NY Giants’ Stephen Baker: an interview on life, football, and video games

GMenHQ: Are you still in contact with any of your former teammates outside of get togethers like the one in White Plains where I first met you?

"Yeah man that was a great how, to see Jeff Hostetler, who I hadn’t seen in years. Jeff Rutledge who threw my first NFL touchdown to me. Otis Anderson however is my ace boon koon. He’s actually coming over tomorrow, we talk just about everyday. We have a golf outing tomorrow in Delaware, then we have a couple more next week. Long story short: Otis is my main man. I talk to Odessa Turner about twice a month, George Martin is on Facebook now, believe it or not. Harry Carson will hit me from time to time, Howard Cross. Mostly the guys who stayed in the general area. But I have to say my main man is Otis Anderson, we hang out a lot. He’s such a good golfer and he’s trying to teach me. I think I’m gonna have to go and get lessons from a professional because I’ve been playing with him for 7 years and I still suck."

GMenHQ: What is your best memory throughout your entire career, whether it be high school, college, or the NFL?

"Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wanna diminish the Super bowl, that was a great memory obviously. But the following year we played down there again against Tampa. Jeff Hostetler was starting and he got hurt and darn near broke his back. And (Phil) Simms came in. We had to march about 80 yards to score the winning touchdown. I remember going into the stadium warming up. I used to always observe and look around when we were warming up and I saw they had people with disabilities who were sitting in the end zone at the low level. I said, “That kind of sucks” because I look over at the 50 yard line before the seats and there was a lot of room. And I said “It’s a shame that they got them there.” I said a prayer and I said “God, please let me do something special to honor these people.” And honestly I forgot all about it man. We were marching down the field and with like 15 seconds left a play was called where I just did a 5 yard hitch, but if the defensive back comes up and presses, go by him. And they came up and pressed. There was one single safety high so I wasn’t covered. Simms dropped back and just threw a rainbow right over his head. I catch it, jump up, and without blinking an eye it just came right back to me. I ran right to the end zone and tried to find them. I wish I could’ve given them all the football. But there was this one man in all Giants clothes so I went and pushed it in his lap and he tried to give it back and his friends were like, “No no, keep it keep it!” That was probably my proudest moment because on TV they talked about it a little bit then showed the guy with the football. Then he wrote me a letter saying thank you. He was originally from New Jersey but moved down to Tampa due to health issues. He sent the ball and I signed it and sent it back. But that’s what I’m all about man. I always tell everyone: if you can always make someone’s life better by a simple gesture, how can you not do it? I’m sure that’s something him and his family have never forgotten, and I haven’t either because I love sharing that story."

GMenHQ: Obviously you retired due to an injury you sustained, what made you realize that you weren’t able to play football anymore?

"When my back went out I had to get a shot every six hours. It took a whole week for me to be able to stand up again, I was bed-ridden for 6 days, getting a shot every 6 hours. The nurse used to get so angry because I don’t know about you but I hate needles.  She’d come in and I’d just complain so much, I was like “Why do we gotta keep doing this?” and she would say, “Alright, fine” and she’d squirt the liquid into the trash can. It wasn’t an easy decision but I knew I’d given it all I could. Actually now 30 years later my back is starting to give me problems again. But I had come to the realization that I can’t do it anymore. It’s not fun to practice but not be at 100%.I never half-[expletive] practice, it was always game time for me and I couldn’t go 100% anymore. It was a hard decision because Belichick gave me a 2nd chance and I just couldn’t respond. At first I was ashamed of that, but you know you’re only human and you can only go as far as your body allows. I was blessed to get 6 wonderful years in and get everything that a receiver could think of. Catching a touchdown in the playoffs, helping your team win a game in the last series on a drive a couple of times. Key first downs in Giants stadium and hearing people go crazy. So I was comfortable with my retirement and moving on and having fun now. You know what they say, one a Giant always a Giant and I’m still having fun with the New York Giant organization. Last year of course because of COVID things got kind of stymie and now things are starting to slowly trickle back up."

GMenHQ: What did you do right after you retired?

