Coors Field
Mile High Stadium
Formerly Bears Stadium
Denver, Colorado
Groundbreaking: 1947
First Western League game: August 14, 1948
First AFL game: September 9, 1960
First National League game: April 9, 1993
Last NFL game: December 23, 2000
Last National League game: August 7, 1994
Surface: Grass
Seating Capacity: 17,000 (1948); 34,657 (1959); 50,657 (1968);
63,532 (1976); 75,100 (1977); 76,273 (1986); 80,200 (Baseball 1993)
Owner: Bob Howsam; City and County of Denver (Parks and Recreation Department)
Cost: $280,000 (1948); $25 million (1968 expansion)
Dimensions:
LF foul line: 333 ft
Left-center field: 366 ft
Center field: 423 ft
Right-center field: 400 ft
RF foul line: 370 ft
Height of fences: Left field: 12 feet; center field: 30 feet; right field: 14 feet.
Hosted World Series: Never
Hosted All-Star Game: Never
Hosted AFC Championship game: 1978, 1988, 1990, 1999
Mile High Stadium rose from a dumping ground into the symbol of city —
Denver's field of dreams
By Kevin Vaughan
It saw more than 3,000 baseball games and more than 300 football games. It hosted rock stars and religious revivals, a prize fighter and a pope.
These days, any talk about Mile High Stadium generally starts and ends with the Denver Broncos. But before the Broncos, there were the Bears. And before it was Mile High Stadium, it was Bears Stadium.
It was the fall of 1947. Bob Howsam, his brother, Earl, and their father, Lee, bought the Denver Bears, the city's beloved minor league baseball team. In those days, the Bears called Merchants Park home. The old ballpark on South Broadway and Center Avenue was falling apart. Splinters were common on its green wooden plank bleachers. Some feared it was a fire trap.
"When we bought the ballclub, we knew we'd have to build a new stadium," said Bob Howsam. Denver's mayoral election earlier that year had set the stage. The incumbent, Ben Stapleton, wanted a new stadium for the team, and he promised anyone willing to build it a great deal — 15 acres of land on the west side for $1.
The land, situated along the east side of Federal Boulevard, had been the city's dump for years. Stapleton, however, lost. The new mayor, Quigg Newton, charged the Howsams $33,000. Soon, people heading up and down Federal saw tractors moving dirt. They saw concrete mixers churning out slurry to form the terraces that would hold the seats. And two boys who lived in West Denver near Sloan's Lake often walked over to the ball field taking shape, watching men transform an old dump into a playground for grownups.
Then the boys — Ronnie Bill and his brother, Joe — headed home, building their own ball field in the backyard sandbox, using mud for concrete and Popsicle sticks for girders. Ronnie, not yet 10 as Bears Stadium was taking shape, couldn't have imagined the role that structure would play in his life. For the Howsams, the investment was huge. They guaranteed $250,000 in bonds and put up their own money for some of the construction.
"Bears Stadium when it was built was considered a showplace around the country, and in minor league baseball it was way ahead of anything at that time," Howsam said. It featured an elevated press box, supported by two concrete pillers, above the seats behind home plate. Beneath the press box sat the organist.
General admission tickets went for 90 cents, and for $1.25 a fan could recline on a folding chair in one of the box seats that lined the field. Ushers wore yellow jackets and dark slacks. The stadium then consisted of what is now the first level of the west and north stands. A clubhouse stood where the South Stands are Friday. And a colorful fence circled the outfield, adorned with hand-painted ads for Elitch Gardens and Eddie Bohn's Pig 'n Whistle restaurant and motel.
Leo Gordon painted the advertisements. "His job was to come out every spring and start painting," said Charles Spivak of Cockeysville, Md. Gordon was his grandfather, and on weekends Spivak and his sister, Lynn, would go to the ballpark and watch him work.
"We had the run of the place," Spivak, 56, said. "Nobody was there. We would take our baseball and gloves and pretend we were Denver Bears."
Sometimes, Gordon would take box seat tickets instead of cash for his payment. And sometimes he'd take his grandchildren to the game, where they'd sit on the folding chairs, a small fence the only thing separating them from the players. "You felt like you were practically in the game," Spivak said.
And what a game it was. Through the 1950s, the Bears — a Yankees farm team — featured future major leaguers "Marvelous" Marv Throneberry, Tony Kubek and Bobby Richardson. And a left-handed pitcher named Tom Lasorda, who came to town in 1956 after being traded to the Yankees.
"I remember the first time I pitched there," said Lasorda, who went on to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to two World Series titles. "I'll never forget that if I live to be a hundred."
