Veterans Stadium


Veterans Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. The seating capacities were 65,358 for football, and 56,371 for baseball.
It hosted the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball from 1971 to 2003 and the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League from 1971 to 2002. The 1976 and 1996 Major League Baseball All-Star Games were held at the venue. It also hosted the annual Army-Navy football game between 1980 and 2001.
In addition to professional baseball and football, the stadium hosted other amateur and professional sports, large entertainment events, and other civic affairs. It was demolished by implosion in March 2004, being replaced by the adjacent Citizens Bank Park and Lincoln Financial Field. A parking lot now sits on its former site.

History

Plans and construction

In 1959, Phillies owner R. R. M. Carpenter Jr. proposed building a new ballpark for the Philadelphia Phillies on adjacent to the Garden State Park Racetrack in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The Phillies were playing at Connie Mack Stadium, a stadium built in 1909 that was beginning to show its age. Connie Mack Stadium also had inadequate parking, and was located in a declining section of the city. The same year, alcohol sales at sporting events were banned in Pennsylvania but were still legal across the Delaware River in neighboring South Jersey.
The stadium proposed by Carpenter would have seated 45,000 fans but would be expandable to 60,000, and would have 15,000 parking spaces.
The American League's Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City following the 1954 season, while the NBA's Philadelphia Warriors moved to San Francisco to become the Golden State Warriors in 1962, and Philadelphians were not going to allow losing another professional sports franchise.

Financing

In 1964, Philadelphia voters approved a US$25-million-bond issue for a new stadium to serve as the home of both the Eagles, who played at the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field, and the Phillies. Because of cost overruns, the voters had to go to the polls again in 1967 to approve another $13 million. At a total cost of $60 million, it was at the time one of the most expensive stadiums ever constructed.

Naming

In 1968, the Philadelphia City Council named the stadium Veterans Stadium in honor of veterans. In December 1969, the Phillies announced that they anticipated that they would play the first month of the 1970 season at Connie Mack Stadium before moving to the new venue. However, the opening was delayed a year because of a combination of bad weather and cost overruns.

Structure and design

The stadium's design was nearly circular, and was known as an octorad design, which attempted to facilitate both football and baseball. San Diego Stadium in San Diego had been similarly designed. As was the case with other cities where this dual approach was used, such as RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., Shea Stadium in New York City, the Astrodome in Houston, Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, and Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, the fundamentally different sizes and shapes of the playing fields made the stadium inadequate to the needs of either sport.

Opening

The stadium opened with a $3 million scoreboard complex that at the time was the most expensive ever installed.
Prior to its opening, the stadium was blessed by Marine Corps chaplain veteran Francis "Father Foxhole" Kelly.

Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies played their first game at the stadium on April 10, 1971, beating the Montreal Expos, 4–1, before an audience of 55,352. The first ball was dropped by helicopter to Phillies back-up catcher Mike Ryan.
Jim Bunning, who was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996, was the winning pitcher, and Bill Stoneman of the Expos took the loss. Entertainer Mike Douglas, whose daily talk show was taped in Philadelphia, sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the game. The emcee for the opening ceremonies was Harry Kalas, the new Phillies play-by-play announcer.
Boots Day opened the game by grounding out to Bunning. Larry Bowa had the stadium's first hit, and Don Money hit the first home run in the stadium.

Philadelphia Eagles

On September 26, 1971, the Philadelphia Eagles played their first game at Veterans Stadium, hosting the Dallas Cowboys in a game the Eagles lost 42–7. The first Eagles touchdown at the stadium, and the Eagles only points during the game, came from Al Nelson's then-record 102-yard return of a missed field goal by Mike Clark in the fourth quarter.

Stadium deterioriation

As the stadium aged, its condition deteriorated. A hole in the wall allowed visiting teams' players to peep into the dressing room of the Eagles Cheerleaders. So many mice infested the stadium that the security force employed cats as mousers.

Final games

Philadelphia Eagles

The final Eagles game played at Veterans Stadium was the Eagles' 27–10 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2002 NFC Championship Game on January 19, 2003. The Eagles moved into Lincoln Financial Field in August 2003.

Philadelphia Phillies

The final game ever played at the stadium was the afternoon of September 28, 2003, a 5–2 Phillies loss to the Atlanta Braves.
The final win at the stadium was recorded by Greg Maddux of the Braves; the final loss at the stadium was recorded by the Phillies' Kevin Millwood. The final Phillies run was scored by Marlon Byrd in the bottom of the 3rd inning, and the final run altogether by the Braves' Andruw Jones on a double by Robert Fick, who also had the last hit at Tiger Stadium while with the Detroit Tigers four years earlier in the top of the 5th.
The final hit at Veterans Stadium was a single by the Phillies' Pat Burrell in the bottom of the 9th inning. The next batter, Chase Utley, grounded into a double play to end the game and Veterans Stadium. A ceremony at Veterans Stadium following the final Phillies game at the stadium pulled at the heartstrings of the sellout crowd. Paul Owens, a former Phillies general manager, and Tug McGraw, a former Phillies pitcher, made their final public appearances at the park that day; both men died that winter.
The last publicly broadcast words uttered at Veterans Stadium came from Harry Kalas, who helped open the facility on April 10, 1971, who paraphrased his trademark home run call: "It's on a looooooong drive…IT'S OUTTA HERE!!!"
The following seasons, the Phillies played their first game at the newly constructed Citizens Bank Park on April 12, 2004.

Demolition and commemoration

On March 21, 2004, the 32-year-old stadium was imploded in 62 seconds. Frank Bardonaro, President of Philadelphia-based AmQuip Crane Rental Company, pressed the "charge" button and then he and Nicholas T Peetros Sr., Project Manager for Driscoll/Hunt Construction Company, pressed the "fire" button to trigger the implosion while Greg Luzinski and the Phillie Phanatic, the Phillies' mascot, pressed a ceremonial plunger for the fans, which did not set off any explosives. A parking lot for the current sporting facilities was constructed in 2004 and 2005 at the site.
On June 6, 2005, the anniversary of World War II's 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, 2005, the second anniversary of the stadium's final game, a historical marker commemorating where the ballpark once stood was dedicated. In April 2006, granite spaces marking the former locations of home plate, the pitcher's mound, and the three bases for baseball, as well as the goalpost placements for football, were added in Citizens Bank Park's Western Parking Lot U.
Before the stadium's implosion, The Vet's Liberty Bell replica was removed from its perch and placed in storage. In 2019, the bell was installed outside the third base entrance of Citizens Bank Park.

Health concerns

In the years following demolition, an apparent cancer cluster has emerged among several former Phillies players who played at Veterans Stadium who later developed glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. Six former Phillies who played while the team called Veterans Stadium home have died of the cancer.
According to a 2013 analysis by The Philadelphia Inquirer, the brain cancer rate of Phillies players while the team was at Veterans Stadium was three times higher than that of the general population. Some of the speculation centers around the possibility that chemicals in the stadium's AstroTurf field may have played a role, but there has been no research to support that theory definitively.

Seating capacity

YearsCapacity
1971–197256,371
1973–197455,730
1975–197656,581
1977–198058,651
1981–198265,454
1983–198466,507
198566,744
198666,271
1987–198964,538
1990–199262,382
199362,586
1994–199562,530
1996–199762,136
1998–200062,363
2001–200361,831

YearsCapacity
197165,358
1972–197665,720
1977–197866,052
1979–198271,464
1983–198472,204
198571,640
198669,417
198766,592
1988–199165,356
1992–199365,178
199464,241
1995–199664,899
1997–200365,352