Eagles nests: A 90-year photographic journey through their home stadiums

The Eagles played their first game on Oct. 15, 1933, an inglorious 56-0 loss to the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. In their 90 years in the NFL, though, the Eagles have fared much better on their home turf, with an all-time record of 354-288-13. Their first home game was 90 years ago today.

Here’s a look at the team’s home stadiums over nine decades, from blighted Baker Bowl to state-of-the-art Lincoln Financial Field.

2622 North Broad Street

Built in 1887, Baker Bowl was the longtime home of the Phillies, a seemingly cursed stadium where a balcony collapsed and killed 12 fans in 1903. It also burned to the ground in the late 1800s. This was the first place the Eagles called home under coach Lud Wray, who was 39 years old when he took the job in 1933. The fledgling Eagles went 3-5-1 in their first season.

Highlight: Wray’s Eagles beat the New York Giants, 6-0, to close the 1934 season as 12,471 fans watched at Baker Bowl. St. Joseph’s Prep graduate Jim Leonard scored the game’s only touchdown.

» READ MORE: As the Eagles celebrate 90 years, a look back at their largely forgotten first coach

Lowlight: The Eagles weren’t great in their time at Philly’s first “multipurpose” stadium. On Oct. 18, 1933, they lost their Baker Bowl debut to the Portsmouth Spartans, 25-0, before a rousing crowd of 1,750.

South Broad Street

The co-founder and co-owner of the Eagles, the legendary Bert Bell became their coach as they moved to the massive stadium in South Philadelphia. Bell’s teams were far from legendary, going 10-44-2 in his five seasons. The place was also known as Sesquicentennial Stadium and JFK Stadium, the neutral site for 42 Army-Navy games through the years. JFK was the home of the Live Aid concert, bringing more than 89,000 fans to the creaking venue on July 13, 1985. The stadium met the wrecking ball in 1992.

Highlight: These were dreadful Eagles teams. The club returned to the stadium in 1941, though, and a new coach took over a team that went 2-8-1: Hall of Famer Earle “Greasy” Neale, who coached the Eagles to NFL titles in 1948 and ‘49.

Lowlight: There were many in Hall of Famer Bell’s coaching tenure at the future JFK. Heisman Trophy winner Davey O’Brien passed for 289 yards and a touchdown, but he also threw three interceptions in a 23-16 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Nov. 12, 1939. Bell’s Eagles finished 1-9-1 that year. He went on to become NFL commissioner from 1946-59.

20th Street and Lehigh Avenue

It was known as Shibe Park, home of the Phillies and Athletics, when the Eagles moved in for the 1940 season. During World War II in 1943, the Birds combined with the Pittsburgh Steelers to become the Steagles, dividing their home games between Shibe Park and Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. After that 5-4-1 season, the Eagles drafted halfback Steve Van Buren and Neale began building a champion. The stadium was built for baseball in 1909, but the Eagles had a long run there.

Highlight: It was the original Snow Bowl. On Dec. 19, 1948, the Eagles captured their first NFL championship at Shibe Park by beating the Chicago Cardinals, 7-0. Van Buren rushed for 98 yards and the game’s only touchdown in a storm that dropped nearly a foot of snow. The 11-1 Eagles repeated as champions in 1949 and the Phillies won the National League pennant a year later, making Shibe Park the place to be.

» READ MORE: Ranking the 50 greatest Eagles players of all time

Lowlight: The Eagles closed their time at Connie Mack Stadium on Dec. 14, 1957, with a 31-27 loss to the Chicago Cardinals as end Bill Stribling fumbled away the ball at the Cardinals’ 1-yard line with 47 seconds left. Coach Hugh Devore was fired after the Eagles finished 4-8.

South 33rd and Spruce Streets

The oldest college stadium in the country, the original Franklin Field was a wooden structure that opened on Penn’s campus in 1895. That marked the first year of the iconic Penn Relays. Franklin Field was the first neutral stadium for the Army-Navy game in 1899. A brick horseshoe replaced the venue’s wooden stands in 1903. The Eagles compiled a 41-45-2 record there, and NFL commissioner Bert Bell said the stadium with its capacity of 60,000-plus “saved pro football in Philadelphia.”

