Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U. S. state located in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin is the 20th most populous; the state capital is Madison, its largest city is Milwaukee, located on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The state is divided into 72 counties. Wisconsin's geography is diverse, having been impacted by glaciers during the Ice Age with the exception of the Driftless Area; the Northern Highland and Western Upland along with a part of the Central Plain occupies the western part of the state, with lowlands stretching to the shore of Lake Michigan. Wisconsin is second to Michigan in the length of its Great Lakes coastline. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of European settlers entered the state, many of whom emigrated from Germany and Scandinavia. Like neighboring Minnesota, the state remains a center of German American and Scandinavian American culture.
Wisconsin is known as "America's Dairyland" because it is one of the nation's leading dairy producers famous for its cheese. Manufacturing, information technology, cranberries and tourism are major contributors to the state's economy; the word Wisconsin originates from the name given to the Wisconsin River by one of the Algonquian-speaking Native American groups living in the region at the time of European contact. French explorer Jacques Marquette was the first European to reach the Wisconsin River, arriving in 1673 and calling the river Meskousing in his journal. Subsequent French writers changed the spelling from Meskousing to Ouisconsin, over time this became the name for both the Wisconsin River and the surrounding lands. English speakers anglicized the spelling from Ouisconsin to Wisconsin when they began to arrive in large numbers during the early 19th century; the legislature of Wisconsin Territory made the current spelling official in 1845. The Algonquin word for Wisconsin and its original meaning have both grown obscure.
Interpretations vary. One leading theory holds that the name originated from the Miami word Meskonsing, meaning "it lies red", a reference to the setting of the Wisconsin River as it flows through the reddish sandstone of the Wisconsin Dells. Other theories include claims that the name originated from one of a variety of Ojibwa words meaning "red stone place", "where the waters gather", or "great rock". Wisconsin has been home to a wide variety of cultures over the past 14,000 years; the first people arrived around 10,000 BCE during the Wisconsin Glaciation. These early inhabitants, called Paleo-Indians, hunted now-extinct ice age animals such as the Boaz mastodon, a prehistoric mastodon skeleton unearthed along with spear points in southwest Wisconsin. After the ice age ended around 8000 BCE, people in the subsequent Archaic period lived by hunting and gathering food from wild plants. Agricultural societies emerged over the Woodland period between 1000 BCE to 1000 CE. Toward the end of this period, Wisconsin was the heartland of the "Effigy Mound culture", which built thousands of animal-shaped mounds across the landscape.
Between 1000 and 1500 CE, the Mississippian and Oneota cultures built substantial settlements including the fortified village at Aztalan in southeast Wisconsin. The Oneota may be the ancestors of the modern Ioway and Ho-Chunk tribes who shared the Wisconsin region with the Menominee at the time of European contact. Other Native American groups living in Wisconsin when Europeans first settled included the Ojibwa, Fox and Pottawatomie, who migrated to Wisconsin from the east between 1500 and 1700; the first European to visit what became Wisconsin was the French explorer Jean Nicolet. He canoed west from Georgian Bay through the Great Lakes in 1634, it is traditionally assumed that he came ashore near Green Bay at Red Banks. Pierre Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers visited Green Bay again in 1654–1666 and Chequamegon Bay in 1659–1660, where they traded for fur with local Native Americans. In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet became the first to record a journey on the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway all the way to the Mississippi River near Prairie du Chien.
Frenchmen like Nicholas Perrot continued to ply the fur trade across Wisconsin through the 17th and 18th centuries, but the French made no permanent settlements in Wisconsin before Great Britain won control of the region following the French and Indian War in 1763. So, French traders continued to work in the region after the war, some, beginning with Charles de Langlade in 1764, settled in Wisconsin permanently, rather than returning to British-controlled Canada; the British took over Wisconsin during the French and Indian War, taking control of Green Bay in 1761 and gaining control of all of Wisconsin in 1763. Like the French, the British were interested in little but the fur trade. One notable event in the fur trading industry in Wisconsin occurred in 1791, when two free African Americans set up a fur trading post among the Menominee at present day Marinette; the first permanent settlers French Canadians, some Anglo-New Englanders and a few African American freedmen, arrived in Wisconsin while it was under British control.
