The first angry boo of the 2002 NFL season hasn’t even been hollered from the 700 Level, but the Eagles aren’t taking any chances.

Fearing that their own fans can’t be trusted to behave, the team has banned the sale of plastic bottles at the Vet this season.

That includes all beverages. Beer, soda and water will be served in cups only.

A plastics industry rep ridiculed the ban, calling it, “off the deep end. “

The decision stems from a spectacular game-ending plastic-bottle barrage last December – not in Philadelphia, but 400 miles away, in Cleveland.

The bottles were flung when Browns fans protested the officiating in a game against Jacksonville. Two days later, the same thing happened in New Orleans.

Though Eagles fans have been known to exhibit their distaste for refs, opposing players and out-of-town fans, plastic bottles had not been a problem at the Vet. Nonetheless, the Eagles reacted to the Cleveland fiasco by banning the bottles at last year’s final regular season home game, against the Giants.

That ban will be extended through the entire season.

“It was a pre-emptive move on our part,” said Eagles spokesman Ron Howard.

“We just felt that it was in everybody’s best interest – the best interest of our fans – to end the sale of all plastic bottles,” he said.

Ticket-holders are prohbited from bringing their own plastic bottles and insulated jugs, too. The only beverages permitted are cardboard juice containers.

Though other NFL teams, including the Browns, have banned plastic beer bottles, the Eagles apparently are the first team to cut off sales of soda and water bottled in plastic as well.

(The bottles will continue to be sold at Phillies games at the Vet, where the few fans who bother to attend are presumably better behaved. )

“That really is off the deep end,” said Robert Krebs, spokesman for the American Plastics Council. “They are punishing all the parents and all the children who come to the game, because of the behavior of few fans in Cleveland. “

Plastic beer bottles, a relatively recent advance in packaging, were introduced at Phillies games in 1999. The Eagles OK’d their sale in 2001 on a trial basis.

Stadium vendors favor them because they are far quicker to dispense than individually poured cups of beer.

Krebs said industry surveys showed fans like them because they stay colder longer, and there is no noticeable change in taste.

“Plus, they don’t have to wait in ungodly lines to get served,” Krebs said. “When you pour, you have to wait for the foam to go down. “

He said fan behavior – not plastic bottles – is the problem.

“You could still take your shoes off and throw them if there’s a bad call,” Krebs said. “The owners of these stadiums really must stand up to their constituents and tell them this behavior is unacceptable.”

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IN THE NO-BRAINER decision of the year, the Eagles yesterday announced they will disarm their own fans at Sunday’s game against the hated New York Giants.

Having already seized their guns, drugs and sharp objects, the team banned the sale of plastic beer bottles during the game.

The move had nothing to do with rescuing the city’s long-suffering beer-swillers from the synthetic taste assault posed by these polymerized containers.

It was instead prompted by a spectacular game-ending bottle barrage two weekends ago in Cleveland. Another copycat incident followed in New Orleans.

In that atmosphere, the plastic bottle ban is the Philly equivalent of seizing the Taliban’s rocket launchers.

“This is something we discussed internally right after the events that took place in Cleveland and New Orleans,” Eagles president Joe Banner said in a statement.

“. . . Ultimately, we feel that this is the most logical step that be taken on behalf of everyone in attendance at our games. ”

The Eagles thus join the Giants, Browns, Colts and 49ers in the spreading bottle ban.

The pre-emptive strike for peace is especially timely in South Philadelphia, where the stadium is gearing up for a gridiron classic on Sunday – both on the field and in the stands.

The NFC East Division title is at stake at the final home game of the season.

Meanwhile, the fans will be juiced. Game time is 4:15 p.m., which gives the serious boozers extra daylight hours for their ritual pregame lubrication.

Further, the Giants are a hated rival, with their own share of boorish fans who make the ride down I-95. Fistfights between Gi’nts and Iggles fans have become so common, the Eagles routinely beef up security.

Normally, the Eagles ask the NFL to schedule early matchups against New York (and Washington). But the league long ago recognized this as a prime-time clash, and set it as a late-afternoon nationally televised game.

Then came the mess in Cleveland.

In the days following that stadium-to-field assault, Veterans Stadium reg’lars had been grousing that the interlopers from Ohio had momentarily scuffed our city’s reputation as the Rowdiest Fans in the NFL.

