Veterans Stadium

Philadelphia Veterans Stadium (or "The Vet") was a professional sports facility located at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It housed the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League from 1971 through 2002 and Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies from 1971 through 2003. The listed capacity for baseball in 1971 was 56,371 and for football was listed with a 62,000 seat capacity. The 1976 and 1996 Major League Baseball All-Star Games were held at the venue. The Vet also hosted the annual Army-Navy football game 17 times, first in 1980 and last in 2001. In addition, numerous concerts were performed here by artists ranging from The Who to Bruce Springsteen to Nsync.

History

Named by Philadelphia's City Council, for the veterans of all wars in 1968, and originally scheduled to open in 1970 but completed one year late due to a combination of bad weather and cost overruns, Veterans Stadium was a complicated structure, its seating layered in seven separate levels: The lowest, or "100 Level," extended only part way around the structure, between roughly the 25-yard lines for football games and near the two dugouts for baseball; the "200 Level" comprised field-level boxes, and the "300 Level" housed what were labelled "Terrace Boxes;" these three levels collectively made up the "Lower Stands." The "400 Level" was reserved for the press and dignitaries; the upper level began with "500 Level" (or "Loge Boxes"), the "600 Level" (Upper reserved, or individual seats), and finally, the imfamous "700 Level" (General Admission for baseball), where some of the most passionate sports fans on the East Coast could be found. Originally, the seats were in shades of brown, terra cotta, orange and yellow, to look like an autumn day, but in 1995 and 1996, blue seats replaced the fall-hued ones.

Playing surface

The Vet had been known for providing both the Eagles and the Phillies with great home-field advantage. In particular, the acoustics greatly enhanced the crowd noise on the field, making it difficult for opponents to focus on the task at hand. The field's surface, originally composed of AstroTurf (usually rated to be the "hardest" of all synthetic playing surfaces), contained many gaps and uneven patches due to the dual baseball-football use which gave rise to the nickname "Field of Seams". It perennially drew the ranking of the "NFL's worst field" in player surveys conducted by the NFL Players Association, and visiting players often fell prey to the trecherous conditions resulting in numerous injuries. Some of the most publicized were:

In an October 10, 1993, contest against the Chicago Bears, Bears receiver Wendell Davis tore both of his Patella tendons while simply running a pass route. (The Bears won the game 17-6.)
Michael Irvin suffered the neck injury that led to his premature retirement on October 10, 1999. (The previously-winless Eagles rallied from a 10-0 deficit and won 13-10.)

The original AstroTurf was eventually replaced by the somewhat softer NexTurf in 2001. The first preseason game on the new turf was canceled when Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick and Eagles coach Andy Reid agreed that the field conditions were too dangerous. The problem, located at the third base plate cover, was caused by a "soft spot" in the filler dirt used by the groundskeepers to cover up the third base playing area. The problem was solved by using asphalt hot mix, which allowed for a solid, level playing surface, but required a jackhammer for removal whenever the stadium was converted from football back to baseball (between August and October of each year).

Memorable events

The most notable event in the Vet's history was Game 6 of the 1980 World Series. In that game, the Phillies clinched their lone world championship with a victory over the Kansas City Royals in front of 65,838 fans.

The Phillies also went on to clinch the National League Championship Series at The Vet twice; the first was in 1983 over local legend Tommy Lasorda and his Los Angeles Dodgers. The second came in 1993 over future divisional rivals the Atlanta Braves, which was the last LCS with a two-division format.

The Phillies hurled two no-hit games, the only nine-inning no-nos in stadium history and both coming against the San Francisco Giants: the first by Terry Mulholland on August 15, 1990, in a 6-0 Phillies win, the other on April 27, 2003, by Kevin Millwood in a 1-0 win, upstaging the Phillie Phanatic's Birthday promotion that afternoon. A six-inning no-hitter curtailed by rain in 1988 by Montréal Expos pitcher Pascual Pérez was not recognized after the 1990 season due to rules changes requiring that no-hitters had to be nine innings, be a complete game, and the pitcher's team had to win the game. These are now listed as a separate section in the MLB record book.

The most notable football game ever played at The Vet took place less than three months after the Phillies' title, and was the Eagles' 20-7 victory over the hated Dallas Cowboys in the 1980 NFC Championship Game, actually played on January 11, 1981 in front of 71,250 fans. This game has sometimes been referred to as the "Blue Jersey Bowl" because the Eagles chose to wear their white jerseys in the game. That forced the Cowboys to don their blue jerseys, which they always seek to evade wearing.

The final football game played at the Vet was the Eagles' loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC Championship game on January 19, 2003, as the team moved into Lincoln Financial Field the following autumn.

In 1971, Willie Stargell hit the longest home run in stadium history. The spot where the ball landed was marked with a yellow star with a black "S" inside a white circle until Stargell's 2001 death, when the white circle was painted black. The star remained until the stadium's 2004 demolition.