Charles Michel de Langlade is recognized as the first settler, establishing a trading post at Green Bay in 1745, moving there permanently in 1764. Settlement began at Prairie du Chien around 1781; the French residents at the trading post in what is now Green Bay, referred to the t
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area, of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area, held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada's most populous CMA. Toronto is the anchor of an urban agglomeration, known as the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A global city, Toronto is a centre of business, finance and culture, is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world. People have travelled through and inhabited the Toronto area, situated on a broad sloping plateau interspersed with rivers, deep ravines, urban forest, for more than 10,000 years. After the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase, when the Mississauga surrendered the area to the British Crown, the British established the town of York in 1793 and designated it as the capital of Upper Canada. During the War of 1812, the town was the site of the Battle of York and suffered heavy damage by United States troops.
York was incorporated in 1834 as the city of Toronto. It was designated as the capital of the province of Ontario in 1867 during Canadian Confederation; the city proper has since expanded past its original borders through both annexation and amalgamation to its current area of 630.2 km2. The diverse population of Toronto reflects its current and historical role as an important destination for immigrants to Canada. More than 50 percent of residents belong to a visible minority population group, over 200 distinct ethnic origins are represented among its inhabitants. While the majority of Torontonians speak English as their primary language, over 160 languages are spoken in the city. Toronto is a prominent centre for music, motion picture production, television production, is home to the headquarters of Canada's major national broadcast networks and media outlets, its varied cultural institutions, which include numerous museums and galleries and public events, entertainment districts, national historic sites, sports activities, attract over 25 million tourists each year.
Toronto is known for its many skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, in particular the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere, the CN Tower. The city is home to the Toronto Stock Exchange, the headquarters of Canada's five largest banks, the headquarters of many large Canadian and multinational corporations, its economy is diversified with strengths in technology, financial services, life sciences, arts, business services, environmental innovation, food services, tourism. When Europeans first arrived at the site of present-day Toronto, the vicinity was inhabited by the Iroquois, who had displaced the Wyandot people, occupants of the region for centuries before c. 1500. The name Toronto is derived from the Iroquoian word tkaronto, meaning "place where trees stand in the water"; this refers to the northern end of what is now Lake Simcoe, where the Huron had planted tree saplings to corral fish. However, the word "Toronto", meaning "plenty" appears in a 1632 French lexicon of the Huron language, an Iroquoian language.
It appears on French maps referring to various locations, including Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, several rivers. A portage route from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron running through this point, known as the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, led to widespread use of the name. In the 1660s, the Iroquois established two villages within what is today Toronto, Ganatsekwyagon on the banks of the Rouge River and Teiaiagon on the banks of the Humber River. By 1701, the Mississauga had displaced the Iroquois, who abandoned the Toronto area at the end of the Beaver Wars, with most returning to their base in present-day New York. French traders abandoned it in 1759 during the Seven Years' War; the British defeated the French and their indigenous allies in the war, the area became part of the British colony of Quebec in 1763. During the American Revolutionary War, an influx of British settlers came here as United Empire Loyalists fled for the British-controlled lands north of Lake Ontario; the Crown granted them land to compensate for their losses in the Thirteen Colonies.
The new province of Upper Canada was being needed a capital. In 1787, the British Lord Dorchester arranged for the Toronto Purchase with the Mississauga of the New Credit First Nation, thereby securing more than a quarter of a million acres of land in the Toronto area. Dorchester intended the location to be named Toronto. In 1793, Governor John Graves Simcoe established the town of York on the Toronto Purchase lands, naming it after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Simcoe decided to move the Upper Canada capital from Newark to York, believing that the new site would be less vulnerable to attack by the United States; the York garrison was constructed at the entrance of the town's natural harbour, sheltered by a long sand-bar peninsula. The town's settlement formed at the eastern end of the harbour behind the peninsula, near the present-day intersection of Parliament Street and Front Street. In 1813, as part of the War of 1812, the Battle of York ended in the town's capture and plunder by United States forces.
