“Forever chemicals” which advocates say caused cancer clusters in Willow Grove and elsewhere are now correlated to the deaths of 6 Phillies.
By Justin Heinz, Patch Staff, March 6, 2023
PHILADELPHIA, PA — At a time when cigarette smoke clouded press boxes and club boxes, the Broad Street Bullies played next door, and powder blues were donned by the Phils unironically, one of the most notorious ballparks in the world was in south Philadelphia. It was a different age indeed, but for more than the cigar-chomping fanatics in Rose and Schmidt jerseys, holding golf pencils and scorecards as they prowled above the bowels of a stadium so violent and anarchic it had its own court and its own prison.
Veterans Stadium, for all its grit and guts and glory, harbored a dark secret: chemicals in the artificial turf, the AstroTurf once proclaimed as a futuristic technological wonder, known to cause cancer and other deleterious effects. And not just any chemicals, but the “forever” chemicals called per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known collectively as PFAS, already infamous in the Philadelphia area and sparking scandal in communities around the country.
That’s according to a new investigative report from the Inquirer, run by reporters who purchased souvenir samples of the old Vet turf online and commissioned diagnostics through a local Eurofins Environmental Testing laboratory.
It’s the first study of its kind definitively linking PFAS to the Vet’s playing surface, which has already been under scrutiny and faded from style for a generation due to the number of joint injuries it caused players.
Related news:
How we tested artificial turf from Veterans Stadium and what the tests showed (Inquirer)
‘Forever chemicals’ found in old samples of turf from Veterans Stadium (Daily Mail)
Investigation Links Astroturf to Deaths of Six Former Phillies (Front Office Sports)
What to know about ‘forever chemicals,’ artificial turf in Phillies Stadium (Inquirer)
Six former Phillies who played at the Vet, which was the home of both the Phillies and the Eagles from 1971 to 2003, have all died from glioblastoma, a form of aggressive brain cancer. The names are so familiar to those of that broken golden age of Philadelphia baseball: Darren Daulton, David West, John Vukovich, John Oates, Ken Brett, and Tug McGraw.
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