It’s been 20 years since the implosion of Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium. NBC10’s Matt DeLucia takes a look back at he history of the Vet.
Watch Matt DeLucia's special covering the most iconic moments of Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium in the video embedded above.
Philadelphia is a sports town. It’s a place revered by the hometown fans and bashed by the opposition. The city has seen athletes come and go and the same goes for the fields where they played.
Connie Mack, Franklin Field, JFK Stadium and the Spectrum were just some of the places that gave Philly sports teams a homefield advantage. Yet perhaps none of those places have more tales and tradition than the historic and infamous Veterans Stadium in South Philly.
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April 10, 1971, was the first game at Veterans Stadium. It was also Mike Dimuzio’s first day of work.
“I was there more than I was any place I had ever lived,” Dimuzio told NBC10. “I was a senior at Bishop Neumann High School.”
For those who grew up in South Philadelphia, the Vet was the pride of the neighborhood and the city.
“When Veterans Stadium had been built and opened in 1971, it was by the standards of the time considered a state of the art stadium,” sports analyst Ray Didinger said.
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The Vet was home to both the Phillies and Eagles.
“They wanted a stadium like a lot of other cities that had football and baseball,” NBC Sports Philadelphia reporter John Clark said.
Several iconic moments occurred at the Vet with perhaps the biggest moment being the Phillies’ victory in the 1980 World Series. The Vet would go on to be a model of both magic and misery for Philly sports fans.
Yet while the Vet had been built out of solid concrete, towards the end, the incidents started to pile up, leading to safety concerns.
Finally, on the morning of March 21, 2004, the Vet finally came down in a planned implosion. Former Philadelphia Eagles player and NBC10 News anchor Vai Sikahema remembers it well.
“That time had passed and here we were,” Vai said. “It was just incredible.”
On the anniversary of the implosion, NBC10 takes a look back at the history of the Vet and some of its most iconic moments. Watch the entire special in the video embedded on top of this article.
