Super Bowl Rick
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This is a sports ball episode, a football episode, a that guy episode. Everyone knows that guy.

My that guy was a good buddy in high school. Whenever there was a melee, a fracas, a disturbance, that guy was there. Getting everybody riled up, ranting, grinning, for a smack dab in the middle of the craziest, most ridiculous stories ever. We voted him most sophisticated as a joke. And class partier because he was in fact a class partier. I haven't seen that guy since high school graduation. So, January 6th.

2020, I'm watching TV like most Americans, horrified by the scene unfolding at the nation's capital. And guess who steps to CNN's microphone? Fired up, ranting, who knows what. Just like back in the high school hallways. Immediately, my phone starts blowing up. Did you see? Did you see? Did you see? Did you see? Yeah, I saw. Now here's the thing. Sure, it's kind of strange, but discussing it later...

Not one of us, not one is the slightest bit shocked. It's more like, who else would you expect to be in the middle of it but that guy? Tell the exact same story about someone else, it falls apart. But tell the story about that guy, everyone nods along. So today, a story about a completely different that guy that really couldn't have happened to anyone else. We're calling him Super Bowl Rick.

My name is from Washington. Yes, I too have toured the nation's capital. It was my eighth grade church youth group. And we didn't break a single window. When you're listening to Snap Judge 1978, Titletown, USA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The city of champions with the Pittsburgh Steelers. A bunch of mean, tough, hard-hitting guys with missing teeth who you wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley. They're busy winning Super Bowl rings like it's an annual thing. And they're towel-waving fans. They're just as tough. The kind of people who would work all week and do whatever it takes.

to make it to the tailgate party in the snow on Sunday, waving a golden black towel, shouting polka tunes. But whatever it takes has a whole other meaning when you're from the north side of town. Because this story features real people in their habitat, sensitive listeners to spicy language should be advised. Snap Judgment. Growing up on north side, Pittsburgh, we kind of grew up on the stilts.

That was everyday stuff for us. Over the years, you know, we were going to games and we became so embedded into them. If they lost, Monday was horrible for everybody at work. Tempers were flaring. We were sitting saying they should have done this. I'm third generation steam fitter. Steam fitter's been in Pittsburgh here for 112 years.

Pittsburgh and sports and working in steel mills and smog and rough, tough guys and girls was part of the mantra here. Like, you ain't taking this from us. You know, we'll work all day and all night and all next day and all the next night to get done what we need to get done because we're proud people of our heritage here. And when the Steelers were feeling like they weren't living up to standard in Pittsburgh, our standard here,

We lifted them up and some of it was like tearing them apart a little bit. To bring them back to earth, this is a steel time. Steel. No crying in football.

They're very lousy this year. They don't have no get-up-and-go power. I don't know what's wrong with them. They're cocky. They think they're on top. They think they have a guaranteed berth in the Super Bowl. In the beginning of the year when we were all out having a couple beverages, we had this feeling like we're a part of the Steelers and they need us at the game and we don't have the money to go in. So we decided that we were going to go to every game that season and

And we weren't paying. We were just going every game. And damned if we didn't. We got in here every way possible, including running up to the gate with people we don't even know. And it was that mesh fence gate. And it had to be 40 feet across and like 15 feet high. So 25 people would lift it up because there was play in it. And then we would climb under. And then we'd hold it for them to get under.

And then you turn around and guards are running everywhere and trying to catch us. It was a thing. It was a Northside thing. It wasn't like the whole city or they wouldn't have any money. And the tickets were probably $20, $25 back then.

But I wouldn't know that. That's a fact I wouldn't know. And so as time went on, it was a no-brainer. The atmosphere in this town, which they now call Titletown, is festive. The Pittsburgh Steelers, the mighty ones, they want them to go all the way. So that particular year, when it got to the playoffs, like you might have thought there would be higher security and a bump in the road for us. Nope. Nope.

We got in again. Well said. It's been the Steelers' day, as it usually is in the playoffs. They wouldn't have won without us doing that. That's what cemented us being a part of the Steelers. And the Pittsburgh Steelers are leading it by a score of 34-5 on their way to Miami on the Super Bowl next Sunday afternoon. Now it comes time for the Super Bowl. And my brother Johnny, he called me up right after the game. And he said, hey, Johnny,

"Do you want to go to the Super Bowl?" Which was in Miami. And I said, "Yeah, sure, you know." - Yes, it's Copa on Sports on WTAE. The Steelers are gonna meet the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XIII a week from Sunday. - I looked at pictures on the Orange Bowl at Sports Illustrated 'cause I collected them to see what it was made of. And what I seen was a 12-foot or so diamond-tepted fence going up on top of the rain ring.