The surrender of the town was negotiated by John Strachan. American soldiers destroyed much of the garrison and set fire to the parliament buildings during their five-day occupation; because of the sacking of York, British troops retaliated in the war with the Burning of Wa
Kauffman Stadium
Kauffman Stadium called "The K", is a baseball park located in Kansas City, home to the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball. It is part of the Truman Sports Complex together with the adjacent Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League; the ballpark is named for the founder and first owner of the Royals. It opened in 1973 as Royals Stadium and was named for Kauffman on July 2, 1993; the ballpark's listed seating capacity since 2009 is 37,903. Kauffman Stadium was built for baseball during an era when building multisport "cookie-cutter" stadiums was commonplace, it is held up along with Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles as one of the best examples of modernist stadium design. It is the only ballpark in the American League to be named after a person and is one of ten stadiums in Major League Baseball that does not have a corporate-sponsored name; the stadium is the sixth-oldest stadium in Major League Baseball and has hosted the 1973 and the 2012 MLB All-Star Games, along with Royals home games during the 1980, 1985, 2014, 2015 World Series.
Between 2007 and 2009, Kauffman Stadium underwent a $250 million renovation, which included updates and upgrades in fan amenities, a new Royals hall of fame area, other updates throughout the facility. In 1967, voters in Jackson County approved the bonds for Truman Sports Complex, which featured a football stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs and a baseball stadium for the Kansas City Athletics, whose owner, Charles O. Finley, had just signed a new lease to remain in Kansas City; this was a unusual proposal. Before the 1968 season, Finley moved the A's to Oakland and their brand-new multi-purpose stadium. After the move, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri threatened to press for the revocation of baseball's anti-trust exemption if they did not give Kansas City a new team. Baseball responded by hastily granting expansion franchises to four cities, including a Kansas City team owned by local pharmaceutical magnate Ewing Kauffman; the new teams were due to start play in 1971. However, Symington was not about to have Kansas City wait three years for the return of baseball, forced MLB to move up the start date to 1969.
Jackson County continued its plans to build a new ballpark. After playing their first four seasons in Municipal Stadium, on April 10, 1973, the Royals inaugurated Royals Stadium with a win over the Texas Rangers; the stadium was like the rest of the complex was designed by Kivett and Myers, constructed by the joint venture of the Sharp and Webb construction firms. On May 15, 1973, the stadium a month into its existence, saw Nolan Ryan, pitching for the California Angels, throw the first of his seven no-hitters, blanking the Royals 3–0. On July 24, 1973, Royals Stadium hosted its first of two Major League Baseball All-Star Games. On October 9, 1976, the Royals competed in their first post-season game in franchise history, losing 4–1 to the New York Yankees at Royals Stadium in the ALCS; the Royals came back to win the next game on October 10, 6–3, for their first post-season win in Royals Stadium. On October 17, 1980, the first World Series game held in Kansas City featured the hometown Royals against the Philadelphia Phillies.
In his first at-bat, George Brett hit a home run down the right field line. The Royals would go on to record 4 -- 3 in 10 innings. However, the Royals would lose the World Series that year in six games. On October 11, 1985, in Game 3 of the ALCS, George Brett hit two home runs off Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Doyle Alexander, made a back-handed stop at third base to throw out a runner at home, recorded the final out to give the Royals a much-needed 6–5 win; the Royals went on to win the American League pennant in seven games. On October 27 of that same year, the Royals clinched their first World Series title in franchise history, winning Game 7 in Royals Stadium. Led by the pitching of Bret Saberhagen, Darryl Motley's two-run home run, George Brett's four hits, the Royals beat the St. Louis Cardinals 11–0; the Royals were the first team in the history of the World Series to lose the first two games of the series at home and come back to win. In 2012, the stadium hosted its second All-Star Game, which the National League won 8-0.
The stadium hosted the Royals' first playoff game in nearly 29 years when the city's former team, the Athletics, came to town for the 2014 American League Wild Card Game. Despite trailing 7-3 in the eighth inning, Kansas City rallied to win the game, 9-8, advance to the 2014 ALDS, they hosted Games 1, 2, 6, 7 against the San Francisco Giants in the World Series but lost the series, 4-3. In 2015, the stadium hosted playoff games as the Royals once again made the playoffs, this time as the highest ranked American League team. Games 1, 2, 5 of the ALDS against the Houston Astros were played at the stadium, with the Royals winning Games 2 and 5, as well as Games 1, 2, 6 of the ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays, with the Royals winning all three games; the stadium hosted games 1 and 2 of the 2015 World Series against the New York Mets as a result of the American League winning the 2015 MLB All-Star Game 6-3. The Royals won game 2, as well as the entire series. Kauffman Stadium was the last bas
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez is the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The city is referred to by locals as Juárez, was known as Paso del Norte until 1888. Juárez is the seat of the municipality of Juárez with an estimated population of 1,428,508; the city lies on the Rio Grande river, south of El Paso, United States. Together with the surrounding areas, the cities form El Paso–Juárez, the second largest binational metropolitan area on the Mexico–U. S. Border, with a combined population of 2.3 million people. There are four international points of entry connecting Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, including the Bridge of the Americas, Ysleta International Bridge, Paso del Norte Bridge and Stanton Street Bridge; these combined allowed 29,391,513 crossings in 2017, making Ciudad Juárez a major point of entry and transportation into the U. S. for all of central northern Mexico. The city has a growing industrial center, made up in large part by more than 300 maquiladoras located in and around the city.