During the 1998 Army-Navy game, a serious accident occurred when a support rail collapsed and eight people were injured. That led to the call for new stadiums for football and baseball for the main stadium tenants.

Another game that is best remembered by Eagles fans was known as "The Body Bag Game", which took place on November 12, 1990, when the Washington Redskins visited The Vet for a Monday Night Football game. The Eagles' head coach at that time, Buddy Ryan, was quoted as saying that the Redskins' offense would "have to be carted off in body bags". The Eagles number-one defense scored three touchdowns in a 28-14 win and knocked nine Redskin players out of the game, including both of their quarterbacks. The Redskins were forced to finish the game using running back/returner Brian Mitchell (who would become an Eagles player over a decade later) at quarterback.

Fans

Fans who attended games in Veterans Stadium gained a reputation of being among the most passionate in sports. The stadium became famous for the rowdiness of Eagles fans, although the misunderstood incident in which fans booed Santa Claus for failing to leave the field following a halftime show occurred in 1968 at Franklin Field. Perhaps no game is more well-known for the fans' behavior than the 1989 follow-up game to what many called "The Bounty Bowl". On Thanksgiving Day (November 23) that year, the Eagles beat the Cowboys at Texas Stadium in which former Eagles placekicker Luis Zendajas left the game with a concussion following a hard tackle by linebacker Jesse Small after a kickoff. After the game, Cowboys rookie head coach Jimmy Johnson commented that Eagles coach Buddy Ryan instituted a bounty on Zendajas and Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. Two weeks later, on December 10, they played the rematch dubbed "Bounty Bowl II" at The Vet, which was covered with snow in the stands. The volatile mix of beer, the "bounty" and the intense hatred for "America's Team" (who were 1-15 that season) led to fans throwing snowballs at Dallas players and coaches. Even the future mayor of Philadelphia and later Governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, was accused of paying a nearby fan to throw snowballs. Beer sales were banned after that incident for two games. A similar incident a few years later at Giants Stadium during a nationally telecast San Diego Chargers-New York Giants game led the NFL to rule that seating areas must be cleared of snow within a certain time period before kickoff. A decade later, Cowboy receiver Michael Irvin suffered a serious injury when he fell head-first onto the notorious AstroTurf, and would never play football again. A number of fans initially roared their approval for the hit, and again cheered when Irvin was carted off the field on a stretcher. This was due in part to Cowboy teammate Deion Sanders (who, with Irvin, were the two players most hated by Philly fans) inciting the crowd with bizarre laying-on-of-hands movements. Regardless, the incident helped greatly to contribute to the negative perception of Eagles Fans. In 2002, Tampa Bay Buccaneers travel agencies could not get insurers to cover their client fans to travel to the NFC Championship at the stadium.

The Eagles fans' behavior during a Monday Night Football loss to the San Francisco 49ers in 1997 and a Dallas Cowboys game a year later was such that the City of Philadelphia was forced to assign a Municipal Court Judge, Seamus McCaffrey, to The Vet on game days to deal with miscreants removed from the stands. This court ran for the rest of the 1998 season, then was moved to a location away from the stadium until the Eagles and the city discontinued it after the opening of Lincoln Financial Field in 2003 and Citizens Bank Park a year later. Thanks to modern technology and better behaved fans, there would be no need for what was termed "Eagles' court" by the Philadelphia sports media.

Final game and demolition

The final game ever played at the stadium was on September 28, 2003. Alas, the Phillies lost to the Atlanta Braves that afternoon, but a ceremony that followed pulled at the heartstrings of the sellout crowd. Both former general manager Paul "The Pope" Owens and Tug McGraw made their final public appearances at the park that day. Later that winter, both men passed away. The last publicly-broadcast words ever uttered in the park were by veteran announcer Harry Kalas, who helped open the facility on April 10, 1971, paraphrasing his trademark home run call: "And now, Veterans Stadium is like a 3-1 pitch to Jim Thome or Mike Schmidt. It's a looooooong drive...IT'S OUTTA HERE!!!" The team moved into Citizens Bank Park in 2004, with the first game being played there on April 12 of that same year.

The ultimate end came when the 33-year old stadium was imploded on March 21, 2004. A parking lot for the current sporting facilities was constructed in 2004 and 2005 at the site. On June 6, 2005, the anniversary of D-Day, a plaque and monument to commemorate the spot where the stadium stood and a memorial for all veterans was dedicated by the Phillies before their game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. On September 28 of that same year, the second anniversary of the final game, a historical marker commemorating where the ballpark once stood was dedicated. Granite spaces marking the former locations of home plate, the pitching mound, and the three bases for baseball, as well as the goalpost placements for football, were added onto the parking lot in April 2006 in western parking lot U.

External links

Stadium diagram (Clem's Baseball)
The Vet - A digital tribute (700level.com)
Veterans Stadium History (Phila.gov)

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