Would Philadelphia’s chest-beaters attempt to regain their lost mantle?

Eagles fans have been known to toss batteries and snowballs. Once, some nut shot off a flare gun.

But plastic beer bottles?

They were introduced to the Vet in 1999 at Phillies games.

The Eagles OK’d their sale this season on a trial basis, according to team spokesman Ron Howard.

Beer drinkers are split over them. Traditionalists believe beer tastes best in glass. But flavor is hardly a matter of concern at the Vet, where rivers of tasteless light swill are downed by thirsty, buzz-happy fans.

The stadium concessionaire, Aramark, favors them because they’re easy to handle and portion-controlled. Unlike draft beer poured into cups, the bottles are not subject to the type of suds-skimming scam that plagued the stadium a few years ago.

Yesterday, an Aramark spokesman said the company played no role in the decision to ban their sale.

“It’s really not for us to comment on whether it’s the right or wrong decision,” spokesman Sean Clements said. “They just asked us to do it. ”

Normally, the $5 bottles are sold without caps, presumably so that – if tossed – any beer would be emptied before the bottle conks someone.

Some wags noted that no self-respecting Eagles fan would ever hurl a bottle full of beer – such a senseless waste of alcohol! Given the long lines at the Vet’s filthy men’s rooms, however, that boast is no guarantee that the bottles would, in fact, remain empty.

Thus, the Eagles decided not to arm their fans with 20-ounce projectiles.

It’s not just beer, of course.

The team banned the sale of soda and water bottles, too. And fans will no longer be permitted to enter the stadium with bottled water, either.

“We have made a number of changes in the last few years to improve safety at our games,” Banner said in the statement.

“We are both proud of the significant improvement and aware of the challenges that remain. This decision is consistent with our commitment to a positive environment for all who attend Eagles games.”

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Box seats at the Vet: $24.

Cold hot dog served by finger-licking vendor: $2.75.

Bringing your own hoagie and sneaking into the expensive seats: Priceless.

*

According to the Chicago-based Team Marketing Report, an afternoon at Veterans Stadium will set back a family of four $132.42.

That’s actually cheap by major league standards. The most expensive team – the Boston Red Sox – fleeces a foursome for wallet-numbing $214.32, according to TMR’s Fan Cost Index.

In these Dow-impaired days, it’s tempting to write off a day at the ballpark as a bad investment. Despite its performance in the early days of the season, the Phillies starting pitching looks as grim as a bear market.

But under the blue sky, when the thwack of a hardball meets the soft leather of the catcher’s mitt, the lure of baseball is irresistible. Your 401(k) might have gone to hell, but Abner Doubleday’s game is still alive and wonderful.

It is Opening Day 2001. Catch a few innings at Broad and Pattison today.

And while you’re keeping score, here are a few ways to watch your bottom line.

We call ’em People Paper Penny Pinchers, and we’ll be sharing them as long as the Dow is down.

First, avoid the Vet’s parking lots. At 7 bucks a car, you could buy a share of some floundering high-tech instead.

Free parking is available in a variety of side streets around the stadium’s perimeter (notably, 10th Street above Packer), but watch out for parking tickets: They’ll wipe out your capital gains. SEPTA is only a bargain if you’re going alone or with one friend.

At up to $1.60 per person each way, it can be cheaper to park a car.

Your biggest savings are cheap tickets.

Given the Phillies’ dismal prospects, the scalpers will be hawking plenty of cut-rate box seats this season. By June, they’ll cost 50 cents on the dollar.

You can save even more with a $8 general admission seat, then move downstairs after the first inning.

(Yes, this is slightly illegal and possibly unethical. But it is also a grand baseball tradition. So move up, and tip your usher. )

Food and drink is your other cost-cutter.

Bring your own hoagie. It’s cheaper and better than a pair of scrawny hot dogs.

Though glass bottles and cans are prohibited at the Vet, you can carry in plastic jugs of non-alcoholic drinks to avoid the $2.75 sodas.

As for beer, you’ll have to sip it in the parking lot. You can split a sixpack with friends for less than the cost of a single cup of watery ballpark brew.

Who knows – if the Phils keep winning, maybe we’ll be drinking champagne in October.