According to a 2007 New York Times article, Ciudad Juárez "is now absorbing more new industrial real estate space than any other North American city". In 2008, fDi Magazine designated Ciudad Juárez "The City of the Future"; the launch of the Mexican drug war in 2007 increased violence during that year. In more recent years, violence has gone down with a decrease in homicides since 2010. In 1659, as Spanish explorers sought a route through the southern Rocky Mountains, the Franciscan Friar García de San Francisco founded Ciudad Juárez as Paso del Norte; the Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe became the first permanent Spanish development in the area. The Native American population was present there; the Franciscan friars established a community that grew in importance as commerce between Santa Fe and Chihuahua passed through it. The wood for the bridge across the Rio Grande first came from Santa Fe, New Mexico in the 18th century; the original population of Suma and immigrants brought by the Spanish as slaves from Central New Spain grew around the mission.
In 1680 during the Pueblo Revolt, some members of the Tigua branch of the Pueblo became refugees from the conflict and a Mission was established for them in Ysleta del Paso del Norte. Other colonial era settlements included Senecú, Real de San Lorenzo, the Presidio de San José; the population of the entire district reached some 5,000 around 1750 when the Apache attacked the other native towns around the missions. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the Rio Grande as the border between Mexico and the United States, separating the settlements on the north bank of the river from the rest of the town; such settlements were not part of the town at that time. This would become El Paso, Texas. From that time until around 1930 populations on both sides of the border could move across it. Ciudad Juárez and El Paso are one of the 14 pairs of cross-border town naming along the Mexico–U. S. Border. During the French intervention in Mexico, Paso del Norte served as a temporary stop for Benito Juárez's republican forces until he established his government-in-exile in Chihuahua.
After 1882 the city grew with the arrival of the Mexican Central Railway. Banks, telegraph and trams appeared, indicating the city's thriving commerce, in the firm control of the city's oligarchy of the Ochoa, Daguerre and Cuarón families. In 1888, Paso del Norte was renamed in honor of Juárez; the city expanded thanks to Díaz's free-trade policy, creating a new retail and service sector along the old Calle del Comercio and September 16 Avenue. A bullring opened in 1899; the Escobar brothers founded the city's first institution of higher education in 1906, the Escuela Particular de Agricultura. That same year, a series of public works are inaugurated, including the city's sewage and drainage system, as well as potable water. A public library, new public market and parks dotted the city, making it one of many Porfirian showcases. Modern hotels and restaurants catered to the increased international railroad traffic from the 1880s on. In 1909, Díaz and William Howard Taft planned a summit in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, a historic first meeting between a Mexican and a U.
S. president, the first time a U. S. president would cross the border into Mexico. But tensions rose on both sides of the border over the disputed Chamizal strip connecting Ciudad Juárez to El Paso though it would have been considered neutral territory with no flags present during the summit; the Texas Rangers, 4,000 U. S. and Mexican troops, U. S. Secret Service agents, FBI agents and U. S. marshals were all called in to provide security. Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, was put in charge of a 250 private security detail hired by John Hays Hammond. On October 16, the day of the summit and Private C. R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route. Burnham and Moore captured and arrested the assassin within only a few feet of Díaz and Taft; the city was Mexico's largest border town by 1910—and as such, it held strategic importance during the Mexican Revolution. In May 1911, about 3,000 revolutionary fighters under the leadership of Francisco Madero laid siege to Ciudad Juárez, garrisoned by 500 regular Federal troops under the command of General Juan J Navarro.