So you're talking, what, 30-some feet, all in all? The plan was to go over there, and even if we had to do it the night before, climb in a stadium and hide out. And so I made this scrapping hook. It was ground to time, welded, the whole thing. And I buffed it up, and it was shining. It had a ring on the end. It had the hooks on it and the whole nine yards. And I'm like, I'm set. It's first going to the Super Bowl. You gotta feel it. Yeah!

So we rented a Winnebago and it was my brother John, my brother Kurt, my youngest brother, and my cousin Mike. And we're all staggered walls. And we went on to the Super Bowl. When we got down to the Orange Bowl, the parking lots were full. They were full of buses. So we get down there and we get set up and, you know, we're having a great time. We're loose and we're free and

And we're not worried about anybody. Nobody can stop us. The Pittsburgh Steelers are the greatest in the world! How can they lose when we do something like this for our team? Damn it, we're one! The next day, I get up and I did my exercises and all that stuff. I took a walk, and kind of like we're on a stadium. And then I come back, and my brother and I were up, and I said, hey, listen, you want to go over with me? I'm going to go over and take a look at where we're going to get in at. You know, we can't just show up.

And I'm a man of plans, you know, I put a plan in, but I'm okay with it changing in the middle. So he said, no, no, no, they were all, you know, not feeling so good. So I go over, just me and the grappling hook in the shopping bag. So I get over there and I'm checking it out. And all of a sudden I notice that there's two sets of cops on horses patrolling the stadium right outside.

And it's oval. And they were walking around. And what I figured out was they were rotating. They had two on each side. And they would just rotate and rotate around. So I'm like, okay. And they didn't even have the booths open yet for the ticket people to go in.

And so I walk over there and I'm looking around and milling around and figuring out what to do. And next thing you know, I hear somebody call my name. We had a nickname. They called us all Stag from Stag and Walt. I heard my name, Stag. And I turned to look and it's an old buddy of mine from Northside. And he goes, hey, what's up? You know, he's six foot one.

Kind of a big kid. And I thought, geez, I can use him if we need to get up there. And so his name was Schmitty. And so as it turns out, he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm climbing in a stadium. And I showed him the grappling hook. He said, I'm going with you. I'm like, okay, that works out good. Now we're getting, you know, around 11 o'clock in the morning. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I was bullshitting. When the cops on the horses went around the bend,

20 people run over and was bumping each other up with their hands like this, with their feet onto the ring roof. It went around the stadium because you could stand up on her. And then the 12-foot diamond-tested things. And so I looked at him and he looked at me. I said, we better get going. I threw the grappling hook bag in the bushes, ran over,

And people that I didn't even know popped this up on the roof. And then in return, we would reach over and grab them when somebody popped them up because it was high and got them on the roof. And anyhow, we get up there and now we're climbing the Diamond Tap Defense. They're sharp as can be. They will cut your fingers. And so I knew how to climb that wall. I was up that wall in like seconds, you know, and everybody else was struggling. All you kept hearing was, oh shit. And anyhow, I get all the way to the top and Schmitty's coming up behind me.

Now we looked down, there was a crowd of people watching us and the cops were sitting on horses just looking up at us and the crowd was cheering for us. So anyhow, we turn around and we're like, okay, what are we going to do here? You know, he said to me, where do you want to sit in? I said, well, listen, if I went through all that, I'm sitting on a 50. He goes, okay.

So we go in the stadium, hardly anybody enters, two hours before the game, and we're like, oh, look at this. We're here, we made it. We go down and we're maneuvering around like, I'm thinking, where's the best place to sit? So we went, I bet it was like 40 or 45 rows back, and he's got a whole bottle of tequila. Now the party started.

We're chugging tequila, and next thing you know, the stadium starts filling up. And as the stadium's filling up, I got this little row. There was 40 seats that were empty, and they had not filled up. Nearly 80,000 fans settling into Miami's Orange Bowl on a rainy, windy Sunday afternoon to see firsthand which team is pro football's best, the Cowboys of Dallas, last year's champions, or the Steelers of Pittsburgh, this year's winningest team.