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The ballplayers won’t be the only ones wearing gloves when the Phillies host the Cubs today at Opening Day 2001.

For the first time in memory, the Vet’s concession workers will be wearing them, too.

Stung by a season of health-code violations and a notorious nose-picking affair, the stadium concessionaire will require its workers to wear plastic sanitary gloves when they serve up ballpark grub this season.

The glove regs are among a host of rules implemented under a controversial no-bid food-and-beverage contract that the city handed to Aramark Corp. last winter. Aramark, the Philadelphia-based cafeteria conglomerate, took over concessions last summer when it purchased longtime stadium vendor Ogden Entertainment.

Given the Vet’s terminal condition (the decaying stadium will be replaced in three years), the rules don’t exactly signal a brave, new era of cleanliness. Nonetheless, the stadium is spending millions for a cosmetic sprucing:

* The luxury boxes got a new coat of paint.

* The field – among the worst in professional sports – got a new artificial carpet.

* The players got refurbished dugouts.

* And the perennially abused fans get. . .Grilled Neopolitan Zucchini!

Squash prices were unavailable at press time.

City officials boasted, though, that prices for the Vet’s other so-called “culinary delights” will remain at last year’s levels. That means $2.75 for a boiled hot dog and $3 for a soggy pretzel.

Sounds yummy.

But the price freeze is deceptive, thanks to the provisions of the city’s secretly negotiated pact with Aramark.

In a little-noticed contract revision, City Hall has agreed to reduce its cut of food and beverage sales at concession windows by 20 percent.

That will cost taxpayers about $1 million a year.

Aramark, which last year posted $7.3 billion in worldwide revenues, gets to keep the change.

Importantly, the city’s share from sales in the upscale Food Court behind home plate will increase.

However, combined with a recently announced BYOB ban in the luxury boxes (which puts a half-mil in liquor sales into Aramark’s pockets), the complex deal seems a windfall for the vendor.

For its part, Aramark will spend $1 million in improvements to concession facilities, for everything from new french fryers to a new souvenir store (next to Chickie’s & Pete’s on the 200 Level).

Such corporate benevolence does not come without an angle.

In a tidy arrangement that would make a South Philly shylock envious, Aramark gets to amortize the cost of improvements over three years – with 85 percent of the tab attributed to the second and third years.

That’s important to Aramark because, under Philadelphia’s Home Rule Charter, no-bid professional contracts are limited to one-year terms.

The angle?

Let’s imagine (and this will require little creative thought on the part of experienced fans) a worst-case scenario at Veterans Stadium.

Let’s say Aramark is as bad as it was at the end of last season, when it failed repeated health inspections and its cotton candy man was caught with a finger up his nose.

Let’s say the grilled zucchini tastes like the plastic sanitary gloves.

Aramark almost certainly will get next year’s deal. And the year after that.

Anything less, and the city must return $850,000 in unamortized costs to Aramark.

The Phillies should play such hardball.

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Having thoroughly fleeced the peasants in the cheap seats, Veterans Stadium now turns its attention to the aristocrats in the luxury boxes.

An unwritten BYO rule that has saved these beer-drinking blue bloods millions of dollars at taxpayer expense will be abolished starting on Opening Day this spring.

City Hall officials say that, under a new food and beverage contract that is still unsigned, the stadium will prohibit deluxe box ticket-holders from carrying in their own discount booze.

The prohibition ends 15 years of alcoholic elitism that allowed wealthy fans to avoid the high beer prices that the stadium charges its other, decidedly less influential fans.

Now, instead of spending less than a sawbuck for a case of Bud, corporate honchos can expect to pay $60 or more.

“Other fans aren’t allowed to bring in alcoholic beverages, so why should people operating the penthouses be allowed to violate the same law?” said city procurement commissioner Louis Applebaum.

The stadium is one of the few in the nation without a BYO prohibition.

The Daily News exposed the BYO scam in August 1998, outlining the disparity in stadium beer policies.

Common fans in outdoor seats are routinely searched at the turnstile for a smuggled can of brew. Inside, we pay $5 and more for a single cup of beer.

Meanwhile, affluent fans were welcomed by stadium employees at a discreet gate, where stadium employees helped them haul in cases of discount domestic and imported beer purchased at wholesale distributors.