Navarro's force was supported by 300 civilian auxi
Tiger Stadium (Detroit)
Tiger Stadium known as Navin Field and Briggs Stadium, was a baseball park located in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. It hosted the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball from 1912 to 1999, as well as the Detroit Lions of the National Football League from 1938 to 1974, it was declared a State of Michigan Historic Site in 1975 and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1989. The stadium was nicknamed "The Corner" for its location on Trumbull Avenue; the last Detroit Tigers game at the stadium was held in September 1999. In the decade after the Tigers vacated the stadium, several rejected redevelopment and preservation efforts gave way to demolition; the stadium's demolition was completed on September 21, 2009, though the stadium's actual playing field remains at the corner where the stadium once stood. Since the spring of 2010, a volunteer group known as the Navin Field Grounds Crew has restored and maintained the field. A plan to redevelop the old Tiger Stadium site would retain the historic playing field for youth sports and ring the 10-acre property with new development has received final approval, funding.
In 1895, Detroit Tigers owner George Vanderbeck had a new ballpark built at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. That stadium was called Bennett Park and featured a wooden grandstand with a wooden peaked roof in the outfield. At the time, some places in the outfield were only marked off with rope. In 1911, new Tigers owner Frank Navin ordered a new steel-and-concrete baseball park on the same site that would seat 23,000 to accommodate the growing numbers of fans. Navin Field opened on April 1912, the same day as the Boston Red Sox's Fenway Park. While constructed on the same site as Bennett Park, the diamond at Navin Field was rotated 90°, with home plate located in what had been left field at Bennett Park. Cleveland Naps player "Shoeless" Joe Jackson banned from baseball for life following the Black Sox Scandal, scored the first run at Navin Field on the opening day; the intimate configurations of both stadiums, both conducive to high-scoring games featuring home runs, prompted baseball writers to refer to them as "bandboxes" or "cigar boxes".
Over the years, expansion continued to accommodate more people. In 1935, following Navin's death, new owner Walter Briggs oversaw the expansion of Navin Field to a capacity of 36,000 by extending the upper deck to the foul poles and across right field. By 1938, the city had agreed to move Cherry Street, allowing left field to be double-decked and the now-renamed Briggs Stadium had a capacity of 53,000. In 1961, new owner John Fetzer took control of the stadium and gave it its final name: Tiger Stadium. Under this name, the stadium witnessed World Series titles in 1968 and 1984. A fire gutted the press box on the evening of February 1, 1977. In 1977, the Tigers sold the stadium to the city of Detroit, which leased it back to the Tigers; as part of this transfer, the green wooden seats were replaced with blue and orange plastic ones and the stadium's interior, green, was painted blue to match. In 1992, new owner Mike Ilitch began many cosmetic improvements to the ballpark with the addition of the Tiger Den and Tiger Plaza.
The Tiger Den was an area in the lower deck between first and third base that had padded seats and section waiters. The Tiger Plaza was constructed in the old players parking lot and consisted of many concessionaires and a gift shop. After the 1994 strike, plans were made to construct a new park, but many campaigned to save the old stadium. Plans to modify and maintain Tiger Stadium as the home of the Tigers, known as the Cochrane Plan, were supported by many in the community, but were never considered by the Tigers. Ground was broken for the new Comerica Park during the 1997 season. Tiger Stadium had a 125-foot tall flagpole in fair play, to the left of dead center field near the 440 foot mark; the same flag pole was to be brought to Comerica Park, but this never took place. A new flagpole in the spirit of Tiger Stadium's pole was positioned in fair play at Comerica Park until the left field fence was moved in closer prior to the 2003 season; the original Tiger Stadium flagpole, designed by Rudolph V. Herman at the request of W. O. "Spike" Briggs, is still in its original position on the now vacant site.
When the stadium closed, it was tied with Fenway Park as the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball, the two parks having opened on the same date in 1912. Taking predecessor Bennett Field into account, Tiger Stadium was the oldest Major League Baseball site in use in 1999; the right field upper deck overhung the field by 10 feet, prompting the installation of spotlights above the warning track. When the park was expanded in 1936 and the second deck was added over the right field pavilion and bleachers, there was a limited amount of space between the right field fence and the street behind it. To fit as many seats as possible in the expansion, the second deck was extended over the fence by 10 feet; the overhang would "catch" some high arced fly balls and prevent the right fielder standing underneath it with his back to the fence from catching the ball, resulting in a home run for the batter, in what otherwise would have been a long out. Other batted balls would hit the facing of the overhang and bounce far back into right field.