Highlight: On Dec. 26, 1960, Buck Shaw’s Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers, 17-13, for the NFL championship before 67,325 at Franklin Field. Ted Dean, a running back who said he stayed in shape in the offseason by working on a garbage truck, scored the decisive touchdown on a 5-yard run in the fourth quarter. Hall of Famers Chuck Bednarik, Tommy McDonald, and Norm Van Brocklin helped the Eagles hand Packers coach Vince Lombardi his first and only loss in a title game.

Lowlight: The 1968 Eagles went 2-12 under Joe Kuharich, a former coach at Notre Dame who had directed the Birds to a 9-5 record in 1966. But they lost their first 11 games in ‘68, and a plane circled Franklin Field, towing a banner that said, “Joe Must Go.” The pilot got his wish as Kuharich was fired after the season.

Franklin Field footnote: Bell died of a heart attack in the stadium’s south end zone stands on Oct. 11, 1959, during a game against the Steelers. He was 65.

Broad Street and Pattison Avenue

The Vet defined gritty decades before the loutish Flyers mascot came along. Philadelphia fans wax nostalgic about the place, which was built on 74 acres of former marshland and opened in 1971 at a cost of about $63 million. It was “multipurpose” in the sense that the same Astroturf stretched over the unforgiving concrete was tolerated by both the Eagles and Phillies. That surface, potentially a career-ender for NFL players, contained “forever chemicals” that may have contributed to the brain cancer deaths of six former Phillies.

The Phillies won their first World Series at the Vet in 1980, and the Eagles posted an iconic NFC championship victory over the Dallas Cowboys there in January 1981. The stadium holds cherished sports memories for thousands. Still, there was something apocalyptic about sitting in the garish yellow seats of the 700 level, while some Eagles fans slurped buckets of beer, at times breaking into fistfights and tumbling down the steep, steep steps.

Highlight: On their way to Super Bowl XV, Dick Vermeil’s Eagles knocked off Tom Landry’s Cowboys, 20-7, in the NFC championship game before a delirious, frozen Veterans Stadium crowd of 70,696. Running back Wilbert Montgomery played with a sore knee and bruised thigh, but he broke the Cowboys’ backs with 194 rushing yards, including a 42-yard touchdown. The team’s all-time record at the Vet was 144-111-2, including 7-4 in the playoffs.

» READ MORE: Dick Vermeil's Hall of Fame career was fueled by a fire that nearly burned him

Lowlights: Ray Rhodes’ 1998 Eagles went 3-13, paving the way for the Andy Reid era. ... Municipal Court Judge Seamus McCaffery presided over Eagles Court in the Vet’s basement to deal with unruly fans. The court came to be after a Monday night game in 1997 when about 60 fights broke out in the crowd and someone fired a flare gun in the stands. ... Ten West Point cadets were injured when a railing in front of temporary bleachers collapsed during the 1998 Army-Navy game at the Vet. ... The Eagles and Baltimore Ravens refused to play a 2001 preseason game on the stadium’s newly installed turf, which had been laid incorrectly and was unsafe.

Pattison Avenue

According to the Eagles, the Linc cost $512 million to build before it opened on Aug. 3, 2003, with a soccer match between Manchester United and FC Barcelona. The mere fact that there was grass on the field made the new stadium a huge upgrade over the Vet for the Eagles. With massive LED displays and green energy production, the 69,794-seat home of the Birds has come a long way from the Baker Bowl days. The Eagles have thrived at the Linc, with a 104-70-1 record at their home field, 8-4 in the playoffs.

Highlight: There have been many in the Andy Reid/Doug Pederson/Nick Sirianni eras. Let’s go with an NFC championship victory at the Linc: Nick Foles passed for 352 yards and three touchdowns in a 38-7 wipeout of the Minnesota Vikings on Jan. 21, 2018.

» READ MORE: Ranking the top 10 Eagles games played at Lincoln Financial Field

Lowlight: In the first NFC championship game played at the Linc, rookie cornerback Ricky Manning picked off Donovan McNabb three times as the Carolina Panthers stunned the Eagles, 14-3, on Jan. 18, 2004. The next season, McNabb and the Eagles reached the Super Bowl.

The Eagles also played half of their home games at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field in 1943, teaming up with the Steelers to become the Steagles. ... They played two games at Temple Stadium, including a 64-0 rout of the Cincinnati Reds on Nov. 6, 1934. ... They played one game at Point Stadium in Johnstown, Pa., in 1936, and two games in Charleston, W.Va. — at Ladley Field in 1938 and War Memorial Stadium in 1942.