For these select few, a ballpark brew cost as little as 50 cents a bottle.

At the time, officials at the vermin-infested public facility defended the policy, reasoning that wealthy fans shouldn’t be subjected to the stadium’s notoriously steep liquor prices because they are “preferred customers. ”

“That’s going to stop,” Applebaum told me last week.

The end to the BYO policy grew out of ongoing negotiations for a new ballpark concession contract between the city and Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. Sources told the Daily News that Aramark had griped that the policy was costing it hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost beer revenue.

Spokesmen for Aramark did not comment.

Asked how they expected their pampered deluxe box ticket holders to react, representatives for the Phillies and the Eagles said they would not comment until the new concession contract is signed. The deal is expected to be completed this month.

Undoubtedly, the end of the BYO policy will burn the upper-crust fans.

On almost every game day, private citizens rolled up to the stadium entrance beneath Gate E to unload untold cases of booze. The BYO deal was completely unchecked and unaudited.

The city is supposed to collect a 20 percent cut from food and beverage catering in the boxes, plus 7 percent in alcohol sales taxes.

“I won’t guess the numbers,” Applebaum said. “I do know there’s a significant amount of revenue the city does not get because of this loophole. ”

A Daily News analysis of stadium concession revenues, however, showed the city was losing about $200,000 a year in fees and taxes.

Over 15 years, then, city taxpayers spent $3 million to subsidize the drinking habits of a handful of wealthy fans.

The city’s losses were compounded because much of the alcohol was purchased in New Jersey, where liquor is generally cheaper.

“I’ve been told the box owners had liquor chauffeurs picking up cases out of state,” Applebaum said.

Asked why it took so long for the city to end the BYO policy, Applebaum said, “People weren’t focusing on it. ”

“I won’t comment on why we’re doing it now,” he continued. “But when you’re doing something wrong, the goal is to correct it and make it right. During conversations over the contract, we made the decision that we were going to correct it.”

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In the port-a-potty line, everybody’s got their two cents.

Football strategy, the stadium debate, the weather, nitrous oxide balloons – you hear it all while waiting for your turn in the stall. Everything, thankfully, but presidential politics.

It is pure, opinionated, loud-mouth Philly tawk.

On the afternoon of the Eagles’ biggest home game of the season, I take my place in line . . . and listen.

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Two guys – one’s wearing a Donovan McNabb jersey, the other a wool Eagles cap – get in behind me. There are actually two lines, for the two stalls ahead, and they consider their options.

“There’s like 15 people in this one,” says McNabb. “Two minutes each, that’s a half-hour. ”

“I’m standing over here,” says wool cap. “I count 17, but you’ve got three chicks in front of you. I’ve got none. Ten bucks says I’m finished before you. ”

“Gimme odds.” says McNabb.

He takes a pull from his brew and sighs. “This is ridiculous. I got season tickets for the Ravens. You never stand in line for anything in Baltimore. ”

You hear a lot of stadium envy at the Vet these days. And it’s not just the lousy accommodations we suffer – the high-priced food served from grease-caked concession windows, the shoulder-to-shoulder johns, the trash-strewn, urine-smelling ramps. These are football fans, and many of them are plain worried about the injury threat the players face every time they take the field.

“You see that guy in front of the stadium protesting?” says wool cap, referring to a grass-roots fan demonstration held yesterday in support of a new stadium.

“Yeah, I like that sign: ‘Break ground, not players. ‘ ”

“Look what happened to Duce. ”

“Remember last year,” continues McNabb, “what we did to Irvin? ”

A voice from behind – a blonde in a green parka – chirps up: “Youse guys are sick. Michael Irvin almost got paralyzed and youse were cheering. ”

“I thought you were going to wait till we got inside the stadium,” says wool cap. “These port-a-johns are disgusting. ”

“Oh, I just hover above the seat. You never want to sit down,” she says.

“Hey, you sit down, you freeze your butt in there,” says McNabb. “Yo, I think my line’s moving faster now. ”

“Two johns for 5,000 people. . . ”

“Hey, you’re lucky,” says McNabb. “Last year, there were none. ”

Suddenly there’s shoving and loud voices at the rear of the line. Three or four young guys with walkie-talkies are in the face of an older man with a duffel bag.

