http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=cardinalsin&prov=cnnsi&type=lgns
"TEMPE, Ariz. -- I had never worn shorts to cover a football game until Saturday night, when I attended what was maybe the hottest game in NFL history.
As I stood on the east side of Sun Devil Stadium two hours before the 7 p.m. MST kickoff, the sun beat down on me and a dozen or so players. The feeling was eerie. One of the yellow-shirted guards told me it was 116 degrees in the sun, and it really felt like we were in a sauna, except we also had hot lights beaming down on our foreheads, making the heat more intense. Even when there was a very slight breeze, the breeze was broiling and provided not a scintilla of relief. I figured if I stayed out there, right in that spot, for more than 10 minutes, I was going to get sick. I also figured if the sun wasn't down on both sidelines of the field when the ball was kicked off, playing a game in that heat would have quite seriously constituted cruel and inhuman punishment. Eleven preseasons ago, the Cardinals and Bears played when it was 110 degrees, which was the highest temperature ever recorded during a pro game in Arizona for a Cardinals game. I don't think grid action -- pro g! ri! d action, at least -- has even taken place on a hotter day anywhere
Arizona quarterbacks coach Geep Chryst was working with his team's backups, Josh McCown and Preston Parsons, mostly in the shaded part of the field, when he saw me.
"Peter!" he yelled. "Get out of that sun! What are you doing down here?!"
It was like those stories you hear about longtime homeowners who refuse to leave their property even though a forest fire is raging just a few miles away and is headed their way. Chryst came over to talk. "You've got to get in the shade, you really do," he said. He told me the Cardinals, who train at 7,000 feet above sea level two hours up the road in cooler Flagstaff, began hydrating for this game on Thursday, with the coaching staff monitoring the players' fluid levels, because they knew this would be an insane evening.
"I grew up in Wisconsin," he said, "and I truly believe after coaching out here that a day like this is as hard to play in for a visiting team as a day in Green Bay in the winter."
It will be very easy to open the paper this morning, check the Saturday night box scores of the late preseason games and say: "Are you kidding? Emmitt Smith plays his first game as a Cardinal, and Bill Parcells returns to the NFL, and they only draw 23,838 paid?" I'm guessing that paid crowd in Tempe was really about 18,000. It was not a very good sign that just 16 people occupied the 34 rows of the upper-deck section along the 45-yard-line.
It was 110 degrees when the ball was kicked off, at 7:06 p.m.
It was 107 when the second half kicked off, at 8:43.
When I stepped out of the press box elevator at 9:40 to go to the locker room, the sauna enveloped me again. It had to still be 100-and-something.
This is the long way of saying I don't blame the fans for staying away from this team's game by the thousands. During the game -- which aired on tape-delay in Phoenix, but was shown live in the press box lounge -- owner Bill Bidwill's son, Michael, went on the broadcast and spoke proudly of the new stadium that is under full construction in suburban Glendale. "(It's) Air-conditioned," he pointed out proudly, and it had better be. Just down Route 202, in downtown Phoenix, it was 80 degrees inside BankOne Ballpark as the Diamondbacks and Mets played. There, 41,934 people sat inside in relative comfort. Now, I'm not saying if the Cardinals keep bumbling and stumbling around that they'll draw big crowds, but I can tell you this: You're won't get any crowds in August and September in this town playing outdoors.
It's a sin that this team has been here 15 years without getting a new stadium, and it's amazing that the reclusive Bill Bidwill could never make it happen before now in such a fertile sporting environment.
"Cason, an every-down back? Are you kidding me? He'd be in a coffin within a week." "
"TEMPE, Ariz. -- I had never worn shorts to cover a football game until Saturday night, when I attended what was maybe the hottest game in NFL history.
As I stood on the east side of Sun Devil Stadium two hours before the 7 p.m. MST kickoff, the sun beat down on me and a dozen or so players. The feeling was eerie. One of the yellow-shirted guards told me it was 116 degrees in the sun, and it really felt like we were in a sauna, except we also had hot lights beaming down on our foreheads, making the heat more intense. Even when there was a very slight breeze, the breeze was broiling and provided not a scintilla of relief. I figured if I stayed out there, right in that spot, for more than 10 minutes, I was going to get sick. I also figured if the sun wasn't down on both sidelines of the field when the ball was kicked off, playing a game in that heat would have quite seriously constituted cruel and inhuman punishment. Eleven preseasons ago, the Cardinals and Bears played when it was 110 degrees, which was the highest temperature ever recorded during a pro game in Arizona for a Cardinals game. I don't think grid action -- pro g! ri! d action, at least -- has even taken place on a hotter day anywhere
Arizona quarterbacks coach Geep Chryst was working with his team's backups, Josh McCown and Preston Parsons, mostly in the shaded part of the field, when he saw me.
"Peter!" he yelled. "Get out of that sun! What are you doing down here?!"
It was like those stories you hear about longtime homeowners who refuse to leave their property even though a forest fire is raging just a few miles away and is headed their way. Chryst came over to talk. "You've got to get in the shade, you really do," he said. He told me the Cardinals, who train at 7,000 feet above sea level two hours up the road in cooler Flagstaff, began hydrating for this game on Thursday, with the coaching staff monitoring the players' fluid levels, because they knew this would be an insane evening.
"I grew up in Wisconsin," he said, "and I truly believe after coaching out here that a day like this is as hard to play in for a visiting team as a day in Green Bay in the winter."
It will be very easy to open the paper this morning, check the Saturday night box scores of the late preseason games and say: "Are you kidding? Emmitt Smith plays his first game as a Cardinal, and Bill Parcells returns to the NFL, and they only draw 23,838 paid?" I'm guessing that paid crowd in Tempe was really about 18,000. It was not a very good sign that just 16 people occupied the 34 rows of the upper-deck section along the 45-yard-line.
It was 110 degrees when the ball was kicked off, at 7:06 p.m.
It was 107 when the second half kicked off, at 8:43.
When I stepped out of the press box elevator at 9:40 to go to the locker room, the sauna enveloped me again. It had to still be 100-and-something.
This is the long way of saying I don't blame the fans for staying away from this team's game by the thousands. During the game -- which aired on tape-delay in Phoenix, but was shown live in the press box lounge -- owner Bill Bidwill's son, Michael, went on the broadcast and spoke proudly of the new stadium that is under full construction in suburban Glendale. "(It's) Air-conditioned," he pointed out proudly, and it had better be. Just down Route 202, in downtown Phoenix, it was 80 degrees inside BankOne Ballpark as the Diamondbacks and Mets played. There, 41,934 people sat inside in relative comfort. Now, I'm not saying if the Cardinals keep bumbling and stumbling around that they'll draw big crowds, but I can tell you this: You're won't get any crowds in August and September in this town playing outdoors.
It's a sin that this team has been here 15 years without getting a new stadium, and it's amazing that the reclusive Bill Bidwill could never make it happen before now in such a fertile sporting environment.
"Cason, an every-down back? Are you kidding me? He'd be in a coffin within a week." "