It's getting close to game time, and all of a sudden, two dudes sat down at the very end of them 40 seats. Next thing you know, my buddy said, hey, here comes that dude. And I look up, and one of the dudes from sitting down at the other end comes up, and he goes, hey. He goes, you guys have tickets for these seats? And I look up at him like this, and I said, what are you, the ticket taker? And he goes, no, no, no, no.

He said, this is a company of ours from New York City. And he goes, nobody cares about the Steelers. They're not coming. They're too hungover to come. And I just want to tell you, you're good. I said, you mean to tell me that I got the rest of these seats? And he said, pretty much. I stood up. I gave him five. You know, I even hugged him. Steelers ready to go. Bradshaw backs up. And he fires again. And there's the leaping catch down at the 16-yard line.

Game starts. I'm so excited to be there. Like, I fulfilled a dream. Even if I got thrown out at that moment, I fulfilled the dream of going to all them games for free.

The game's playing, and oh man, what a game. We were crushing them. If the Steelers go up with a second TD here, they can almost put it out of reach. And within eight minutes, they came back with like three touchdowns. There was a guy behind me, he was from Texas, and he was a real tall guy, but he was a nice guy. And I recall Bradshaw firing that ball, the country mile. He's going to throw!

And in the middle of that ball, this is how far he threw it, in the middle of that ball being here, I turned around to him, I said, "I bet you 20 bucks he catches this." And Linz won, catches it with one hand, and we score a touchdown. He paid me my 20 bucks. He was that good of a guy. He just handed me the 20 right there. He said, "I underestimated the Steels." I said, "A lot of people did." - The Steeler motto, it's been the same for many years, whatever it takes. - So next thing you know,

The game's going on and, you know, the clock's kicking down. And my buddy says, hey, let's go get the football, the game ball. I said, that's a great idea. Can you imagine having that? We get down there and they had cops every six to eight feet all facing the crowd. And they were going all the way around. They were right behind the players. And they had nightclubs. I said...

Jeez, I don't know. Let me think here. Wait for the crowd, because I know the crowd's going to rush the field. But then I'm not going to get the game ball. It'll be a mess. So next thing you know, out of nowhere, somebody sets off one of them cannons. And the boom was like, it was bomb level. The echo and you could feel the percussion.

Every cop in that line ducked on and was looking like, oh, geez, everybody ducked. Everybody ducked. And the next thing you know, whoop, I spun right through the fence and I ran over him. By the time it cleared and the cops turned back around to the crowd, I was beside the cop. And he looks at me and I look at him and I said, what the heck was that? He goes, I don't know.

He looked me over, but I had, by chance, the same outfit on as the ball boys for the Steelers. Black sweatpants and the gold shirt. The count time was on, and we're running out on their field. I get out there, there's no ball. I'm like, I'm looking, I'm like, oh shit. Meanwhile, my buddy never made it through. He was too big. He didn't make it through the fence, and the cops stopped him and all that.

So when I get out there and no ball, all of a sudden they're picking up Chuck Knoll. And I see everybody running underneath the stadium to the locker room. I'm like, that's where I'm going. When we return, getting into the big game without a ticket isn't enough, snappers. Can Rick push past the steel curtain? Stay tuned.

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Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Super Bowl Rick episode. Last we left, diehard fan Rick had just drove over a thousand miles and climbed a fence into the stadium to watch his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl. How far is Rick willing to go to be a part of the team? Snap Judgment.

I run off the field with everybody, like they flannel us in and next thing you know I'm not far behind the Steelers and the doors open and the guards they're there and they're staring and go "Oh they stopped us" because I just happened to be where the media was at and the media was like cameras and all this stuff but there was a lot of wires.

He stopped us there and he said, we'll let you in in a minute. We'll let them get settled and we'll let you in. So when he opened the doors back up, I just grabbed one of them cords, said, yeah, I'm part of this crew. And I get in the door and who's right in front of me? And he's up on the podium, Terry Bradshaw, right in front of me. And I left the car, I walked right over and stuck out my hand. I go, Terry Bradshaw, that was one of the best games I ever seen in my life.

And he leans over and he's shaking my hand. He put his hand on my shoulder. He said, thanks a lot. And he's like looking at me like, do I know you or are you part of this? Who cares? He's happy. Shake hands. Passed me on the shoulder. I turned around and I looked down to see the players. There was champagne bottles popping and celebrating. I was giving knuckles to dudes, high fives, many high fives.

