Bringing down the house
Tonight marks the 54th anniversary of the final game at Connie Mack Stadium (nee Shibe Park), the home of the Philadelphia Athletics and, later, the Phillies.
In what quickly becomes a sidenote to the mayhem that follows, the Phillies win the final game 2-1.
They do this in 10 innings over the Montreal Expos as Tim McCarver singles to center with two outs off Howie Reed, promptly steals second base and scores on another single to center by rookie Oscar Gamble.
Within seconds, fans actually are trying to steal the real second base.
Tim McCarver rounds third base on his way home with the winning run
McCarver and Gamble combine for five of the Phillies’ nine hits in the game with McCarver’s RBI triple in the third inning giving the Phillies a 1-0 lead off Expos starter – and 1970 National League rookie of the year – Carl Morton.
The Phillies are within two outs of winning the game in nine innings before the Expos tie the score at 1 against Barry Lersch on an RBI double by Bobby Wine, Montreal’s light-hitting shortstop who earlier in his career is Philadelphia’s light-hitting shortstop.
Dick Selma then replaces Lersch, quickly ends the Expos’ rally and then all three batters he faces in the 10th inning before McCarver and Gamble end the game a few minutes later.
The Phillies plan a number of postgame activities for the Thursday night crowd of 31,822.
Home plate is going be dug up and taken by helicopter from the rundown, 61-year-old ballpark in the heart of its equally rundown North Philadelphia neighborhood to the site of the Phillies’ new $50 million stadium in South Philly.
The Phillies also reportedly plan to give away a new car, as well as autographed jerseys to a few lucky fans.
Those plans, though, never come to fruition as many of Philadelphia’s not-so-finest fans carry out their own plans – like trying to tear down the venerable, if aging, ballpark from the inside out … while the game still was going on.
The Phillies unwittingly help the mob with a pregame giveaway of wooden slats that are leftover from previous seat repairs. The well-intended souvenirs immediately become makeshift crowbars.
The promotion is the idea of Bill Giles, the Phillies’ then-new marketing guru.
“Bill inadvertently armed the militia,” McCarver says later in David Jordan’s book, Closing ’Em Down.
The militia splits after the game as some remain in the stands to continue the ad-hoc demolition work while many simply storm the field.
“They poured out even before I crossed the plate,” McCarver says, “and they were not coming to shake your hand. They wanted a piece of you, of your clothing, of whatever else they could get. It got a little hairy.”
