The Army-Navy Game (2nd Saturday in December) takes place today in Baltimore, not its traditional city Philadelphia. A neutral location and since neither campus can accommodate it. It started on 1890, has been played 85 times in PHL. Franklin field. Then the Municipal Stadium built in South Philadelphia for the 1926 Sesquicentennial Worlds fair, renamed JFK Stadium in 1963. I went to the 1962 game with my Chestnut Hill Academy classmate Charlie Thompson, whose grandfather, a retired colonel, had great seats. At halftime, President Kennedy crossed the field and took an Army-side seat just a few yards from us. Charlie and I actually went over to the stairwell opening from which he emerged and he looked us in the eye (something prep school boys are taught to do). The game continued at JFK stadium even after the Eagles Veterans Stadium (politically correct non-sponsored name) was built in the late 60s, because at 102,000 seats it was still the largest in the US. But it had a very shallow pitch and no upper deck (certainly no skyboxes. And very primitive trough urinals, etc). When my father took me to an Army-Navy game a few years later (he had, or exercised, no pull, even though he had been a colonel in the Army Air Force in WWII). When my mother asked where our seats were, Dad replied Oh, around 42nd & Baltimore, referencing the far end of West Philadelphia. LBJ did not attend that game, and Im not sure any presidents have since. The game moved to the slightly smaller Vet when JFK was torn down to expand the parking at the Stadium Complex, which now includes Lincoln Financial Field, among other bank-named facilities. In the 60s, the Pennsylvania Railroad ran special trains to the stadium. Nobody drove cars there, and the broad Street Subway didnt yet go that far south.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 14:04:36 +0000
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