He got into town in the afternoon, read a newspaper story about the sorry state of Bears pitching, headed to the ballpark and talked manager Ralph Houk into putting him on the mound that night.
"I got in the game," Lasorda said. "I couldn't breathe. Everything I threw up there they hit like rockets. I got banged around so bad I was completely embarrassed. My curve ball wouldn't work."
After one inning, he'd given up five runs. He figured he'd worked the kinks out, only to return in the second and watch the same horror unfold. Still, Lasorda's memories of Denver are fond ones. "In those days, that was a beautiful ballpark," he said.
Ronnie Bill, the young boy who'd built ballparks in his sandbox, had gone to work for the Bears in 1953 as a ball boy and scoreboard operator, a job arranged by a friend after the teen-ager's father died. He thinks back now to a Yankees exhibition game played there, to the day he met Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and Whitey Ford. That day his mother cooked a dozen chickens, and made baked beans and potato salad for the visiting heroes. It didn't last long. "Whew," he said, thinking back, "it was gone."
As much fun as the Bears had, and as much as the town supported the team, Denver leaders dreamed of attracting a major league team. When it became clear Denver wouldn't get one, the Howsams embraced the newly formed Continental Baseball League. To that end, they tore down the old clubhouse and built the south stands. But the Continental League died before it took its first step. It was another league, however, that would change Bears Stadium — and Denver — in ways nobody could imagine.
It was 1959. Howsam made a bid to bring a National Football League team to Denver. But George Halas, owner of the Chicago Bears and the most powerful man in the league, wouldn't give Denver a team. So Howsam and four others launched the American Football League.
Denver's ragtag team, the Broncos, moved into Bears Stadium for the league's inaugural season, 1960, adorned with mustard and brown uniforms and vertically striped socks purchased at bargain-basement prices from a defunct college all-star game.
By the mid-1960s, city leaders talked openly of building a new, state-of-the-art sports complex for its baseball and football teams. For, even as the Broncos bumbled their way through their first years — their first eight seasons produced 27 wins against 80 losses and two ties — they built a following that remains legendary four decades later. And the Bears continued to draw fans, though not at the clip they had.
In 1967, changes loomed for the Broncos and the stadium. Floyd Little, a star running back out of Syracuse, became the first first-round draft choice to sign with the team. But that fall, voters turned down a bond issue to build a new stadium and the city nearly lost the team. However, a civic group raised $1.8 million to buy the stadium. It presented the sports complex to the city in February 1968.
A 16,000-seat upper deck was built over the west stands, raising the stadium's capacity to more than 50,000 for the 1968 season. On Dec. 14, at the last regular season game of the year, the building got a new name: Mile High Stadium. The civic leaders suggested it, intent on a sweeping, multi-sport name that pushed Denver into the big leagues.
But while coach Lou Saban was putting in place a professional organization, some of the goings on at the growing ball field were downright bizarre. There was the "half-a-loaf" game, when Saban went for a tie instead of a win. Afterward, he defended the move, saying "half a loaf" was better than nothing. For weeks afterward, fans bombed the field with half loaves of bread. There was the game in 1968 when Saban "fired" Little. The volatile coach ordered his second-year running back to hit the bricks. Right in the middle of a game.
"He told me the Valley Highway went north and south and I-70 went east and west and I had better be on one of them," Little recalled. Little headed to the locker room, got mad, went back on the field and caught a pass that set up the winning field goal. "Come here, come here," Saban screamed afterward. Little did.
"You've got one more week," the coach told him. One more week turned into seven more years, a rushing title, the Broncos' first winning season, and the adulation of a city. But as Little thinks back, he remembers more than the games and the glory. He remembers early mornings in the late spring and early summer, slipping through a gate at the stadium with Nemiah Wilson, a defensive back for the Raiders. The two friends would lace up their combat boots and go to work, running up the bleachers in the south stands.
It's been 25 years since Little hung up his cleats. He lives in Seattle now, but he'll never forget those grueling south stands sprints, which often left him on his hands and knees throwing up. "There's 56 seats and 112 steps," he said.
It was an amazing time. Tom Jackson, a Broncos' linebacker from 1973 to 1986 who Friday is a top broadcaster on ESPN, remembers what it was like after the games. Basking in the glow of a win, he'd head into the parking lot and hang out with fans, barbecuing and relaxing and enjoying victory over dinner in a motor home.
"It was just a very friendly, family-type atmosphere," Jackson said. "I don't know how many players Friday stop after the game to tailgate with fans."
