Remembering the 1960 championship Eagles through a kid's eyes

FOR ONE 11-year-old boy from Rhawnhurst, Christmas 1960 arrived on Dec. 26.

I don't recall what was under the tree the day before; maybe that erector set that didn't interest me. Whatever, it paled in comparison to my ticket to the Eagles-Packers NFL championship game at Franklin Field. I had known since early December that I would be going to the game with my dad and two uncles.

My introduction to pro football had come in 1958, when my Uncle John and I saw Cleveland, with the great Jim Brown, hold off an Eagles team that would finish 2-9-1. But there was hope. That was the team's first season at Franklin Field, a jewel of a football venue, not a converted baseball field like Connie Mack Stadium. It was intimate and inviting, and the sightlines were spectacular. Did anyone care there were no backs on the seats or the only bathrooms were below the lower deck? No.

That also was the first year the Eagles were led by Buck Shaw and Norm Van Brocklin, a coach and quarterback with winning resumés.

Sure enough, in 1959 the Eagles began putting it together. I saw a Week 2 blowout of the Giants, in which Tommy McDonald scored four touchdowns, and the finale of a promising 7-5 season, another close loss to the Browns that drew more than 45,000.

Uncle John was so pumped, he splurged on season tickets for the next season.

In 1960, you could buy a three-bedroom twin in Rhawnhurst for less than $15,000. You could get a transmission overhaul for well under $100. A hot roast beef sandwich at Horn & Hardart set you back 60 cents.

Eagles tickets? At $3 a seat in the lower north stands, near Weightman Hall, my uncle paid $18 for six home games. Then, thanks to a "father-son" enticement, he got another season ticket free. My own personal-seat license. It was a smart way to get new fans into the stadium.

The Eagles enjoyed an attendance bump when they moved to Franklin Field. The average crowd, only 21,600 at Connie Mack Stadium in 1957, rose to about 29,000 in '58 and 36,000 in '59. But Franklin Field held 60,000. And in 1960, with rising expectations, it began to fill up.

On the field, Opening Day was a disaster - Browns 41, Eagles 24. At the gate, boffo - 56,303.

Four weeks later, when Bobby Walston's very late, 39-yard field goal shocked the Browns in Cleveland, folks began to get excited. Walston's field goal was among the most important, if not the most important, in franchise history. The next Sunday, the line at the Franklin Field ticket windows stretched out to 33rd Street and wrapped around the block. More than 58,000 eventually got in to see a 34-7 rout of the Steelers.

Two weeks later, in the first of rare, back-to-back games against the Giants, Chuck Bednarik laid out Frank Gifford at Yankee Stadium. The Eagles were 7-1, and I was going to the rematch.

Sometime during the week, or on the way to the game, Uncle John kidded (I think) he could get as much as $25 for my ticket. That would have paid for the next year's tickets. Or helped with the mortgage. It is times like this that make favorite uncles.

The Giants did not come to Franklin Field to die. They had been in the championship game 2 years in a row and were a proud, veteran team. Before we were barely in our seats the Giants led, 17-0. The Eagles' first Franklin Field sellout - 60,547 - was stunned.

But the deficit was typical. In six games that season, the Eagles trailed going into the fourth quarter. So it was on a rather balmy Nov. 27. And when Van Brocklin flipped a 49-yard score to Ted Dean early in the fourth, my uncle lifted me into the air and screamed, "We lead!"

To see the championship game, you either had to have a ticket or drive beyond the local blackout area - in those days, home games were not televised even if they were sold out. This was long before the days the NFL generated billions in TV revenue.

Because my uncle was a season ticketholder, he was able to purchase his two seats and two others, so my dad and another uncle joined us. But there was no father-son deal; suddenly, those $3 tickets were $8. It doesn't sound like much now but not everyone could afford it. I felt very lucky.

Because Christmas fell on Sunday and Franklin Field didn't have lights, the game was played Monday with a noon kickoff.

We took an express bus from the old Korvette's shopping center on the Boulevard, 30-some Eagles fans and one knucklehead with a bet on the Packers who was chanting, "Green Bay all the way." I'm thinking, isn't someone going to throw this guy off our bus?

I remember walking into the stadium that day, watching it fill up, the Eagles warming up in their kelly green jerseys against a backdrop of snow from a recent storm that still ringed the sidelines. It was sunny and close to 40 degrees as 67,325 - a crowd bolstered by temporary seats on the track - settled in.

It was incredibly exciting, and the tension only got ratcheted up when the Eagles turned it over on their first two possessions. They were badly outplayed in the first quarter but held the Packers to two field goals, then went ahead on a 35-yard strike from Van Brocklin that sent McDonald skidding into the snow after scoring.

Of course, the Eagles fell behind in the fourth quarter but a long kickoff return by Dean and a 5-yard sweep by Dean, the rookie running back from Radnor High, put them ahead with about 5 minutes left.

Then it really got tense, as the Packers rolled downfield, toward the closed end of the old horseshoe, away from us. As Jim Taylor plowed over tacklers on the final play, it seemed like he was getting dangerously close to the end zone when Bednarik finally wrestled him down at the 9 and sat on him until the clock ran out.

Everyone exhaled, then the place exploded. Almost out of nowhere, the Eagles were world champions.

It was a big deal, but nothing like it would be today. This was years before the advent of sports-talk radio or cable TV. The governor of Pennsylvania was in Harrisburg, not on a postgame show.

I don't recall any bare-chested revelry at Cottman and Frankford.

Oh, there was a parade - the Mummers strutted 6 days later.

Yeah, things were different then. It's been 50 years. Or was it yesterday?

Jim DeStefano is a sports copy editor at the Daily News.