Questions about the Cards playing at Sun Devil Stadium

[DemsMyBoys]

This thread rocks.

Yes it does. Keep the stories comin' guys. They're great.

(Anyone here have a piece of the goal posts? Before my time as a Cards fan. What happened to them?)

 

[Scott MS]

Lots of great stories. I was there from 1998 to 2005. I remember that, during the game, I could run to the top of Section 106, get to the beer stand with no line, buy a beer, and get back to my seats during a TV timeout. Some games were horribly empty like this photo from a game in 2005.

2005 was the last season in SDS and they had the new uniforms and new logo.

You must be registered for see images

 

[WisconsinCard]

Highlights:

1. Beating the 49ers (Super Bowl Champions that season) and the Giants (Super Bowl champions the season before) in back-to-back games. The 49ers game still the best comeback ever.

2. Beating the Cowboys in OT, on an insanely hot Sunday night, for the first time in oh, 50 years, and the fans tearing down the goalposts and running down the streets with them.

3. Of course, the 98 season with all those game winning FGs, and the delirium of the last one to beat the Chargers to make the playoffs.

Lowlights:

1. The crowd cheering that Kent Graham was injured.

2. A Steelers game that was the most drunken brawl-fest I ever endured there. Including an awful fight between two women that resulted in blood and tufts of hair all over the place. It inspired us to move from section 3 to the alcohol-free section 9 where the favorite past time of all the Cards fans in the section was getting the enemy fans who brought beer into that section kicked out of it. They would get so mad.

3. So many ripping defeat from the jaws of victory games, it made me sick at times.



Somehow, victory was sweeter there, and there was more pain in the defeats. It's probably me that changed the most, but part of it is that we were such underdogs there and that really changed at UofP where every game is "sold out" and on TV.

We were at every one of those games as well. We had season tix from the begining until we moved in 1999. We were on the sunny side too section 27 row 28 I remeber it well. We had the wave dude he always got it started in our section.

 

[HeavyB3]

I've had season tickets since 2004 and went to many games before that point. I think my favorite memory was the game against Tennessee where a very young Karlos Dansby sacked Billy Volek, knocked him unconcious and stole the ball out of his lifeless hands in one motion. Our defense injured a couple QB's in a row that year, maybe 3

 

[TJ]

Went to about a game a season with my dad (I was 7 when they came to the Valley). Most games were later in the year for weather purposes. It was difficult to attend more games because i worked on sundays and was going to college in Tucson. Believe it or not, I only went to one game in which we lost (2004 SF game). Highlight game was obviously the 98 San Diego game that propelled us to the playoffs. At 16, I remember hugging more random people than ever in my entire life. Also attended the last game in 2005 with the Mad Jack banner that read, "Thanks for the memories...both of them."

Lowlight was the entire stadium was a dump, including the bathrooms.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[GatorAZ]

Man it hot.

The best games I attended were actually the Fiesta Bowl in 1989 and the Monday Night Football game after the Earthquake in San Diego. Miami and San Diego played here and the game was free. That was the CRAZIEST game I ever attended. People were fighting everywhere. People were smoking pot all over. A streaker was tackled. Crazy game.

My most memorable moments was,
Before kickoff, Me and a few buddies were the last ones standing up right before the kick and we all pointed to Martay Jenkins and he saw us. Right before he caught the ball, he acknowledged us and shook his head yes.
He had a nice 30 yard return. Nice for him to recognize us.

Kevin Butler nailing a FG as time expired, I was sitting in between a group of Hog fans and had to listen to "Hail to the Redskins" all game until the very end, I had the last laugh.

Larry Centers plowing over everyone in his path.

Wasn't that San Diego/Miami game free to get into? Must've been chaos...

 

[MigratingOsprey]

Yeah - they were looking for donations for relief .... the whole thing turned into a fiasco - very little brought in by way of donations and just chaos .... bad press for quite a while after it

 

[MadCardDisease]

Wish I could find some of the old photos from the SDS halftime meet ups

 

[jefftheshark]

This thread rocks.

Kickass Avatar man.

If I'm not mistaken, this avatar is a "Vomit Boy" special.

Here's a quick story:

It was '89 and I still lived in AZ. Six of us were given tickets to a Cleveland Browns pre-season game, in the nosebleeds on the hot side. It was over 110F that day and blistering in the stands. Two of us had smuggled bottles of 151 rum in our boots and were slamming the rum & colas all day. It wasn't as much to get drunk as pure survival.

Needless to say I got ripped. At a certain point Bernie Kosar (wow, remember him?) got sacked - hard. We all were laughing and I yelled out "Put in Pagel - no one cares if he gets hurt!" There was a general smattering of laughter except the people sitting in front of me. One of them stands up and turns to me and says to ****.

Now I'm normally a lover and not a fighter but this just strikes me as wrong. So I stand up, as do two of my buddies. Now I'm 6'6" and weighed around 240 back in those days, and of the three of us I was the smallest. The guy's dad (i found out later) tells his son to sit down and another one of my friends tells him that this is good advice. The first son looks to be listening to his father and is about to sit down when son number two pipes in.

"What did you say about Pagel?" says he. I say "No one cares if he gets hurt, ********." It was probably much more slurred than that, but he got the point.
He points over at an older woman sitting next to dad and says "She cares a-h0le! She's his mom! And he's our brother!"

