Nate Bukaty

It's a recurring theme in the book.

From Gino Chiraldi to Tony Miola to Peter Vermees to Graham Zussi.

And, you know, you could do that in any sport in this town, right?

There's a long list of people.

George Brett.

Yeah.

Mike Boddicker, who worked from here, who stayed here, yeah.

Yeah.

Like have a good frame of reference.

You know, yeah, like what other cities are like.

A couple of the stories on that, like Peter Vermees told me a really good one about, because, you know, both he and Tony Miola, New Jersey guys that had zero interest in coming here.

They had played here a few times.

When they got traded here, they were kicking and screaming, not happy about it.

In fact, Tony Miola had...

He had an agreement with the head coach that he said, look, just give me one year, and I'll trade you back to the East Coast.

And then at the end of the year, they had won MLS Cup, and they were celebrating in the hotel after the game, and the coach came up to him and said, hey, true to my word, I've got a deal lined up to send you back to New Jersey.

And he said, can we break that deal?

I want to stay.

And Peter Vermees' story was –

He and his wife, you know, married his high school sweetheart from New Jersey.