Skip to content
Phillies
Link copied to clipboard
Link copied to clipboard

The last game at the Vet was 20 years ago. Take a trip back inside the ballpark that day.

It's been 20 years since the Phillies shut down the Vet. Take a look back inside their final game there before moving to Citizens Bank Park.

From left, Darren Dalton, John Vukovich, Bob Boone (8), Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, and Larry Bowa join former Phillies players in a final lap around the field at Veterans Stadium after the last game.
From left, Darren Dalton, John Vukovich, Bob Boone (8), Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, and Larry Bowa join former Phillies players in a final lap around the field at Veterans Stadium after the last game.Read moreG.W. Miller III / Staff file photo

By all accounts, Sept. 28, 2003, was a standard Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia. The Eagles were playing at 1 p.m., albeit up in Buffalo. There was an overcast sky, some light rain, and the temperature hovered around 70 degrees.

But in South Philly, something else was happening. For this wasn’t just any Sunday. No, Karl Wallenda wouldn’t be tightrope walking across a stadium. The Phanatic wasn’t brawling with Tommy Lasorda. But it was significant and memorable nonetheless.

It was the last day a local team would play a game at Veterans Stadium, which opened 32 years earlier and had been the home of the Birds and Phillies since 1971 ... and also apparently the home of a Vietnam vet who lived in a secret apartment there for three years.

The Phillies played host to the Atlanta Braves — nearly 10 months since the Eagles said farewell to the Vet with an NFC championship loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — and like the Birds, the Phillies too lost their farewell game. But to the people who were there that day, the outcome was hardly important. The Phillies were already eliminated from the postseason, the 10th straight year they wouldn’t play October baseball. The fans were there to say goodbye to the Vet.

Here’s how Michael Gatti, who was in the stands that day, recalled “the best game I ever saw” for NBC Sports Philly in 2020:

However, there is a moment that stands out to me that had nothing to do with the festivities on the field. It was late in the game. Most fans were just hanging around waiting for the postgame ceremony. Then all of the sudden, a roar erupts inside Veterans Stadium. You see, the Phillies game was played on an Eagles Sunday and a large percentage of fans, me included, were locked in on their walkmans listening to Eagles radio broadcasting legend Merrill Reese call the action. I remember vividly Merrill in typical Merrill fashion screaming, “20, 10, 5, touchdown” as Brian Westbrook ripped off a 62-yard touchdown with just over 2 minutes left in the 4th quarter to help seal a 23-13 victory in Buffalo. Fans are hugging and high fiving each other.
The roar was so loud the play on the field briefly paused as the players on the field looked up to see what was causing the commotion. Chants of E-A-G-L-E-S rang throughout the bowl.
Michael Gatti, NBC Sports Philadelphia

It doesn’t get much more Philly than that.

If you weren’t lucky enough to be inside the ballpark that day — or even if you were and just want to take a trip down Memory Lane — don’t worry. This video, posted 13 years ago by Channel 19 News, Sterling (N.J.) High School’s student news channel, takes you from the parking lot pregame to inside the stadium to the long postgame walk down those winding ramps.

The sights, the sounds ... you can almost smell the concourse (you know that smell). It’s truly a trip back in time.

We were unable to find the moment Gatti referred to in the 10-minute clip, but we did find this dancing Eagles fan who appears to be celebrating something.

(If that first-person style footage from in and around the ballpark wasn’t enough — or you just need to hear Harry Kalas again — you can also check out the 90-minute “Veterans Stadium: The Final Innings” film, which features the festivities from that day and much more, on YouTube.)

Six months later, in March 2004, the Vet came tumbling down.

Its legacy since has been complicated by the discovery of forever chemicals in the turf and six former Phillies dying of the same type of cancer.

Where it stood, there is now only a parking lot. And across the street, the Phillies, who clinched a second straight postseason berth earlier this week, play in their now 20-year-old ballpark, Citizens Bank Park.