It was chaos. There was jockstraps flying by me. There was helmets going the other way. There was shoes getting kicked off. Uniforms were being thrown, cheering. You name it was going on. And through all that, I seen a guy that was my neighbor. It was one of the Steelers. His name was Jack Dauplane, number 35. They called him the Hydroplane. He was a fullback. And so we became friends. He was in the local bars. So now here I am and I see him.

And he sees me. I'm about 25 feet from him. And I look on his face. And I get down. I sit beside him on this side of the bench. Somebody was on the other side. And I go, what's up, man? And he goes, how the F did you get in here? And I said, what, you think you're the only famous dude from Northside?

And the Super Bowl? And he just couldn't believe that I was there. And then he asked all this guy, he said, hi, how you doing? And I said, how in the heck did you get in here? And he told me, I just come in. And the next thing you know, all these reporters come running up. And they're going, Rick, Rick, Rick, can we do an interview with you? And I leaned over to him and I said, do they know me? And he goes, no. They think you're Rick Moser. You're in his locker. I said, oh, what?

He was number 39. Jack was 35. They were in order. I leaned back over to him and I said, where's he at?

He left already, he's pissed that he didn't get to play. I said, "Watch this." He goes, "You're not." I said, "Yes, I am." And I said, "Yeah, go ahead." - They were interviewing him like he was Rick Moser. I was kind of looking at him and laughing because Rick's about 5'5" tops and Rick Moser was about 6'2", 230.

And they were sitting down and they were interviewing him about the game. I gave an interview. There were seven, at least seven of them. And there was no cameras up. And anybody that knows Rick Moser knows that he was like six foot one or two. He was a big hulking guy. Don't get me wrong. My upper body, you know, was comparable because I was lifting a lot, but not my three foot legs. But when I was sitting down, they didn't know.

And so I'm giving the interview and all that's going on. I'm giving them the dissertation of, because the questions are asking me. I said, well, listen, I said, it's very simple. I said, Chuck Knoll had a plan and we just followed the plan. He had a mantra back then, whatever it takes. It was on my t-shirt. City of Champions, Steel City, whatever it takes. I said, hey, you know, like Chuck said, whatever it takes, whatever it takes.

We're winning this game. You would think that these guys would know Rick Moser. Nope. So I'm enjoying myself, and Jack's still sitting below me laughing his ass off. I mean, we just got done winning the Super Bowl, and he's talking to the newspaper reporters. And I thought, what in the heck is wrong with these guys? And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, one of the interviewers said to me, hey, hey, Rick, Rick, listen, we're sorry we're holding you up.

He said, we know you want to take a shower. I'm thinking, okay. And I look over and I see the towel boy with the cart, with the shampoo and all the towels. And meanwhile, I'm gaming from climbing in the stadium. And, you know, I have real good hygiene. And plus the tequila, you know, coming out my pores wasn't helping at all.

I said, yeah, thanks. And they said to me, hey, if it's okay when you're done, could we come back over? And I'm like, yeah, sure. Finish the interview. So they leave and I walk over to the towel boy. I grab two towels. I come back. I stand up on the bench and Del Plain looks up at me and goes, you're not. I said, yes, I'm not. Took all my clothes off in that locker room just like I was one of the players. Put a towel around me.

I said, you gonna be here when I get back? He goes, nope. He didn't want no repercussions, you know? So I went over, walked in the shower room. It was like walking into like a sea of giants. I mean, these guys were gigantic.

And there I am like this little pipsqueak me. And I walk in like I own the place. I'm making it as a J-Bird. We're all making it. And there was one shower open and I go to it and I turn it on, you know, and I hang my towel up on the hook. And the guy beside me was so tall that he was tiring over me. It was almost like a shadow on me.

But somebody yelled to him, and you heard somebody call his name. And I kind of looked up, and he was looking down at me like this. Elsie was in alignment. He was big. And I could tell he was looking at me, and I'm thinking, this might not be good. I better straighten his side now. And I said, hey, what's up, Elsie? I said, that was an awesome game. Great game, man. I'm so proud to be a part of it. You know, I'm just running my shit on him, and I'm trying to juke and bob and weave a little bit.

