Proprietor of the Grotto, "Big Ted" Delapore has welcomed Greens' players to his place since the franchise first moved to town. The Grotto's decor hasn't caved into its most famous customers. "We serve beer here mostly. Some local micros, but mostly regional stuff. And hamburgers, hot dogs, hot pretzels, sauerkraut, the usual. What's wrong with bar food anyway?" asks Ted. "A bit of deep fried this, some grilled that. It all goes down well with beer, as Sweeney used to say. You want healthy, join a co-op."
Ted is a hefty, passionate man, brazenly single for many years, divorced "a lifetime ago" after a post-Nam marriage that was "all you wish for when you're over there but not enough once you're back." He spent some years as a regional trucker in the Midwest before settling in East Moline in the late 70s, working for Bax Global at the QC airport for a dozen years. He bought the Grotto in 1988, remodeled it, and opened its doors in 1989. "It's not making me rich, that's for sure," says Ted. "But I don't need much. I've got my dog, Jolly. I like the people who come in here. Everyone gets treated pretty much the same, ballplayers to hourly workers. We don't get many drunks."
A big movie buff, Delapore took the theme of the Grotto from his favorite Kubrick film, Dr. Strangelove, his reading in American history, and his own childhood memories of Howdy Doody, Davey Crockett, and "Duck and Cover." "People think that you don't read unless you're a professor. That's ridiculous. I used to read all the time even when I was driving truck. Books on tape, great stuff." Away from the road, Ted reads even more, still largely American history. The past draws him. "My father was born in France and came over with his mother in the twenties, trying to find the American that put them in those spots. They never did. But I remember the stories my grandmother used to tell me in her broken English about the Great War. My dad and mom brought me up to pay attention to history. Where you're going comes from where you've been."