Veterans Stadium - Notable Games and Incidents

Notable Games and Incidents

Veterans Stadium before and during of one of U2's Zoo TV Tour shows in 1992.

• On June 25, 1971, Willie Stargell hit the longest home run in stadium history in a 14-4 Pirates win. 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.

• One of the most notable events in the stadium's history was Game 6 of the 1980 World Series on Oct. 21. In that game, the Phillies clinched their first world championship with a 4-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals in front of 65,838 fans. Tug McGraw's series-ending strikeout of the Royals' Willie Wilson was instrumental in their win.

• A very notable football game played at the stadium took place less than three months after the Phillies' title: the Eagles' 20–7 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the 1980 NFC Championship Game, played on January 11, 1981, in front of 70,696 fans. As a psychological ploy, the Eagles chose to wear their white jerseys for their home game in order to force the Cowboys into their "unlucky" blue jerseys. At the end of the game, Philadelphia police circled the field with horses and dogs as they had done for the Phillies World Series victory; despite the police presence, Eagles fans successfully rushed the field.

• Veterans Stadium was host to the latest-finishing game in baseball history, a twi-night double-header between the Phillies and the Padres that started on July 2, 1993 at 5:05 PM and ended at 4:40 AM the following morning. The two games were interrupted multiple times by rain showers. The Padres won the first game, and led in the second, but lost in a come-from-behind victory for the Phillies in the tenth inning on an RBI single by Phillies closing pitcher Mitch Williams. The second game ended with an estimated 6,000 fans at the ballpark.

• The Phillies clinched the National League Championship Series at the stadium twice: the first in 1983 over area-born Tommy Lasorda and the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the second in the 1993 National League Championship Series over future divisional rivals the Atlanta Braves. The 1993 season was the last LCS with a two-division League format.

• The Phillies pitched two no-hit games at the stadium, the only nine-inning no-hitters in stadium history. Both were against the San Francisco Giants. Terry Mulholland pitched the first on August 15, 1990, in a 6–0 Phillies win. Kevin Millwood pitched the second on April 27, 2003 and beat the Giants 1–0, upstaging the Phillie Phanatic's Birthday promotion that afternoon. The Montréal Expos' Pascual Pérez pitched a five-inning no-hitter shortened by rain on September 24, 1988. MLB changed its rules in 1991 to require that fully recognized no-hitters - past, present and future - be a complete game of at least nine innings.

• Another game that is well-remembered by Eagles fans was known as "The Body Bag Game", which took place on November 12, 1990, when the Washington Redskins visited the stadium 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 two 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.

• During the 1998 Army–Navy Game, a serious accident occurred when a support rail collapsed and eight West Point cadets were injured. That led to the call for new stadiums for football and baseball for the main stadium tenants.