The One-Day Keepers Club
Behind the scenes of my interviews with Danny Vitiello and Mike Graczyk, each New Mexico United goalkeepers for one solitary day back in 2019.
When I finally made the decision to write a whole damn book about the history of New Mexico United by uniform number, it was led by a nagging curiosity to learn everything there was to know about the brief, one-day tenures of backup goalkeepers Danny Vitiello (#12 #21) and Mike Graczyk (#31). Their stories detail the unique shared experience of two players who were each signed for one game and combined for a grand total of zero minutes played for New Mexico United in their inaugural season.
If you are a normal person, the acquisitions of Vitiello and Graczyk, both in September of 2019, may have skirted around the edges of your New Mexico United news radar. But both stories have provided me countless hours of fascination and speculation over the years, and last week - I’m calling it Dream Week - I got the chance to interview both players for their chapters in the upcoming United by the Numbers book, and dig into two of the stories I was most interested to tell when I set off on this journey.
Chronologically, Vitiello was first. He was a New Mexico United player on September 1st, 2019, filling in for Ben Beaury (#12) because Ben was attending his brother’s wedding. There were so many things I wanted to know about this transaction and I was worried that Danny (arguably the best keeper in the league nowadays for Sacramento Republic) would be unavailable to speak, or if he was available, I wondered how much he would remember from a one-game loan after five long years had passed. But he was extremely gracious and let me ask way too many questions about one-day contracts and the whereabouts of the kit he wore that game (Danny has it and I have sadly turned off all my related eBay alerts).
The biggest revelation from my conversation with Danny, though, was that the box score from ESPN that reported him as #12 was completely and totally inaccurate. He was #21! For five years, I’ve wondered why Vitiello was issued the same #12 that was already assigned to Ben Beaury and it turns out he wasn’t at all. Have you ever heard self-help gurus tell you that you need to find “your why”? Well, people, I found “my why” and it was unraveling the truth that Danny Vitiello was #21 and not #12 on the evening of September 1st, 2019. There is now order in my universe.
The Mike Graczyk (#31) game would be 27 days later, on September 28, 2019. Cody Mizell (#1) was injured and Ben Beaury (#12) was back from his brother’s wedding and between the sticks that night against Phoenix Rising. Graczyk, who was at the time United’s First Assistant Coach, was the insurance policy in goal that night in case injury befell Beaury. Another one-day contract would be utilized to secure the short-term services of Graczyk, a former professional keeper himself with MLS pedigree.
Like, Vitiello, Mike Graczyk was wonderfully magnanimous and did not ask me why the hell I wanted to know so much about one game he didn’t actually play in five years ago. But unlike Vitiello, Graczyk didn’t know the whereabouts of his #31 kit from that night and as an emergency measure, I have adjusted my eBay alerts accordingly.
Today, Mike Graczyk can be found in northern Indiana, fulfilling his role as Assistant Coach with the men’s soccer team at the University of Notre Dame.
These two stories are so small in comparison to other significant player personnel transactions, but the entire tapestry that is this history of this franchise is woefully incomplete without stitches like these two tales that connect the rest of players and eras of this team together. I’m grateful to them both for giving me the opportunity to explore these stories a bit more and I can’t wait to share them in their entireties with you all in book form soon.