Best of SI: Michael Jordan' 'Flu Game' Pizza deliveryman identifies himself

Here’s something that will blast a hole in Michael Jordan’s trainer’s theory that the pizza he ate before Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals was purposefully tampered with: the guy who made it was a Bulls fan.

After seeing the story presented on Sunday’s finale of The Last Dance, a Utah man named Craig Fite posted on Facebook that he was the guy who made and delivered the pizza to Jordan. He joined “The Big Show” on 1280 The Zone in Salt Lake City to give his side of the story. 

At the time of the Flu Game, Fite had recently been hired as an assistant manager at a Pizza Hut in Park City, Utah, about 30 minutes from downtown Salt Lake. The Bulls had already been staying at the Park City Marriott for a few days and Fite says everyone in the local food service industry knew which hotel they were at. When a delivery order came in from the hotel, the employee who answered the phone said he thought it was for one of the players. Fite, as the only Bulls fan working there, assumed control of the order. 

“I said, ‘Well, I’m delivering it’,” Fite recalled. “I remember saying this: ‘I will make the pizza, because I don’t want any of you doing anything to it.’ And then I told the driver, you’re going to take me there.”

Michael’s order was a large, thin and crispy pizza with extra pepperoni. Fite insists that, because he was still a new employee and eager to impress, he made sure to follow the food prep guidelines to a T. All the ingredients were fresh. Nothing was added that could have gotten Jordan sick.

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