Vellucci Claims Lief Left No Map, Will Root for Crimson Over Yale

Cambridge City Councillor Alfred E. Vellucci is going to make Yale and Leif Ericson both wish they'd never heard of America.

Vellucci was incensed last week when Yale announced that it had found a map, drawn in 1440, which seemed to indicate that Norseman Leif Ericson, not Italian Christopher Columbus, discovered America.

And now Vellucci, who in the past has loudly proclaimed his distaste for Harvard, has switched sides and is going to hit Yale where it hurts -- in its football team.

Vellucci has promised to root for Harvard in the Yale game Nov. 18, plans to go to New Haven with a contingent of his Italian-American friends from Cambridge as a cheering section, and, worst of all for the Elis, has assured the Crimson football team of a full-scale Italian dinner if they come home winners.

"I'm going to root for Harvard and we expect Harvard to win," said Vellucci. "They'd better win. Local people are going to put their bets on Harvard."

He added that Steven Zaglakas, owner of the Steven James House on Porter Square, Cambridge, would provide the victory feast.

"On behalf of the Italian community in Cambridge," Vellucci continued, "he offers to put out a complete spread if they can go to New Haven and beat the hell out of Yale."

The Councillor ticked off the items on the menu for the victorious players: antipasto, ravioli, meat balls, and Italian wine.

Vellucci said he had been interviewed by the Yale Daily News after he proposed last week that the Council ask Harvard to cancel all athletic contests with Yale.

"I told them what they had dug up for a map was a hoax and a fraud and they probably drew the map up themselves," he said. "They're perpetrating a fraud on the millions of Italian-Americans in the United States."

Just for good measure. Vellucci continued, he plans to rent a hearse paint on it "We're headed for New Haven to to bury Yale," and parade through the streets of Cambridge before leaving for The Game.

Then he and his friends, members of what he has named "The Christopher Columbus Club for Harvard," will hurry to New Haven to cheer the Crimson on to victory -- and food.

Vellucci may have been a trifle cash in his offer -- apparently he's never heard about Don Chiofaro's appetite.