By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
ARLINGTON – Ever since 1955, the Guiness Book of World Records has kept up with an ever-growing list of achievements and oddities. There is the oldest this and longest that and everything in between. Falling into the category of World’s Greatest Grape Catcher was a man from Arlington by the name of Paul Tavilla.
Perhaps he had plenty of practice. Tavilla and his brothers owned and operated the P. Tavilla Company, wholesale produce distributors, at the New England Produce Center in Chelsea. The produce merchant not only had a talent for catching grapes with his mouth but also from a jaw- dropping distance. The grapes were thrown by hand and caught in mouth on level ground, often from high-rise buildings.
Unique ability
Due to his ability to open wide and catch grapes in his mouth from long distances, Tavilla found himself in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1978 when he posted a mark of 251 feet and then again in 1979 when marksmen hurled them towards him from 327 feet and six inches. The following year, however, Tavilla was knocked from the throne after Ardman Chapman of Monroe, Louisiana won. Not to be outdone a second time, Tavilla came back with a 270-foot, four-inch posting, making him a winner yet again in the book’s 1981 edition.
Paul Tavilla, a produce dealer from Arlington, was in the Guinness Book of World Records for grape catching in his mouth, including one that had been dropped 788 feet from the John Hancock building in Boston.
Photo/KXAS-TV Fort Worth, Tex.
Tavilla took their rivalry public when Chapman won for a second time in 1982. Tavilla protested his competitor’s claim of catching the grape thrown 319 feet, eight inches by softball pitcher Pete Mercer. The disbelieving Tavilla even offered Mercer an all-expense paid round trip from Louisiana to Boston, plus a $1,000 bonus if he would come and hurl a grape 319 feet, eight inches on level ground. Mercer declined the offers. Tavilla had said that if Mercer did not accept his offer, he was going to demand the Guinness Book of World Records reinstate him as the legitimate record holder. In 1988, he caught a grape from 788 feet at the John Hancock skyscraper in Boston.
After catching a grape which plummeted 52 stories down from Tokyo’s Shinjuku district and at the speed of 80 mph, Tavilla admitted the forceful landing hurt his mouth. Nevertheless, he set a record of 660, 2.6 inches in 1986, breaking his own record from the previous year. Tavilla had been invited to Tokyo as a guest of a Japanese television company for a taping of a show on world record holders set before an audience of around 200. However, Tavilla had said he was surprised to learn that he and the other guests were expected to try and break their own records.
TV appearances and charity events
He gained national recognition for this unusual feat, landing guest appearances on “The Dinah Shore Show,” “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” “Maury Povich” and “Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.” Tavilla was also a hit at charity events and hospitals where he visited sick children. Others who have cemented their place in Guinness for grape catching skills include:
Paul E. Lyday III of Fort Motte, South Carolina, in 2009 for the Longest Distance Caught with a record for the greatest distance at which a grape thrown from ground level has been caught in the mouth is 108 meters (354 feet 4 inches).
The record for the most grapes caught in the mouth in one minute is 68 grapes and set by Ashrita Furman in Kuala Lumpur on December 22, 2005. The record for the greatest distance catching a grape in the mouth (self-thrown) is 23.79 meters (78 feet), achieved by Connor Castleberry in Tucker, Georgia, in 2022.
Paul Tavilla died in 2014.
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