Over the next 21 years, Mile High would host many magical games, see divison and conference champions, serve as home to the greatest comeback quarterback who ever played, John Elway, host a boxing match between the great Muhammad Ali and the Broncos' Lyle Alzado in 1979, and soar with song during Pope John Paul II's visit during World Youth Day in 1993. And it saw plenty of incredible baseball, too. There was the July 4, 1979, game that saw the Bears rally for nine runs in the ninth inning — eight of them after there were two outs — to beat Omaha 16-14.
By 1987, the Bears had become the Zephyrs. On June 2, 1987, the stadium saw a shot unlike any other when the Z's Joey Meyer cranked what was and will always be the longest home run ever hit in Mile High Stadium, a 582-foot blast that ricocheted off a seat in the upper deck of the east stands. It landed in section 338, row 3, seat 9. Right above Rich Jackson's name on the Ring of Fame.
And how about April 9, 1993, the day the majors finally came to town? That day, 80,227 jammed Mile High to watch the new Colorado Rockies, led by an Eric Young leadoff home run, bash the Montreal Expos 11-4. In 1995, the Rockies left Mile High behind and moved into their new home, Coors Field.
New stadium won't replace roar of Mile High crowd
By Brian Murphy - The Sporting News
Louder?
Louder than a place that routinely ranks among the toughest places to play in the NFL?
Louder than a sold-out crowd screaming at the top of its lungs?
"You've got to remember that Mile High wasn't always 76,000 [capacity]," said Thompson, a defensive back who played for the Broncos for 13 years. "In my rookie year (1969), the place held like 55,000. It seems like the fans were louder then."
Maybe the place was louder then. Or maybe Thompson just remembers the roar of the crowd during one of his punt returns or after an interception.
Or maybe the good old days were just too good to forget for Thompson, who broke in at nearly the same time as the name Mile High Stadium.
Prior to December 1968, the place where the Broncos played was called Bears Stadium, originally built in 1948 to house the baseball Denver Bears of the Western League.
If the Western League and Bears Stadium seem like relics of another time, it's because they are. And Mile High is just weeks away from joining them as products of a by-gone era.
The Broncos' home since the team began playing in the American Football League in 1960, Mile High is on its last legs.
Construction on Denver's new stadium -- still unnamed, though many would like to see Mile High incorporated in some manner -- is nearing completion; the facility will be ready for use next season.
Even old-timers like Thompson, who as a rookie became the only player to lead the NFL in both kickoff and punt returns in the same season, concede that the time has come to close down the old stadium.
"A lot of my fondest memories come from there. I remember running back my first punt there," said Thompson, now the Broncos' Director of Player Relations and Alumni Coordinator. "But it's time to move on."
That time could have come in 1967, before the Broncos had enjoyed a winning season.
Before Mile High would host five AFC Championship games, all Denver victories.
Before Thompson, the Orange Crush defenses, Beer Barrel Man, and a guy named John Elway.
Voters that year turned down a bond issue to build an all-purpose metropolitan stadium, which just reeks of artificial turf and a lack of character. Little did those voters know that the place they were keeping would become one of the NFL's great temples.
With capacity of just under 35,000 for football, a nonprofit group bought Bears Stadium for $1.8 million, presented a plan to the city of Denver, and a 16,000-seat upper deck was added in time for the 1968 season. Later that year, the place was officially renamed Mile High.
Renovations continued to push the capacity higher. Seventy-five thousand by 1978. And in 1986, the addition of the Penthouse Suites put Mile High at its current 76,098 - or 67 seats less than the new stadium will have.
But renovations can only stave off time and weather and the need for new luxury suites for so long. Even the players, the ones for whom Mile High holds the most memories, realize the need for an upgraded facility.
"I think it's about time," said former Broncos linebacker Karl Mecklenburg. "As a player . . . it was fine, but since I've retired and started going as a fan, you realize that it's run down.
"You go to Coors Field (home of baseball's Rockies) or the Pepsi Center (home of hockey's Avalanche and basketball's Nuggets) or one of the nice venues and you see what's missing."
Said Thompson, "Our fans really deserve it. They are, without a doubt, the one constant thing about this franchise. The fans have always been there for the Broncos."
Attendance has topped the half-million mark in every non-strike season since 1977.
The Broncos have sold out the place for 249 consecutive games, including the playoffs. That's every game since 1970. And a far cry from the first home game in franchise history, when Denver topped the Oakland Raiders 31-14 in front of just 18,372 on Oct. 2, 1960.