And Phil Mott, you know? And it didn't look too promising. He still had that puzzled look on his face. And I said, I'm Chuck Newell's nephew, Rick Staggerwald, you know? And we're shaking hands. He goes, oh, that changed everything. He goes, oh, really? Yeah. I said, Chuck's married to a Staggerwald. I'm a Staggerwald. And he was. She was from the South Hills. I didn't know her from a cake and soap. But I knew that. There's got to be some relation there somewhere. There's more Staggerwalds. You can't swing a cat without hitting a Staggerwald here in Pittsburgh.

And so next thing you know, he's introducing me. This is John Knowles' nephew to people, other Steelers. And they're like, slap me fives. No, I'm showing up. I got shampoo now. And I got soap. You know, everybody's washing their junk, right? So after a big game and you're like, you're reflecting. What is the shower to you? It's reflecting, right? Of the day, the journey, right? What did I do today? What did I do good? What did I do right? I don't know about you, but that's what I do.

And that's what it was. I was like, I'm in a locker room and I'm taking a shot at the Steelers. Yeah, good. Because I thought, I'm a part of this team. I'm as much a part of this team as they are. Honestly, because I felt that way. So the Pittsburgh Steelers and the faces tell the entire story. The joy of victory. Three Super Bowl championships. They beat the Cowboys 35-1. So we get through all that and I come out of the locker room and I got a towel around me and I'm drying off.

And all of a sudden, these reporters came back over. And they go, Rick, Rick, Rick, can we finish the interview? Sure, sure, sure. I'm thinking I'm going to put my clothes on and walk back out the door when I'm done bullshitting these people. But one of the players on the team that also didn't get to play, that was pretty upset that he wasn't getting interviewed, was a guy by the name of Sidney Thornton. They called him Thunder Thighs. But anyhow, he's walking by, and I guess he sees me getting interviewed. I'm still naked and drying off.

I wouldn't look up. I didn't want to make eye contact, make it worse. And all of a sudden, I'd hear him yell, Who the F is this? I'd lie for everybody to hear. And the next thing you know, who walks by but the equipment manager for the Steelers, who's giving me the stink eye, he comes over while all the reporters are there, and he goes to grab me by the arm, and he goes, Hey, who are you? And I said, Who are you? Only we use derogatory statements in it.

And he goes, I'm the equipment manager for Steelers and you're no Steeler. And all of a sudden there was a hush over the immediate crowd right there, the reporters. And they were like ducking and shooting away from me. I was left alone. Della plane was gone. I'm like in a spotlight. And I'm like, oh, shit. And so I kept my cool. And when he went to grab me, I said, you better get off me. He went to grab my arm. I'm up on a bench.

And he said, "I'm throwing you out of here." I said, "You better get your hand off me." And he backs off and he says, "I'm going to get security." And I said, "Northside answered, 'Well, get a couple of them.'" And he did. The alarms went off in my head. "Get your shit and get going." I started putting my clothes on as quickly as I could. I walk out the door. I'm thinking, "It's over, right? I'm going to go back to the Winnebago. It's done." Nope.

There was two lines of people on either side behind the barriers all the way out from underneath the stadium, Pittsburghers, to the bus. So I walk up and the first people say, can we have your autograph? And they had pens and I'm scribbling Rick Stagg and they're loving it. I signed shirts. I signed books. I signed posters. The cops were like, hey, how you doing? Jake in my hand, congratulations, you know. Like I got everything going on but a Super Bowl ring on my finger.

And I walked my way. It took me, I'm going to say, 20 minutes to get to the bus. And I get to the bus. The guy opens the bus door. And a lot of the stewardess are on the bus. And I stepped up on that bus. And I said, that was the greatest effing game I've ever seen in my life. You guys are badass. And, you know, they were like, who is this? Before anything could happen, I got off the bus. All them people were there.

And I walked through the crowd, and they're patting me on the back. Get out into the parking lot. Finally, I get away from all that. And I turn around. I look at it, and I go, holy shit. I just did that. I can't wait to go back and tell my brothers. I get back to the Winnebago, and I go in the door, and they're all in there, and they're sitting there looking at me like this. And my brother goes, yeah, nice. Thanks for taking us in the Super Bowl and blah, blah, blah. I said, dude, you know it's every man for himself when you get here. You should have went with me when I went at 10.

