New York Yankees and US Army 21-gun salute cannon blew holes in Shea Stadium outfield fence
Forty years ago, during the 1975 season, the New York Yankees were playing in Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was undergoing renovations. And on June 10, they hosted a small shindig for some of the boys from Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, inviting an artillery detachment over to fire a cannon in the outfield in a pregame 21-gun salute to the 200th anniversary of the Army.
And, like any good neighbor, they made sure the cannon used blanks. But even with blanks, the cannon managed to blow a hole in the outfield wall and set fire to another part of it.
Oops. But hey, it wasn't their ballpark. And the Yanks managed to fix the fence and play their scheduled game against the Angels, which they won, 6-4.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of this crazy footnote in Yankees history, you can watch Walter Kronkite and John Chancellor report on it in the videos below.
