Philadelphia imploded Veterans Stadium this morning. What took you so long?

The Vet was one of the most hideously vile stadiums in all of sports. I say "one of" because it had several siblings, like Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh and Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, that were quite repulsive as well. These multipurpose, cookie-cutter complexes looked more like places the Jetsons might watch a futuristic sport, and not a stadium where baseball or football should be played.

The Vet, I believe, out-did its look-alikes in utter grossness. The field seemed to contribute to an unusually high number of injuries. Imagine playing tackle football on a thin rug laid over concrete, and you kind of get the picture of what NFL players went through on eight Sundays every year. When the powers-that-be finally got the message and replaced the awful playing surface, they still managed to mess things up. Coach Brian Billick refused to allow the Baltimore Ravens to take the field in a pre-season contest after the new surface was unveiled a few years back.

If the rotten playing field didn't do you in, Philly's fans would. A temperamental bunch, they've booed Mike Schmidt, Scott Rolen, and Donovan McNabb, so you can imagine how they treat opposing players. Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin caught his last pass at the Vet, and for good measure was booed off the field as he lay on a stretcher. Most famously, the city of Philadelphia set-up a makeshift jail and courthouse within the Vet to more expeditiously deal with out-of-hand Eagles fans.

My lone experience at the Vet came in 1999. Appropriately, the locals treated me to a demonstration of Philly hospitality. Noticing a nearly-packed Vet (it had the highest capacity of any major league stadium), and especially rowdy fans, I wondered what I had stumbled into. Soon, the reason for the unusually high attendance and rambunctious behavior became clear. J.D. Drew, then a young outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, was making his first appearance in Philadelphia. Several years earlier, Drew had balked at signing with the Phillies when the franchise drafted him. If Boston fans can never forget, Philly fans can never forgive. Drew was relentlessly booed, with umpires stopping the game briefly after fans began displaying their arm strength by hurling batteries, coins, and other items at the rookie right-fielder.

The City of Brotherly Love is no place for the modern, thin-skinned athlete.

Opposing players even caught the bad-behavior bug. The visiting locker room apparently afforded players an unimpeded view into the cheerleaders' locker room, showers included. When the cheerleaders figured out what was going on, they filed suit against 29 NFL teams. The Eagles, since their locker room came equipped without the peepholes, are exempted from the suit.

While the Vet has a lot of history, it's more spectacle than heroism. Despite hosting two franchises for thirty or so years, the Vet boasts just one championship team--the 1980 Phillies. Their roster included several hall-of-famers and several more unforgettable characters, with the late Tug McGraw striking-out Willie Wilson with the bases loaded to win the series in six games. That was nearly a quarter century ago though. The Eagles haven't won it all since 1960, the Flyers since they repeated in 1975, and the 76ers since 1983. Philadelphia itself boasts the longest championship drought of any city with teams in each of the four major sports. That's a shame. Fans in the Northeast, who display knowledge and passion (even if it's sometimes misguided passion) about the sports that they follow, deserve better.

Here's to the future. Lincoln Field is a nice looking stadium. Citizens Bank Park, at initial glance, appears to be a field befitting one of baseball's old sixteen teams. More importantly, the Vet's former tenants should be quite competitive this year.

No doubt some Philadelphia fans said "goodbye" as Greg Luzinski depressed the plunger on the explosives this morning. More, I'd be willing to bet, joined me in saying "good riddance."