"Well I actually kind of sulked for a little bit. You know you got to think about it. You’ve been playing football your entire life and you’re in a sort of bubble. You’re told what to do, where to be, training camp starts in May, etc. And it’s always been that way since high school. Now all of a sudden it just stops. It’s kind of a hard adjustment to make. I sat on the couch for about 2 years just watching TV. Trying to find out what I wanted to do with my life. And then I met my wife and she got me into teaching. And that’s when the world turned for me. I saw the impact that I could have being a teacher. I did subbing which was a little less stressful than being a full time teacher because I could still do my Giant events, go golfing and attend my speaking engagements and what not. But I did that for 15 years in one school, K-4. It was my longest tenure ever at a job and I loved every minute of it. The kids were so respectful, they just knew me as the football player for the Giants. And now as they grow older they come back to me and are like “Oh I remember you as my teacher Mr. Baker.” Because I would do fun stuff with the kids. I would say, “Look, the teacher’s not here, we can have some fun as long as we get our work done.” And I would give the best male and female student of the day an autographed picture. The last half hour of class I would share football stories with them. I did that for 15 years and it was a lot of fun."

GMenHQ: So I see that you enjoy flying remote control planes and helicopters. Where did the love for that come from?

"Most people don’t know but my very first love was to be a pilot. I remember walking home one day and being like, “Man I’m gonna be a pilot one day.” What happened was football was an easier avenue. We didn’t have any aeronautical classes or anything like that so I’d go to the library and study on my own. And I always wanted remote control toys but they were always so expensive back in the day so my mother couldn’t afford them. So when I got my first NFL paycheck I bought the biggest, baddest RC car money could buy. And it slowly graduated into what my first love was in flying and I’ve never looked  back. I’ve been flying remote control helicopters and planes for too long I’d like to mention and I still crash. But some of my best friends now are 80 years old and still fly these things. We just went this last weekend, we try to fly every weekend. And I’ve always had a fascination for flight. I don’t know if you’ve tried it out yet but VR (virtual reality) I got about 5 Oculus headsets and a gaming computer so I can do flight simulators on there. I’m just a big geek I always tell everyone, I’m just a geek who played in the NFL. I love what I do and I’m not ashamed of it. I’m like a wannabe engineer, I was never an actual engineer but this is as close as I can get. I’ll tell you what some of the tech that’s involved in these things are incredible"

GMenHQ: I’ve also seen that you’re into video games. What kind of games are you into?

"I’ll tell you what, take a guess (makes a throwing motion) Madden. I just got back into it a few years ago. I’ll tell you these kids are good man. I play online a lot. I got the Xbox and I get my butt handed to me from time to time. Only because I use the Giants and the Madden ratings always dog the Giants. Even after we won the Super Bowl we never got the right ratings. Anyways I just use the Giants and I had to come up with a boring, but time consuming offense that works. People always use Green Bay and Tampa and the Chiefs. Now they’re gonna score on me but I have a long, drawn out offense that’s gonna take up darn near an entire quarter just dinking and dunking. But long story short I love video games. Like I said, I have a gaming rig here that I built about 2 years ago. Now it’s outdated, I need to update the graphics card. I play World of Warcraft, I got the Xbox and the Ps4. I haven’t gotten the next generation consoles yet because they make it so difficult to find them. So I said to myself that I had enough stuff to play with so I’ll just wait. But my Oculus VR setup is my favorite to play with. I just got the HP reverb which has some of the best clarity on the market. I got Oculus headsets, the first one, the white one- I’m just such a geek."

GMenHQ: Do you have any more stories you’d be interested in sharing?

"People always ask for a Parcels story so I’ll share one with you. I remember we had lost like 3 games in a row and he called all of us into the room and he said, “Look man, we’ve lost 3 games. Management is starting to come down on my [expletive], this is how it’s gonna go down. You best believe if I get fired I’m taking some of you son’s of [expletive] with me, so get your head out of your ass. Because if I gotta fire someone to get your attention as a sacrificial lamb. I’ll do it.” And I was like, “First, did he just call my mother the b-word? And 2nd, is it gonna be me?” Everyone was on pins and needles. That was the type of guy he was, he knew how to get the best out of everyone. I’ll tell you to this day whenever we have our reunions he never forgets his players which is so cool. One more quick story: Bobby Johnson who was famous for the 4th and 17 play against Minnesota. Bobby had been going through some rough times and he had sold his Super Bowl ring. 3 years ago we had a reunion and Bobby was there and we were all at the table signing. A representative comes and says, “Bobby, come with me.”  He takes Bobby upstairs and comes back and he’s crying. Parcels and another partner found his ring and bought it from whoever had it and presented it to him. And I’ll tell you it was so cool when he came back, he put it right in my face and I gave him a big hug. After that we went out and partied that night at a club called Miami Mike’s. We were all hugging and showing off the ring and he promised coach he would never ever go back to that life again. He had really turned his life around prior to him getting the ring back, that was just a bonus. But I thanked Parcels for that and he said, “I’d do anything for my players.” That’s just the type of man he is."