The game marked not only the start of football in Denver, but also the beginning of the Raiders-Broncos rivalry. The teams -- bitter rivals from their AFL days through the current Mike Shanahan-Al Davis war -- have, appropriately, played some of the most important and memorable games in Mile High history.
The Broncos played 22 Monday night games in Denver, but it's the ones against the Raiders that stand out.
There was the first Monday night game in Denver on Oct. 22, 1973, when the Broncos tied the Raiders 23-23 on a last-second field goal by Jim Turner, and then the last Monday nighter in November when Denver completed a sweep of the Raiders, 27-24, on a gutsy performance by an injured Brian Griese.
And so many memorable Monday nighters in between. In 1999, Denver beat Oakland 27-21 in overtime in a game that will forever be remembered for a snowball fight at the end of the game when Raiders tackle Lincoln Kennedy went into the stands.
Or when Shanahan's Raiders in 1988 -- his first season -- fell behind 24-0 in the first half before rallying for a 30-27 overtime win.
Or how about when in Shanahan's first game with the Broncos against the Raiders, Denver crushed Oakland 27-0 and Elway passed Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas to become the fourth-most prolific passer in NFL history.
But the game that stands out for Thompson came way before Shanahan and Elway.
On Jan. 1, 1978 -- in the AFC Championship Game -- the Broncos edged the then-defending champion Raiders, 20-17, to earn their first trip to the Super Bowl. That game, Thompson says, changed the Broncos' fortunes.
"Until that time I thought the only two teams in the AFC West were Kansas City and the Raiders,' said Thompson. "That game proved to the league and to those two teams especially that they had to respect the Broncos."
Denver would reach five more Super Bowls in the 22 years that followed -- winning two.
Four of those five trips would march through Mile High. The most memorable was "The Fumble" game in 1987, when Cleveland's Earnest Byner's late fourth-quarter fumble gave the Broncos a second-straight AFC title.
Throw in a 1989 pasting of Cleveland, a 1997 beating of Pittsburgh and a 1998 waxing of the Jets and that makes Denver a perfect 5-0 in the most important games ever played at Mile High.
Yes, it's safe to say that Mile High has given the Broncos some home-field advantage over the years (200-112-7 since 1960 and 180-71-5 after the renaming in 1969 going into Saturday's final regular season game vs. San Francisco).
But don't try selling the Mile High mystique -- at least not to Mecklenburg, who ranks second in Broncos annals with 79 career sacks.
"The fans, the team, the weather, the altitude gave us a home-field advantage; not the field," he said.
And none of that should change. The new stadium -- whatever they decide to call it -- is right next door.
Courtesy The Sporting News, © 2000
1. Jan. 1, 1978
Score: Broncos 20, Oakland Raiders 17.
The Broncos were still known mostly for their pumpkin-colored jerseys, vertically striped socks, a cheapskate general manager who wrestled kids in the stands for loose footballs, and 14 losing seasons in their first 14 years.
But on this warm New Year's Day, the Broncos faced the Oakland Raiders in the AFC championship game.
In the third quarter, running back Rob Lytle fumbled, the Raiders' Mike McCoy recovered, and Raiders coach John Madden breathed easier. Only one thing: the head linesman had blown the play dead. On TV, it was clear Lytle had fumbled, a glitch that ultimately triggered the inception of instant replay.
But the Broncos kept the ball and a few moments later Jon Keyworth rumbled into the end zone. The Broncos were on the way to their first Super Bowl.
As time wound down, thousands of fans flooded the field, ripping up turf, swinging on goal posts, and dancing in the dusk as Broncomania reached full pitch.
"I was driving home that night on the highway, and people were honking at me," said former Broncos safety Billy Thompson.
"And everybody in the neighborhood was celebrating. When I came home, there was an orange stripe painted all the way up the street and all the way to my house."
2. April 9, 1992
Score: Colorado Rockies 11, Montreal Expos 4
Montreal lead-off hitter Mike Lansing grounded out to Eric Young in the Rockies' first home game, before a crowd of 80,227. The next hitter, Moises Alou, also grounded out to Young. Two singles and then John Vander Wal grounded out to, yes, Young.
Moments later, Young walked to the plate, the first Rockies batter at Mile High. On a 3-2 count, he drove a pitch from Kent Bottenfield over the fence in left-center.
"You've waited all your life for major league baseball, and then ...," said Irv Brown, reliving the moment. "That was the tops."
3. Jan. 17, 1988
Score: Broncos 38, Cleveland Browns 33
Denver had a 38-31 lead on a 20-yard scoring pass from John Elway to Sammy Winder in the AFC Championship game. Bring on the Super Bowl.