Now what are the odds of this occurring? So I respond by saying something to effect that I didn't believe it - because no self-respecting NFL player would get his family such awful seats. Well we were all off to the races then, with the short story being that I was tossed out on my butt.

Ah, good times.

JTS

 

[Duckjake]

Wish I could find some of the old photos from the SDS halftime meet ups

Gee has an awesome group shot that is now my profile picture on my Facebook page.

Maybe he can post it again. 20 or so people in the shot.

 

[Jay Cardinal]

We always go to the concessions (for sodas) at UOP and several are run by people representing different schools or organizations. Right above their name on their name tag it says what group or school they are representing. Pretty sure our regular one is around Section 129 and they are raising money for St. Mary's.

That's really cool. I never noticed. I will make it a point to look for them. Always thought it was odd they increased the prices AND cut the charity out during the move to UOP.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

One of the funniest things I ever saw was a drunk guy run out on the field and go near some players. BAM!! Tackled by Garth Jax.

 

[BillsCarnage]

Wasn't that San Diego/Miami game free to get into? Must've been chaos...

Yeah, they wanted donations of any kind, but i think food and blankets were the most requested... Don't remember.

Didn't it happen twice? Wasn't there another non-Cards game played at SDS; wasn't there the earthquake and fires on two separate occasions?

Maybe it was a college game or maybe i'm imagining things.

 

[Redheart]

If I'm not mistaken, this avatar is a "Vomit Boy" special....
JTS

Great memory, must be the shark-meat.

Vomit Boy blew onto the board for a little while and spun out serveral avatars for those who saw his talent and asked for a rendering.

Nice guy, he took my name and made an avatar I kept ever since. I added the "stack 'em up" part because that was a Coach Mac line about "stackin' up wins"; even though we always had a short stack.

 

[az240zz]

I hated that stadium, I hated the walk from the parking lot, up the hill, its frikken 118 out. I remember a preseason game with the Raiders when someone got stabbed 4 rows down, and it was a Raiders fan. The hot benches, losing games, peeing in the troughs, taking 40 minutes to get a drink. On the other hand seeing opposing fans falling like leaves in the October games. $30.00 per seat season tickets. Free water if you could get to it before they went dry.

But overall, I HATED SDS!!!!!!!!

 

[az240zz]

We were at every one of those games as well. We had season tix from the begining until we moved in 1999. We were on the sunny side too section 27 row 28 I remeber it well. We had the wave dude he always got it started in our section.

Those seats were under the overhang??

 

[Red Dawn]

Great memory, must be the shark-meat.

Vomit Boy blew onto the board for a little while and spun out serveral avatars for those who saw his talent and asked for a rendering.

Nice guy, he took my name and made an avatar I kept ever since. I added the "stack 'em up" part because that was a Coach Mac line about "stackin' up wins"; even though we always had a short stack.

Mine is a vomit boy special too.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

 

[LoyaltyisaCurse]

Man it hot.

The best games I attended were actually the Fiesta Bowl in 1989 and the Monday Night Football game after the Earthquake in San Diego. Miami and San Diego played here and the game was free. That was the CRAZIEST game I ever attended. People were fighting everywhere. People were smoking pot all over. A streaker was tackled. Crazy game.

My most memorable moments was,
Before kickoff, Me and a few buddies were the last ones standing up right before the kick and we all pointed to Martay Jenkins and he saw us. Right before he caught the ball, he acknowledged us and shook his head yes.
He had a nice 30 yard return. Nice for him to recognize us.

Kevin Butler nailing a FG as time expired, I was sitting in between a group of Hog fans and had to listen to "Hail to the Redskins" all game until the very end, I had the last laugh.

Larry Centers plowing over everyone in his path.

Not earthquake, fires...my good friends both played for the Dolphins that year and had given myself and the old crew tickets to the MNF game in SD. We all met up in SD for that weekend and wound up having to drive all the way back to Riverside due to several freeway closures to drive into Tempe. It was a crazy night and I had to drive back to los Angeles that night.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

BIM getting the bird from Gee! LOL

 

[O]

I loved that cold az Giants game.

I actually took a date, first date, to that game.
It was so cold we had no choice but to snuggle and get to know each other better.

Best first date ever!

 

[Brian in Mesa]

 

[Brian in Mesa]

 

[HeavyB3]

I miss the noise fireworks they set off when they scored and the old Cardinals fight song being played.

 

[gmabel830]

Each beer garden was ran by a charity that got to keep .50 of each beer poured. For many small charities this was there primary source of funding. I knew the same ladies (unfortunately can't remember their charity something to do with senior care) from several years of visiting the beer stand near my seats.

I actually did this once or twice, volunteering for an organization I was in during high school raising scholarship money. In fact, I was at the Niners MNF game working one of those tents. My mom and I basically showed up and got like a 2 minute overview and then were serving people. I remember my clueless mom tried to pour a guy a beer that was like 80% head and the look on the guy's face was priceless (then she got one of the guys there to pour all of her beer). I also remember that if one of the pretzels was broken, we could eat them as long as we kept the braid in the middle for the inventory count. I think I "found" about 20 broken pretzels that night. The people who do it now at least seem to be consistent from week to week vs. our organization having newbies every game.

I went to a couple of games at SDS as a kid/teenager, but nothing like some of the others on here.