That's your fault, not mine. I said, you know how I operate. When it's time, it's time. And he was okay with that because he does know me. And my younger brother, same thing, you know. But he said, where was you at, blah, blah, blah. I said, well, I'm trying to be Joe Cool, you know, real calm. I said, well, I was sitting on the 50, briefs the story. And I said, I just took a shower with the Steelers. He said, get the out of here, you know. And I said, yeah, smell my hair. My hair was still wet. I had long hair. I said, here, smell me. Irish Spring, California.

You can't mistake that smell. And he's like, oh, geez. And I knew that he knew that I wasn't bullshitting. Next morning, my brother Johnny calls my dad up from a pay phone. And my dad said, hey, you know, there's an article in this paper today. And it's about a guy that snuck into the locker room, took a shower with the Steelers. They didn't know my name. And my brother went, shit. He said, dad, that was Ricky. He told me that story yesterday.

The only thing that I think I was offended by was that he said he snuck into the Super Bowl. I thought I didn't sneak in. I climbed in. A huge thank you to the pride of the North Side, Rick Staggerwall, for sharing his story of the snap.

Now, when Rick returned home following the Super Bowl, he shared his story with the Pittsburgh Press in an article that was published in the February 12, 1979 edition of the paper. You can find the link to that article on our website. Rick?

Rick retired after a 39-year career in steam fitting and now serves as the Pennsylvania boxing commissioner. He's a three-time former Golden Gloves boxing champion and longtime referee and was just inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame this past year. Big thanks to Ryan O'Shea, who originally interviewed Rick and the late stealer Jack Delaplane on his YouTube channel. You can find a link to Ryan's videos on our webpage.

The original score for that story was by Dirk Swartzov. It was edited by Anna Sussman and produced by Bo Walsh. Now, after the break, an unexpected place of residence. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. Next, we're going to stick around Pennsylvania where Snap Philly fanatic John Fasile has the story of what may actually be the greatest act of criminal trespass in sports history.

Stem judgment. October 2nd, 1979. The day before Pope John Paul is scheduled to visit Philadelphia. I didn't have a lot of days off, but the weather was nice. And I had two days in a row and I'm heading up Broad Street, leaving town, heading for the seashore. And a voice comes out of the radio saying,

And the voice says that in order to accommodate the millions descending on the city to see the Pope, people will be allowed to park in the lots of Veterans Stadium, home of the Eagles and Phillies. And they said the city has decided that the Vets Stadium parking lot will open as early as four in the morning because people are coming. They're coming to get a good seat at mass close up. Good idea for everybody but me.

Tom Garvey happened to be the sorry son of a bitch who ran those parking lots. I almost hit somebody. I freaked out. I ran a light. I went through a light. Guy was crossing. He was giving me the finger. He was going nuts. And I'm banging on the dash and screaming and yelling, kicking the floor, because now I've got to come up with a crew for the biggest event I've ever faced, and I have nobody to work. I got nobody.

All of Tommy's ticket takers are high school kids. His supervisors are married and have other jobs. Free on the weekends, yeah, but it's Tuesday. So he heads to his favorite bar on South Street to think it over over a Jameson with his friend Seamus. And Seamus says, why don't we have a sleepover at the event? And we all laugh. And as the laughter kind of runs its course, we look at each other and we start going, that's not the worst idea in the world.

Tommy recruits a bunch of people in his immediate vicinity, bartenders, bouncers, barflies, to work the lots. And they head over to the vet, where Tommy has access to an empty concession stand that he usually uses to store boxes of parking tickets. But now it just so happens that it's full of furniture. Couches, chairs, a bed.

So tell me how you end up with all this furniture. Oh, Ozzy... We're going to have to do some editing in here because I don't want to freak people out. But Ozzy...

Ozzy was beautiful. Ozzy was one of the best looking guys on the Eagle. He was handsome. So a couple months before this, Tommy's friend Ozzy, a tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles, was hooking up with two of the Liberty Belt cheerleaders. But they wasn't cheating on them. They were threesome.

One of the Eagles coaches, a religious guy, takes issue with Ozzie's sex life and cuts him from the team. So Ozzie was going to leave town with the clothes on his back. So Ozzie asks Tommy if he can store the furniture from his swinging bachelor pad apartment in the empty concession stand that Tommy has access to. And so he does. And then, lo and behold, a couple days later, Ozzie gets signed to the St. Louis Cardinals and Tommy takes him to the airport.

