“The Stadium fell like a large round cheesecake rapidly melting in the oven !”
-KYW NewsRadio 1060 news report
“It’s just a pile of wubble now!”
-Ben Morbeck (age 6), witness to the event on TV
2013 Update: Watch it on YouTube!
March 21,2004-A milestone in Philadelphia sports history occurred early this morning when the huge concrete walls of Veterans Stadium came tumbling down! And WE (at least some of us) were there!
I was working a show last night in Tom’s River, NJ which ended close to midnight. I then proceeded to make a rather hypnotic drive eastward through the New Jersey Pine Barrens, constantly wary of being stopped and viciously attacked (and probably eaten) by the cloven hoofed New Jersey Devil of local legend.
After more than an hour The City of Brotherly Love (and Sisterly Affection) appeared dimly on the horizon. I slipped the surly bonds of the State of my youth with a voyage over the W. White Man Brother (Walt Whitman Bridge for those non-28 Presidentians) and saw the darkened hulking shell of Philadelphia’s former sports palace ahead of me.
“I’ll be back!” I vowed to myself, and (sure enough) a few short hours later I was.
Despite returning home to Rutledge past 1AM I awoke at about 5AM still in complete and utter darkness. I went to our back bedroom to wake Brad Morbeck (age 8), and we both quietly got dressed and stole out of the house about fifteen minutes later. We then drove North (actually northeast) for Our Appointment with Destiny, stopping only to procure emergency Philadelphia soft pretzels at the Prospect Park Wawa.
For months the News Media and City Officials have done EVERYTHING possible to try to discourage us from personally attending the Vet’s scheduled 7AM Implosion.
“There will be NO provision for Public Viewing!” I heard on the radio last week.
“A Twenty Block area will be Cordoned Off!” the Inky dourly warned.
“The best view will be on Television!” one of the television stations advised.
Lies, all damnable Lies! I knew that all these vermin had their own “secret agenda” and I wasn’t falling for it. We crossed the City Limits at about 5:45AM and zoomed over the Platt Bridge into South Philadelphia. Sure enough, Pattison Avenue was barricaded so our wily bunch (actually there were only two of us) hooked up with Moyamensing and sped north. We saw numerous streets clogged with double-parked cars; normal Saturday night hijacks or Implosion jam? I still don’t know. We finally found a legal space up by about 16th and Wolf, probably a good mile away from Ground Zero (I guess we can’t use that term anymore). We grabbed our pretzels and began to hoof it southward through the dawn’s early light. As we walked down Broad Street we excitedly caught our first glimpse of Philadelphia’s Grand Temple of Losing Seasons and Dashed Dreams. We were turned away at the I-76 overpass (just north of the Sports Complex) so we squirgled in a eastwardly fashion towards the intersection of 13th and Pollock. We ended up near a row of “Jersey Fences” (as a native Garden Stater I HATE it when they call them that!), concrete barricades separating South Philadelphia High School’s athletic fields from the westbound lanes of the Schuykill Expressway. We valiantly tried to climb up the grassy knoll of the Broad St. Exit but a Philadelphia police cruiser with its loudspeaker blaring came by and shooed us away.
T-MINUS 46 Minutes
We finally staked out a spot where we could safely watch one of the greatest moments in the History of our Civilization. We were joined by a friendly sea of occasionally drunken humanity, a number of whom obviously had even less hours of sleep than I did last night . I snapped a picture of a group of young men inexplicably holding up some sort of lucky “gnome” and in their gratitude they offered Brad a space on “their” barrier for the big moment.
In almost military-like fashion waves of people kept trying to invade the grassy berms on the North side of the Expressway, only to be pushed back every five minutes or so by the Federales (actually the “Locales”, I guess). In great Philadelphia tradition a tremendous crescendo of “boos” emanated from the crowd as each assault on the elevated highway was repulsed. It’s obvious that this grand old lady will die in the same style in which she lived: inundated by the sound of hoots and catcalls.
At 6:45AM officials closed the “Brother” and the Schuykill Expressway in anticipation of the blast. There was no stopping the avenging army now as hordes of early morning barbarians swarmed on to the Westbound lanes. We decided to stay where we are, clinging to our three foot high concrete wall which would enable Brad to have a clear view of the festivities. I tuned our portable radio to KYW to listen in on the official ceremonies happening a mere 100 yards away.
“First of all, I would like to thank all of you for coming out this morning!” Mayor John Street said as he addressed the crowd. Hey, wait a minute! You did everything in your power to keep us away! We’re Party crashers, not Party Guests! Phillies PA announcer Dan Baker officiated and it was soon revealed that former Phils slugger Greg Luzinski had been chosen to push the plunger.
HIZZONER THE BULL
It was explained that Luzinski hit many legendary homeruns in our Baseball Cathedral, some of them so magnificent that they earned themselves the moniker “Bull Blasts”. The last “Bull Blast” at the Vet was a few short minutes away. As the seconds ticked by I was suddenly worried that perhaps I should have arrived here armed. There were articles in the paper last week concerning nearby residents’ fears about phalanxes of rats followed by hordes of cats exiting the soon-to-be crumbling structure at high rates of speed. We continued to listen on the radio, excited to hear that we were currently witnessing Vet Stadium’s last MINUTE of existence!