Cleveland quarterback Bernie Kosar had other ideas.
Starting from deep in Cleveland territory, he drove the Browns to the Broncos' 8-yard line with 1:12 left.
Kosar handed off to Earnest Byner, who ran around the left side, turned upfield and was a couple of strides from the end zone. But journeyman cornerback Jeremiah Castille emerged from the shadows, lunging and stripping the ball from Byner.
The Fumble.
"It was like divine intervention," said Thierry Smith.
4. Jan. 17, 1999
Score: Broncos 23, New York Jets 10
John Elway had just played his last game at Mile High Stadium.
No, it wasn't official. That would come three months later.
But few thought that Elway would be back for a 17th season. Broncos fans were convinced they were watching history, the last home game for the quarterback who had produced so many Mile High miracles.
After beating the Jets, Elway strode to a podium in the middle of the field. He hoisted the AFC Championship trophy. He told his fans that he loved them. And then he took a victory lap.
He was serenaded with deafening chants of "El-Way, El-Way." Then, in unison, another message: "One More Year. One More Year."
But it was too late. The Elway Era was over.
5. Jan. 4, 1992
Score: Broncos 26, Houston Oilers 24
Time was running out in the playoff game against Houston. The Broncos were on their own 2-yard line. The Oilers led by a point.
With 2:07 and no time-outs, it was deja vu all over again for Elway, the same predicament that had led to The Drive in the 1986 AFC Championship game in Cleveland.
Except: he had three fewer minutes and three fewer timeouts.
"I remember running onto the field and saying, 'Well, we're going to see if the first one was a fluke or not,"' Elway says.
On the first play Elway flipped a 22-yard pass to Michael Young. On fourth-and-6 at the 28, Elway ran for seven yards. Three incompletions later, with 59 seconds remaining, Elway rolled left on fourth-and-10 and passed to Vance Johnson at Houston's 48. Johnson sprinted down the left sideline until safety Bubba McDowell knocked him out of bounds at the Houston 21.
Steve Atwater ran for 10 yards to the 11. And then David Treadwell kicked the winning field goal.
6. Oct. 15, 1984
Score: Broncos 17, Green Bay 14
Monday Night Football, and it was hard for the TV audience to see the field; it was hard for players to see the field.
A blizzard had swept into town, burying the Green Bay Packers in the process.
Steve Foley ran a fumble back 22 yards for a score on Green Bay's first offensive play.
Louis Wright ran a fumble back 27 yards for a score on Green Bay's second play.
The Broncos took their first center snap a few minutes later, leading 14-0. They never trailed.
7. Dec. 24, 1977
Score: Broncos 34, Pittsburgh 21
In Mile High Stadium's playoff debut, the Broncos pulled ahead for good on Jim Turner's 44-yard field goal in the final quarter.
Linebacker Tom Jackson clinched the win with two fourth-quarter interceptions. The second set up Craig Morton's 34-yard, game-clinching TD pass to Jack Dolbin.
"Enjoy this," Steelers' quarterback Terry Bradshaw advised Broncos fans. "It's never the same the second time."
8. Oct. 22, 1973
Score: Broncos 23, Oakland Raiders 23
Mile High Stadium's Monday night debut, and the Broncos finally proved they could run with the Raiders.
As ABC cameras settled on analyst Don Meredith, he yelled to the nation's viewers: "Welcome to the Mile High City — and I really am!"
Oakland had won 15 of the previous 16 games against Denver, but when Jim Turner kicked the tying field goal in the final seconds, the old AFC order was crumbling.
"Without question, this game was the turning point for the franchise," Turner said.
9. Sept. 5, 1998
Score: Colorado 42, Colorado State 14
This one was special because it was the first major college football game played in Denver since 1960.
The long-awaited showdown attracted 76,036 — the largest crowd to witness a collegiate sporting event in Colorado.
"A great electric atmosphere: it was everything that it was cracked up to be," said CU's coach, Rick Neuheisel.
10. Oct. 17, 1994
Score: Kansas City Chiefs 31, Broncos 28
In a dramatic Monday night duel that turned into a classic showdown between two of football's most fabled QBs, John Elway apparently shot down Joe Montana when he ran for a four-yard TD in the fading minutes.
But wait. Montana took the Chiefs 75 yards in 1:21 and hit Willie Davis with a 5-yard scoring pass with eight seconds left.
drew 65,666 for the annual Fireworks Game,
a minor league record for a single game.
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