And I'm watching him go down the ramp with his arm around the first class flight attendant. And she's making eyes at him. She's upgraded him. I'm yelling at Oz. I go, Oz, your furniture. What do you want me to do with that? He turns around. He goes, he said, screw it. He said, take it out in the 50 yard line and burn it. He said, I don't care. I'm out of here. And he was gone. I didn't even think about the furniture until the Pope came to town.

All right, so fast forward again, back to the night before the Pope's visit. And Seamus says, why don't we have a sleepover at the vet? Tommy's tucking in with a bunch of South Street drunks in an empty concession stand full of a swinging bachelor's pad worth of furniture when, in the dark, one of his buddies says this. You know, Garth, if you just cleaned this stuff, the crap up in this here, and cleaned it up and rearranged it, he said this could be the coolest apartment in the world.

And I'm in the dark and I'm lying there thinking, what the hell? I never thought about living there. Do you remember the move-in day? That was the move-in day. The night the Pope came to town was the first night. And the next night I slept there. And then within a week I had, I could prepare food. I had everything. If you walked by the concession stand and the door was open and you looked inside. You'd shrug and see some boxes. A row of boxes stacked to the ceiling.

But if you walked in and to the end of the row, you'd realize it was open to the right. So you'd walk turn right and then it elbowed to the left again. If you made that turn, you'd see the apartment. A bed to the right where the ceiling sloped down beneath the bleachers. A kitchenette with refrigerator and hot plate.

A living room area with sofa, an overstuffed armchair, and an Ethan Allen coffee table shaped like a gear that revolved. Tommy had a record player, a telephone, an artificial fireplace. The entire area was astroturfed, double thickness. What were people's reactions when they saw... Oh, awesome.

One of Tommy's first guests in the apartment was Ozzy, in town with the St. Louis Cardinals. He's looking around, pointing at stuff that was his, he knows, laughing. Tommy showered in the locker room every day. He got his food from the commissary. For exercise, he ran laps around the stadium's giant concrete bowl. He trained for a marathon that way. Of course, this was all totally illegal. And not just that.

I was working for my uncles. Tommy got his job at the parking lots through his uncles. They had a lot at stake. They had a 15-year exclusive contract to sell all food and drink and novelties in Veterans State. If my uncles caught me, they would have fed my ass through the machine that makes hot dogs down at Medford's in Chester.

So how did you avoid getting caught? I hid in plain sight. I was obvious. I had an event there for every day, almost every day out of the year. His friend nicknamed him the stadium cat, after the ubiquitous stray cats that also squatted in the vet and sometimes wandered onto the field during games. I got along with everybody. I knew everybody's names. I knew their kids.

You know, I knew Charlie, the mailman. I knew Mr. Cassidy, who was over at Gate H. I knew the electricians and the plumbers. You know, if I wanted something wired in there, special wiring so I could have TV, I could get it done. Nobody would rat me out.

One night during baseball season, after coming home a little ripped up from where else, South Street, Tommy wandered out into center field, lay down behind second base, and fell asleep. I woke up at dawn with something in my ear, and it was wet.

That something was a German shepherd named Axel. Axel has his tongue in my ear because I know Axel. I have a relationship with Axel because I'm the guy with the dog biscuits. Behind Axel, though, there's a security guard with a flashlight. And the first words out of his mouth were, oh, it's you. And then he said, go wherever it is you go. He went his way and I went my way, but they certainly knew I was in the building. And Vermeule knew I was in that building that night.

Vermeule, as in Coach Dick Vermeule of the Philadelphia Eagles. He found out about Tommy's little Phantom of the Opera routine the hard way. I love roller skating around the stadium at night.

Going around and around on the 600 level in the moonlight. And you see the airports, and then you see the rivers and the bridges, and Center City, and University Park, and the refineries, and then the airport again. And nobody, nobody was ever, I never saw another salt.

So I'm roller skating around the upper levels of that, and I'm having a bear of a time. It's gnarly. I'm doing the ramps. And I decide I get tired. Tommy rides the ramps from the top down to the bottom of the stadium. Then he beelines towards the elevator. I'm flying. I'm flying. I'm too fast for going into the elevator.

Doors open, and inside the elevator, a middle-aged man clutching silver canisters. But I go in and I hit the back wall so hard, I felt pain. I saw nothing in the air but these silver containers all over, and he's screaming. I'm screaming. Yeah, it's Coach Dick Vermeule, pulling a late one. And there's a clatter on the floor, and they're film canisters.

