A mostly fond farewell

My phone rang this morning a few minutes before six. It was my mother.

"Oh boy" was my first thought for so many reasons.

She told me to turn on the TV, that I only had a few minutes to catch it. She said a few more things and hung up.

It took me more than a moment to figure out what she was talking about, but it helped that just a few days before I had a conversation with a friend about the very topic.

She was referring to the implosion of Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. She knew that for all the terrible things that had become of the place, that I still held some fond memories of it. So I turned on the TV and surfed some channels until I found one with a camera on the Vet. And sure enough, not two minutes later, the thing started to come down. Then it was gone.

Good-bye old friend.


I have many many memories of the Vet, as I knew it from many perspectives, not just as a baseball fan. This will be a feeble attempt, but I will run down some of the more stand-out memories of one of my old stomping grounds.

My first Phillies game. I don't remember the exact date, but it was the summer of 1984. I was 10, and it was the first time I had been to a major league game since I was much younger. And since I remember it better, it may as well have been my first time. The Phillies were hot off a world series appearance, so they were still a decent team, and there were still decent crowds at the Vet. I remember a Mike Schmidt homerun, but not much else. Hey, I was 10.

Singing the national anthem. Yes, folks, I "sang" the national anthem at Veterans Stadium at the start of a Phillies game. The back story here is that I was in my middle school choir in the sixth grade, and that choir was invited to sing the anthem. No, I can't sing. Along with a couple of my buddies at them time, I joined the choir that year as part of ingenious scheme to get out of the cold (morning choir practice in a warm room beat waiting outside in the cold for the doors to open) and to be where the cute girls were. The getting out of the cold part worked anyway.

Meeting Von Hayes. Sure, he'll not likely be a hall of famer. But I met him, and I thought it was way cool at the time. It was actually on the same day as the aforementioned national anthem lip sync. Just before the anthem, the choir was arranged in two lines, by height, in the tunnel behind home plate. I was short, so I was at the front of the line, minding my own business I might add. A few minutes before we were to go onto the field, a woman walked into the tunnel, approached the kids at the front of each line (which included me) and asked, "would you like to meet Von Hayes?" Who was I to say no? It turns out that Mr. Hayes broke one or two club records within the last couple of games and he was being honored with a plaque or two by the team. So the team wanted some publicity shots of Hayes receiving his awards with a couple of kids on hand, so I guess the team grabbed the nearest available kids. I learned later that that incident was on the Phanavision, so the whole stadium got to see the presentation and Von Hayes shaking my hand. By the way, there were photographers there as well. If you happened to be one of those photographers and have pictures of this event in your archives, I'd like to have a copy. Oh yeah, and it turned out to be a GREAT game. The Phillies were losing at the middle of the ninth inning, so nearly everyone left the stadium. My friends and I stayed, and we didn't regret it. The Phillies came back to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, and then went on to win in the bottom of the 14th on a Juan Samuel RBI. Great stuff!

Holding the flag for opening day. In high school, our marching band was to unfold a huge, baseball diamond sized American flag during an opening day ceremony. Now, I don't think we actually got to do this gig, for reasons which I can't remember, but I remember that we got to go to the Vet to practice our role with the flag we were to open. And that was pretty cool, because it was just us and the field and the flag and a nice Spring day. Very difficult to beat.

Working the gate. My high school band had a fundraising deal with the Phillies, whereby we worked the gates on giveaway days, handing out the free oddities, in return for some amount of cash I presume. The cool thing for those of us working the gates, aside from getting some of the freebies ourselves, was that we got to watch the remainder of the game for free as well. I saw many games this way, and that rocked. Free stuff, free ballgames, and free fun. Also tough to beat.

Playing the half-time show. During the fall of my senior year of high school, the band got to perform the half-time show during an Eagles-Cowboys game at the Vet. Man was that cool. Sure, no one was listening, but we had A LOT of fun. My interesting experience out of all of it was looking up at the big screen during my trombone solo (Maria, West Side Story), and seeing the attendance numbers being displayed... 63,895. What an audience for a solo.

A bitter-sweet farewell. In May of 1991, just a month before I was set to leave Philly for Oklahoma, I was "working the gate" at a game where it just so happened a girl I had a crush on was singing the national anthem with her school choir. We had talked before hand, and she said they would be staying to watch the game, but she didn't know where they were sitting. So after I was done at my gate, I took off to search the entirety of that stadium if need be to find her. Much to my surprise, I found her without too much difficulty. And we spent the rest of the game walking around the stadium and talking (one of the few times I didn't want to watch the game). Unfortunately, we had to part ways, and for years I wondered what would have happened had things been different. Had I only watched the game.

A triumphant return, just in time for a tragic fall. The date was August 14th, 1994. I was in Philly for a couple of weeks visiting family and old friends. As is traditional when I visit my old town, a couple of friends and I went to the Vet for a game on what was the last day before the 1994 strike was to go into effect. It turned out to be a great game that was won by a John Kruk homerun in the bottom of the 14th inning. What was also great about it was the fact that the game went until almost midnight, and we were all wondering if the players would walk off the field right at midnight. We kept hoping for just one more inning so that we could find out. We didn't get our wish, but we had fun trying.


As you can see, the Vet, now demised, has a special place in my memories, if for nothing else than as a back-drop of my life and times. Farewell concrete giant. Once I visit the new Citizens Bank Park, I may forget your glory, but I promise to park comfortably on your final resting place with warm thoughts of our good times past.