'I don't know. I've never smoked Astroturf." - Former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw, asked to describe the difference between real grass and artificial turf.

Say this much for the City of Brotherly Love: its uncharitable sports fans and its inadequate sporting facilities are as tough on visiting players as they are on the home team performers.

A onetime major league baseball player of my acquaintance once gazed out at Veterans Stadium and reflected that one of his principal career accomplishments might have been the fact that "I played 10 years on that field and never lost a tooth". Artificial turf has been blamed for a multiplicity of injuries, but nowhere have surface-related accidents been more prevalent than at The Vet.

Just last year Duce Staley, the Eagles' top running back, injured a leg when he stepped the wrong way on a seam in the Astroturf. He was still on crutches several weeks later when he visited the team's executive offices, slipped on a puddle of rainwater that had leaked through the ceiling, tore up a knee, and was lost for the season.

Three years ago several fans at the annual Army-Navy game were injured when a Vet railing collapsed and they tumbled on to the field.

For the past decade, the National Football League Players Association has conducted a survey in which the membership has rated playing surfaces: The Vet has been voted the worst in this category every year.

The lore surrounding The Vet extends beyond the playing surface.

Just last year an Eagles assistant coach sat in his office in the bowels of the stadium, reviewing game films in the wee hours of the morning. He heard scratching noises, squeaks, and feral screams above his head. The noise was almost immediately explained when a cat and a rat, locked in mortal combat, crashed through the ceiling tile and landed on his desk.

It should probably be pointed out that Philadelphia fans are difficult to embarrass. When Santa Claus ventures out in public at The Vet, he is, in keeping with a long-standing tradition, regularly pelted with snowballs.

English soccer hooligans could learn a thing or two from Eagles supporters. For the last several years the local constabulary has maintained an actual dungeon, a jail cell located beneath the stadium, on game nights.

Two years ago this feature was augmented by the installation of a temporary courtroom, replete with judge, so that miscreants can now be tried and sentenced on the spot.

The Vet has already been officially condemned, in that the City of Philadelphia has already committed to building a new sports facility scheduled to be ready for the 2003 season, but, acknowledging the inadequacies of the present structure, the City Fathers agreed last year to rip up the despised Astroturf that had comprised the field for the past three decades.

Although the NFLPA says it strongly lobbied for real grass, even as a temporary solution, the City Council opted for the installation of a supposedly state-of-the-art artificial surface called NexTurf.

The Phillies have been playing on it all season, but the first attempt at converting the stadium from its baseball to football mode came on Monday night, when the Eagles were scheduled to host the Super Bowl champions, Baltimore Ravens, in a nationally-televised pre-season game.

In its multi-sport configuration, artificial turf "cutouts" covering the dirt areas around the bases, the pitchers mound, and the home plate area of The Vet had to be put in place in 24 hours. The grounds crew had done it before, but the surface had never been tested in high-moisture conditions. The area had been drenched by thunderstorms over the weekend, followed by steamy temperatures on Monday.

The field was, in short, a disaster.

When the teams arrived for the game they found grounds crew personnel feverishly attempting to "iron down" spots where the artificial turf had bubbled and buckled. Huge seams, inviting ankle and knee injuries, gaped around the cutouts.

The crowd was informed that the start of the game would be "delayed". Tony Siragusa, the Ravens' player representative, and his Eagles counterpart Troy Vincent, inspected the field in the company of referee Tom White.

All agreed that the surface was dangerously inadequate. It was the first time in NFL history that a game would be scrapped due to an unplayable artificial field.

And now came the REALLY hard part: telling the crowd about it.

When the announcement was made, nearly an hour after the scheduled start, that the game had been "postponed", the Philadelphia fans reacted much as you might have expected, chanting obscenities, booing, and tossing whatever wasn't nailed down on the field. A few of them tossed beer bottles, but since they were unwilling to part with their ammunition until the bottles were empty, the damage was minimal.

"It's an absolute disgrace," said Siragusa. "No player should have to come out here and risk his career on a five-and-dime playing surface. They've got to do better than this."

"It's ludicrous not to be able to play a game on a brand-new field at your own stadium," agreed Vincent, "but it was just way too risky for us as players to be playing on that surface."

Eagles president Joe Banner termed the episode "an embarrassment to the City of Philadelphia". It was enough to make some Eagles long for the hardpan surface of the previous turf.

"The old stuff was hard and crappy," said one. "But at least it was crappy everywhere." On Tuesday the "postponement' was changed by the NFL to an outright cancellation; the Ravens will not be required to revisit The Vet. It has been estimated that this will cost the Eagles between $5 and $10 million in lost revenues. Whether the team will go after the city and/or Southwest Recreation Industries (the manufacturers of NexTurf), or both, remains to be learned, but the next step will surely take place in a courtroom.

"Somebody," said the Eagles' fuming coach Andy Reid, "didn't do their job."