Like other older baseball stadiums such as Fenway Park and Wrigley Field, Tiger Stadium offered "obstructed view" seats, some of which were directly behind a steel support column.
Veterans Stadium
Veterans Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium in Philadelphia, United States. It was located at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, as part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex; the listed seating capacities in 1971 were 65,358 seats for football, 56,371 for baseball. It hosted the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball from 1971 to 2003 and the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League from 1971 to January 2003; the 1976 and 1996 Major League Baseball All-Star Games were held at the venue. The Vet hosted the annual Army-Navy football game seventeen times between 1980 and 2001. In addition to professional baseball and football, the stadium hosted other amateur and professional sports, large entertainment events, other civic affairs, it was demolished by implosion in March 2004 after being replaced by the adjacent Citizens Bank Park and Lincoln Financial Field. A parking lot now sits on its former site; as early as 1959, Phillies owner R. R. M. Carpenter Jr. proposed building a new ballpark for the Phillies on 72 acres adjacent to the Garden State Park Racetrack in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
The Phillies' then-home, Connie Mack Stadium, was starting to show its age, had inadequate parking, was located in a declining neighborhood. Furthermore, in 1959 alcohol sales at sporting events were banned in Pennsylvania but were legal in New Jersey; the proposed ballpark would have seated 45,000 fans, been expandable to 60,000 and would have had 15,000 parking spaces. The American League's Philadelphia Athletics had moved to Kansas City, Missouri after the 1954 season, the NBA's Philadelphia Warriors had moved to San Francisco in 1962, Philadelphians weren't about to lose another professional sports franchise. In 1964, Philadelphia voters approved a US$25-million-bond issue for a new stadium to serve as the home of both the Eagles and the Phillies; because of cost overruns, the voters had to go to the polls again in 1967 to approve another $13 million. At a total cost of $60 million, it was one of the most-expensive ballparks to date; the stadium was named in 1968, for the veterans of all wars.
As early as December 1969, the Phillies expected that they would play the first month of the 1970 season at Connie Mack Stadium before moving to the new venue. However, the opening was delayed a year because of a combination of bad cost overruns; the stadium's design was nearly circular, was known as an "octorad" design, which attempted to facilitate both football and baseball. Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego had been designed; as was the case with other cities where this dual approach was tried, the fundamentally different sizes and shapes of the playing fields made the stadium inadequate to the needs of either sport. The stadium opened with a $3 million scoreboard complex that at the time was the most expensive installed; the Phillies played their first game at the stadium on April 10, 1971, beating the Montreal Expos, 4–1, before an audience of 55,352. The first ball was dropped by helicopter to Phillies back-up catcher Mike Ryan. Jim Bunning was the winning pitcher. Entertainer Mike Douglas, whose daily talk show was taped in Philadelphia, sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the game.
The emcee for the opening ceremonies was newly-arrived Phillies play-by-play announcer Harry Kalas. Boots Day opened the game by grounding out to Bunning. Larry Bowa had the stadium's first hit and Don Money slugged the first home run; as the stadium aged, its condition deteriorated. A hole in the wall allowed visiting teams' players to peep into the Eagles Cheerleaders dressing room. So many mice infested the stadium; the final football game played at the Vet was the Eagles' 27–10 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC Championship Game on January 19, 2003. The Eagles moved into Lincoln Financial Field in August 2003; the final game played at the stadium was the afternoon of September 28, 2003, a 5-2 Phillies loss to the Atlanta Braves. The final hit was recorded by Greg Maddux of the Braves, the final loss by the Phils' Kevin Millwood; the final Phillies run was scored by Marlon Byrd at the top of the 3rd inning, the final run altogether by the Braves' Andruw Jones on a double by Robert Fick at the top of the 5th.
