Fred Zamberletti will not attend Saturday's game between the Vikings and the Redskins in Landover, Md., the first time he has not been in attendance at a Vikings game -- preseason, regular season or playoffs.
Fred Zamberletti's long streak of Vikings games to end
The team historian is a late scratch for Saturday's game -- after 1,049 games.
By STAFF REPORTS
December 24, 2011 at 5:10AM
That's a streak of 1,049 Vikings games.
Zamberletti, 79, was the team's trainer from 1961-1998 and is now a consultant/historian for the organization. He has been ill recently and did not fly with the team on Friday, according to a team source.
He is in the team's Ring of Honor.
When Zamberletti attended his 1,000th game in 2009, he told the Star Tribune, "I missed three out of four kids being born. We didn't have anybody else in those days. If you were sick, didn't feel good, funerals or anything else, you still went to work and you didn't miss."
Zamberletti is the only remaining employee from the team's first training camp in 1961. He was the trainer at Iowa from 1951-57, and was the trainer at Toledo when the Vikings hired him.
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STAFF REPORTS
Mike Conley was in Minneapolis, where he sounded the Gjallarhorn at the Vikings game, on Sunday during the robbery.
