HOLD MY BEER

Philadelphia Stadium Worker Pens Memoir About Partying in His Secret Concession Stand Apartment

Tom Gary recalls watching rain-delay games in his bathrobe and slippers and roller-skating around the Phillies and Eagles stadium that he called home.

Philadelphia sports fans, meet your new king. A Philadelphia man says he lived inside a secret spot within the city’s old Veterans Stadium for years while he ran the parking lots. Tom Garvey, a Vietnam vet, claims he fashioned a small apartment for himself inside an abandoned concession stand where he hosted the wives of Eagles players, threw parties, and generally had a great time. The Philadelphia Inquirer spoke with three people who said they remembered the apartment, which Garvey says he used between 1979 and 1981, including when the Phillies won the World Series in 1980. The 78-year-old reveals the details of his only-in-Philadelphia past in a new memoir called The Secret Apartment: Vet Stadium, A Surreal Memoir. He blocked off the area in front of his apartment with cardboard boxes so no one would suspect what was behind, and recalled that he would sometimes watch the ends of Phillies games in his bathrobe and slippers. “I was like a kid with a Willy Wonka golden ticket,” Garvey says.