The final hit at the Vet was a single by the Phills' Pat Burrell at the bottom of the 9th. The next batter, Chase Utley, grounded into a double play to end the Vet. However, the ceremony that followed pulled at the heartstrings of the sellout crowd. Both Paul Owens, a former general manager, Tug McGraw, a former pitcher, made their final public appearances at the park that day; the last publicly broadcast words uttered in the park were by Harry Kalas — a veteran announcer who helped open the facility on April 10, 1971 — who paraphrased his trademark home run call: "And now, Veterans Stadium is like a 3-1 pitch to Jim Thome or Mike Schmidt. It's on a looooooong drive…IT'S OUTTA HERE!!!" The team played their first game at their new home at Citizens Bank Park on April 12, 2004. On March 21, 2004, the 32-year-old stadium was imploded in 62 seconds. Frank Bardonaro, President of Philadelphia-based AmQuip Crane Rental Company press
Giants Stadium
Giants Stadium was a stadium located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The venue had been open between 1976 and 2010, it hosted sporting events and concerts in its history; the maximum seating capacity was 80,242. The structure itself was 756 feet long, 592 feet wide and 144 feet high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 178 feet high to the top of the south tower; the volume of the stadium was 64,500,000 cubic feet, 13,500 tons of structural steel were used in the building process while 29,200 tons of concrete were poured. It was operated by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. In the early 1970s the New York Giants, who at the time were sharing Yankee Stadium with the New York Yankees baseball team, began looking for a home of their own; the Giants struck a deal with the fledgling New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority in 1971 and ground broke on the construction of the new facility in 1972. The 1972 season was the Giants' last full season in Yankee Stadium, as the ballpark was closed for a massive reconstruction following the end of the Yankees' season.
Since their new stadium would take a significant amount of time to finish, they could not use their home facility due to the construction, the Giants moved out of state and played in New Haven, Connecticut at the Yale Bowl early in the 1973 season. After spending two years in New Haven, the Giants would return to New York for one final season in 1975 and shared Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens with the Yankees, New York Mets, New York Jets; the Giants moved into their new home on October 10, 1976. Eight years after Giants Stadium opened, it gained a second major tenant; the Jets' lease at Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets, had expired at the end of the 1983 season and team owner Leon Hess was having trouble negotiating terms of a new lease to stay in Queens. The city of New York was unwilling to agree to his terms and Hess decided to move the Jets to the Meadowlands permanently, their first game in Giants Stadium was on September 6, 1984. With the Jets now playing at the stadium, the grounds crew needed to find a way to set their games apart from Giants games and make them more inviting for their fans and came up with a series of green and white banners and coverings that were hung over the field-level blue walls that circled the stadium and the four entrance gates outside the stadium.
The sharing of the stadium by both the Giants and Jets enabled it to break a record that had long been held by Chicago's Wrigley Field. Entering the 2003 season, its 28th, Giants Stadium had played host to 364 NFL games, second only to the 365 played at Wrigley by the Chicago Bears in their 50 seasons there; the Giants' season opening game with the St. Louis Rams tied the record, the following week the Jets' home opener against the Miami Dolphins broke it. Giants Stadium was home to the New York Cosmos, a professional soccer team that attracted record crowds during the late 1970s; the New York/New Jersey MetroStars of Major League Soccer played in the stadium from 1996 to 2009. Giants Stadium was closed following the 2009 NFL season following the construction of what is now MetLife Stadium in the surrounding parking lot; the stadium's final event was the January 3, 2010 game featuring the Jets hosting the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday Night Football. A month after the game, demolition of the structure began and was completed on August 10, 2010.
The New York Giants and New York Jets both moved to MetLife Stadium in 2010. Giants Stadium was the first major league sporting venue in New Jersey, its success, along with that of the Giants in the 1980s was a major impetus behind increased pride and enthusiasm among New Jersey residents. Giants Stadium opened on October 10, 1976, as 76,042 fans witnessed a 24–14 loss by the Giants to the Dallas Cowboys; the Giants had played their first four games on the road that season. College football made its debut at Giants Stadium on October 23, 1976, with Rutgers University defeating Columbia 47–0 and extending their winning streak to 14 games; the New York Giants played their season-opening home game in the stadium on September 18 of the 1977 season. Other professional football teams that have called Giants Stadium home over the years include the New Jersey Generals of the USFL; the 1985 USFL championship game which turned out to be the last USFL game played was held at Giants Stadium. In the second week of the 2005 season, the New Orleans Saints used the stadium for a "home" game against the Giants because of extensive damage to the Louisiana Superdome after Hurricane Katrina.
One end zone was painted in Saints colors, Saints banners were hung on the walls around the sidelines, the Saints wore their home jerseys. The game was rescheduled to a Monday night with a special start time of 7:30 PM EDT, preceding the other scheduled game on Monday Night Football; the Giants were not visitors at Giants Stadium unless they were playing the Jets. The stadium hosted college football games, including the Garden State Bowl from 1978 to 1981.