We’ve also learned during the past week that most of these implosions utilize an “all at once” scheme, the demolition company setting off a large number of simultaneous explosions near key structural components of whatever building they’re trying to get “blowed up”. I vividly remember when Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh was “blowed up” in this manner several years ago. Due to the whining nature of South Philadelphia residents in an adjacent neighborhood (who live in houses that should never have been built in the first place) it’s been decided that the Stadium would be taken down in multiple stages in order to minimize the shockwaves and the dust. At one point last year we had even heard that there would be NO implosion whatsoever due to worries of damaging the Broad St. Subway less than 200 feet away.
“FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE! FIRE! FIRE!” I couldn’t tell whether it was Mayor Street or Luzinksi who shouted the ominous countdown (It was Street). All of a sudden we could hear the initial explosions beginning at a section they had cut out along the 3rd base side. We were out towards Right Center Field so it was about twenty seconds before we actually saw the enormous pre-stressed concrete beams begin to fold inward with beautiful clockwise precision. It would be nice to say that we could feel the ground shake but we couldn’t. As we watched our favorite OctoRad*(The Vet’s true shape see footnote below) rapidly being torn asunder I was suddenly interrupted by a very agitated eight year old standing next to me.
“DAAAD! DAA-AAAD!” Brad wailed at me. Uh oh…..Are the Rats attacking? “DAD! TAKE A PICTURE!” .
To tell you the truth, I figured that the other 454 angles which the plethora of news organizations covering the event were using JUST MIGHT be a tad better than ours, slightly obscured as it was by a tree and that Restaurant I’ve never heard of anyone ever going to. I’m nothing if not cooperative though, so I humored him by lifting my camera up and snapping off a quick shot of the unfolding destruction.
The cloud of dust which was beginning to form soon took on monstrous proportions. The same whiny residents who were mad last week that the city didn’t give them all new air conditioner covers were completely spared by a brisk Westerly wind. In a bit of Implosion Theater the entire area was completely obscured for a few short moments by a swirling dust storm, which then miraculously lifted to dramatically reveal the gleaming new “Citizen’s Bank Park” located just east of the recently created crater. WOW!
The cheering throng didn’t stick around for very long afterward. All of a sudden we all collectively realized that we were standing on a highway in the middle of nowhere at 7 o’clock in the morning (actually 7:05) and there was nothing left to see. In unison we all turned around and began to trudge away, much like a crowd who has just attended a public hanging out in the village square.
Brad and I started our hike back to our vehicle, and on our drive home I mentioned that a combination of a lack of sleep and all that walking was leaving me feeling a little tired.
“I’m not surprised!” my empathetic youngster replied. “After all, YOU did MOST of the driving and navigating to get us here today!”
Hmmm….Not that I’m always one to try to “grab the credit” but it seems to me that I did ALL the driving and navigating this morning! I pointed this niggling point out to him and he sheepishly admitted, “Hey! I guess you’re right!”
We returned home only to find that some of our brethren were unhappy that THEY weren’t shaken awake at 5:15 this morning, too. Oh well, sorry about that, boys. Maybe you can catch it again in another forty years!
Factual Inaccuracy Department: On the Channel 6 noon news today one of their smarmy newsreaders informed me that Luzinski was chosen due to “that mammoth blast he hit to center field that hit the Liberty Bell.” Last time I checked (and I’m able to check no longer) that Liberty Bell was located at the TOP of the roof ABOVE the 700 level, conservatively at LEAST 650+ feet from home plate (if not more; running feeder cable for the Pink Floyd show I found that it was 85 feet from the roof to the concourse level, and at least 20 or more feet down after that. And that’s just the vertical dimension!) The longest homerun I’ve heard of was Willie Stargell’s blast into the 600 level vomitory (I love that word!). Ben and Gabe visited the “star” and the chart chronicling “long Vet Homeruns” last year.
LAST SUMMER
March 22, 2004- Special “small boy” consolation trip: Ben and Gabe attend afternoon kindergarten so we have the chance to travel back up to South Philly this morning to witness first hand the pile of “wubble” (as Ben so aptly described it yesterday). We pulled up by the Spectrum and were met by other amateur photographers intent on getting the definitive snapshot of the concrete carnage. The “new” TV bay is still standing for some reason so we decide to circle around to the north side to see what it looks like. The Vet’s old parking lot is being used by the construction workers (working on the new ballpark) and the blue wooden sawhorse police barricade is easily circumvented. We drive right down to the edge of the implosion site, and I snap a quick picture of the younger Morbeck Brothers for posterity.
"WUBBLE" INSPECTORS
We’re interested to see that on the Packer Avenue side (site of what used to be the Eagles Practice “Bubble”) rows upon rows of the Vet’s stadium lights are laid out, obviously salvaged and due to be used on a myriad of high school football fields throughout the land.
We make one final stop on the Broad Street side, neglecting to pick up our very own piece of “wubble” to sell on EBAY next week. The boys and I end the morning with a scenic tour of the former Philadelphia Naval Base and we’re home before lunch and to meet the school bus.
*OCTORAD Technically the Vet wasn't a circle, but an octorad. Ron Knabb of Philadelphia Stadium Architects said at the time: "'Octo' is Latin for numeral eight. 'Rad' is short for radius. There are eight points of radius on a circle. Connect them with straight lines or chords and you have the shape of the stadium."
MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY! In my research I've just discovered that the Bull's "500 foot blast" off the Liberty Bell ranks as one of the Vet's greatest moments. There MUST have been another bell out there! Does anybody know?