the story was I saw something, but, you know, I saw people talking about or whatever. At some point in time, I honestly, after I've looked at it and thought about it and talked about it and talked with a few people. I can't really remember whether it was that one or whether I'm merging the two series together and saying, oh, I remember when Bob Costas talked about it, because Bob Costas obviously wasn't in that 97 series. So, you know, I apologize for it not being exactly detailed correct in that part. But someone on the line, someone at that point,

the insinuation, especially with people calling me and saying, hey, you know, way to get Michael sick and stuff like that, you know, I'm sure I, that's when I, that's when the story comes up that I threw the prick at the TV. Because I'm, I just, didn't get him sick, but it was never the part where I said, oh, it was my food that, you know, something I fixed him, got him sick. Right. But if that makes sense, I hope I'm making sense. It does.

It does. Craig fights with us. He is a gentleman that lives in the Salt Lake City area that has, you gained quite a bit of notoriety here for basically you're pissed off that during the last dance that Michael threw your pizza under the bus saying it was the reason it was food poisoning and not illness. And so let me ask you this. Has this been a, and my partner here, Ross believed that he had heard food poisoning before. I never have because I didn't really pay that much attention to it beyond the fact it was called the flu game.

Had this been something that had been irking you for a long period of time, or did this just last dance conjure up a bunch of new memories? No, I've, well, I'll tell you, that I've told this story for years, and I've got kids that I've coached high school football for many years, and I've got kids that I've told since the early 2000s of the story, because it's just a neat little story to tell. You know, it's one of those neat moments. So I've told this story forever.

In fact, I did a, the people are talking about the post that they said I did, I did a post on Monday because of the last dance. That post, actually, I wrote in 2018. But what really kicked me off over the whole thing, and I guess I don't want to say kick me off because I have no, you know, I'm not getting anything out of all of this. It's just the story's wrong. And when they finally came out and started making the point of that they thought five guys showed up,

you know, murky guys showed up. Right. And we were trying to get them sick as Utah Jazz fans and stuff. I'm like, well, that's a bunch of crap. That's not what happened. There was only two of us, and that's how the scenario goes. So I'm just trying to get that part of the truth out as to what happened. So when this is being brought up, or buddies you're calling, or, I mean, obviously,

a Salt Lake radio station wanted to put you on, I mean, has this been one of those situations that, I mean, this will never get resolved, obviously, because it's only, it's Michael's word is going to be on ESPN, and you're just calling radio stations. here and left. So it's now comical, but yet I will say this in your defense, and I don't know you. Again, I only heard you on the radio station yesterday. Michael has been able to reinvent some facts during this time and very informative, interesting. So to say that there are people that probably have your side on this wouldn't be an understanding because I think, again, there hasn't been 100% complete truth on this, especially when people in life cover up.

problems of I partied too hard or I was out late. It's always easy to go to the food poisoning card. So I just think it's kind of funny that this finally came out after all these years and that you're like, man, I was there. I know what I served. I know what I cooked. There's nothing wrong with it. Right. Yeah. And that's exactly right. And I would, you know, I hope this little part, because literally, you know, again, I did nothing besides deliver a pizza. And one of the guys in Salt Lake made a great statement about the fact that this is the most fascinating mundane story ever. You know, that it just, you delivered a pizza, it lasted all of a whopping 10 minutes, and yet it's run in its course to be in what obviously is one of the greatest NBA games of all time.

And I hope people appreciate that I'm not trying to be a part of that. What I don't like and what kind of, you know, that credibility part is where you're like, this guy comes out and says the five guys and all these things the way they recall it. And I'm like, well, you guys meet people all the freaking time. And I'm sure you're trying to say what you're saying, do what you're doing there. But for me, that was that one moment. Yeah. There's the everyday Joe that just had that moment.

That was my moment. And so I hope that when I tell my story here, the way things are going, and I try to issue what I remember being the case that happened. And I'm sure something's no. I hope that doesn't defeat the purpose of what I'm trying to do, which is my goal was to basically say, hey, this guy thinks there were people trying to make him sick and did it on purpose. and that's not what happened. Yeah, basically trying to ruin a reputation of a community for saying we can figure out a way to get somebody sick. We'll just poison his food.

So I understand what you're coming from on that. Craig, it was very nice to have you on the show today. You said you're a football coach now in the Salt Lake area? I'm actually down in Orm, which is outside of Provo there. So I'm down there where I coach football down there. Well, I used to live in South Jordan, so I know exactly where you are. But Craig, thank you very much for the time. And I don't know if you're going to open up a pizza place, but I think you're going to open up a pizza place,

but I think you'd do quite well, to be honest with you, if you did it again. This is going to be interesting watching this whole thing play out. So anyway, I appreciate the time, guys.