Game, film. And the elevator starts to go up on its own. I'm breathing heavy and he's breathing heavy. And he's sort of in a protective crouch like what, you know, he doesn't know. And we get to the fourth floor and the elevator door opens. And I look down at the canisters all over the floor and I'm looking at him, looking at, he's looking at me. I said, good night, coach. And I skated away.

Tommy was 36 years old. He was single. And for a decade, he'd been drifting from job to job after coming home from a difficult year in Vietnam, where he'd run a U.S. Army border camp during some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

I put the whole Vietnam thing out of my mind. I turned my back on it like it didn't even happen to me and it wasn't real. Because that's how I survived. And that's how I stayed sane. I just didn't have any time for it. I didn't allow myself to have the leisure of sitting back and thinking about things and processing them. But did you have that time when you got to the stadium all of a sudden? I did. I did.

I would sit there up in the seats, and then I would think about what our involvement in Vietnam had been like and what we've been trying to do, but what we actually did, and the incredible loss of life that was there. I found that, you know, all kinds of things came flooding back into me. For almost three years, this stadium, dedicated to veterans, became a safe place where Tommy could have these feelings.

while at the same time living out every Philadelphia sports fan's childhood dreams. It was the second out in the last inning for the World Series, and it was a pop fly, and Booney was on it, and the ball landed in his glove, and then almost like it was in slow motion nightmare, it popped out of his glove in a big U shape and went off about two feet,

And Pete Rose was right there to catch it. And I'm just at the top of the 300 levels in awe with some of my best friends. To be in that crowd.

And then, two, three nights later, to be sitting atop, I'd go up to the top of the 700 level, have a beer. Maybe I'd have something to write with. Maybe not. Maybe I'd smoke a joint. I'd sit there in the moonlight. Nothing but silence and emptiness. But there was something there. And I was part of it. Vet Stadium saved me. Because what came next...

I was ready for. What came next? In 1981, Tommy's uncles lost their contract with the stadium, and Tommy lost his job. He no longer had a reason to be there. He could no longer be that stadium cat. His last Eagles game was a playoff loss to the Giants, and the next day, he locked the apartment door and turned in the keys to his kingdom.

When the vet was imploded, where were you? I was home. 30 seconds station, 30 seconds to implosion at Veterans Station. 30 seconds, you heard the 30 second call. Some 30 years later, Tommy's at home. After the vet, he moved to Texas, then moved to Jersey, met his wife, and got into real estate. And he's watching on TV as the vet is imploded. Fire, fire! Coming down, column by column, in a cloud of dust. It was emotional. I felt...

bad because I knew there were probably cats still in the stadium. They'd never catch them all and they could never run that fast. But I realized, I recognized that its time had come. In its place now, two stadiums, one for the Eagles and one for the Phillies, covered in LEDs, looking like they landed from outer space. Where the vet once stood is part of the parking lot.

And all that's left is a commemorative plaque where home base used to be. And I've been out there with my little three-legged dog, and we walked down the left field foul line, taking a pretty good measure of about how many feet it would get to get out to 306 or whatever it is, and stand there and know this is where not far from here was the door to the apartment. It's all down there. The memory of the place where he finally came home.

And it's mine forever. Thank you, Tom Garvey, the man, the legend. You can read Tom's books, The Secret Apartment, about his time in Veterans Stadium, and Mini Buku Magics, about his time in Vietnam. Thanks as well to Judd Berthoff and to John Grossman. This piece was edited by Nancy Lopez. The original score was by Dirk Swertzoff. It was produced by John Fasile.

Now, do you know someone who would love this episode? Do you know someone like Super Bowl Rick? Do you know someone who knows someone like Super Bowl Rick? Send them this episode on your favorite podcast app, and there are more stories where this came from. KQED in San Francisco, the Snaps orbiting Hall of Justice on Team Snap.

Thank you.

Except, of course, for the Uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich. He's convinced of all that. Stop and put your hands behind your head. That's just jokes. That was Nancy Lopez, Pat McSeed Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorio, John Fasile, Shana Shealy, Taylor Ducat, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame, Regina Barriaco,

And this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you could show up at the next Super Bowl without any tickets or identification. Just tell them you listened to snap judgment. And when they immediately wave you right through to your premium box seats with the buffet spread and the champagne service, you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is...