“Get that s— outta here,” says the biggest. They’re security guards, and they’ve got themselves an illegal t-shirt vendor.

“Busted, dude,” says wool cap. “I was going to buy one of those shirts, ‘F— Dallas. ‘ But my girlfriend says I’m stupid, like, when am I going to wear it again. ”

“They’re cracking down on the vendors because no one’s selling balloons today,” says McNabb.

It’s true. I haven’t seen a balloon all day. The nitrous oxide dealers – knowing the cops would be in full force for the Dallas game – smartened up and took a holiday.

“It’s a start,” says wool cap. “I mean, I like getting high, but those balloons are disgusting. ”

“I brought my son down here last year,” says McNabb. “He says, ‘Daddy, can we buy a balloon? ‘ ”

The security guards run off the illegal vendor. Meanwhile, the promised land is in sight as my line surges.

“We lucked out – that one girl was just here to hold hands with her friend,” says the blonde.

“You’re going to owe me 10 bucks,” says McNabb.

“No way – we never bet. ”

“Double or nothing on the game. I’ll give you the ‘Boys and a touchdown. ”

“Randall QB-ing for the Cowboys,” says wool cap. “Can you believe it? ”

It’s my turn. The port-o-john door says “Royal Flush. ” I grab the handle and hold my breath.

The door slams shut behind me. And it takes exactly three seconds – I counted – for someone to shout:

“Yo, hurry up in there. ”

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The fans’ mind-altering chemical of choice at Eagles games this season is not reefer, but nitrous oxide.

That’s right, laughing gas.

In yet another bizarre chapter in the city’s storied history of fan misbehavior, thousands of green-and-white-clad Eagles fans now commonly prepare for gridiron battles by tanking up on large doses of the mild anesthesia.

It is a pregame ritual straight out of Timothy Leary’s playbook.

In the parking lots surrounding Veterans Stadium, buzz-seeking fans – drawn by the hiss of escaping gas – line up at a dozen or more 4-1/2-foot-tall cannisters. Five bucks gets a full balloon that’s a little larger than a basketball.

The balloons are everywhere. Brightly colored and tightly clutched, they bob up and down among cheerfully incoherent tailgaters. Occasionally, one explodes and a drunken cheer breaks out.

It looks and sounds like a freak show at a carnival.

“It’s the real s—,” one addled fan in a Donovan McNabb jersey told me after sucking down a mouthful of the gas from a red balloon. “Pure nitrous. ”

Nearby, two heavy-set guys wearing matching yellow Eagles beaks carried three blue balloons each. They looked like overgrown children.

A few, deep breaths, and they were stumbling like fools, lurching in the dust with the pathetic, blank look of utter numbness.

It is strange and it is sad.

And it is completely legal.

Snorting other solvents – acetate or cleanser, for example – is a misdemeanor in Pennsylvania. But according to the district attorney’s office, the use or sale of nitrous oxide is unregulated.

It’s available wholesale at compressed gas dealers, who also rent the steel tanks and regulators necessary to dispense the chemical. A full tank costs about $200, plus the deposit.

“I make about 400 bucks on a good day,” said one parking-lot dealer who, at first, told me his name was “Joe. ” Then, “Tony. ” Then, “John Doe. ” Finally, he said, “Call me Mr. X.”

“But I’m thinking of getting out of the business,” he continued. “Grateful Dead concerts, Dave Matthews – they used to bring in the money.

“It just ain’t the same since Jerry [Garcia] died. ”

Still, thousands of Eagles fans psych themselves for Sunday at the Vet by consuming large amounts of a chemical more commonly associated with dental surgery.

At five bucks a pop, a balloon is cheaper – and more potent – than a stadium beer.

Thus, the lots are a dizzy mass of stupefied men and women – almost all of them in green-and-white jerseys.

When photographer Jim MacMillan and I visited the scene on Sunday, we were greeted with drunken jeering by fans ashamed to have their photographs in the newspaper.

“I don’t need my family to know I do this,” a 25-year-old balloon inhaler said.

Another dispossessed lowlife was so out of it he dropped his pants for MacMillan’s camera and exposed himself.

On 10th Street, an undercover cop had his hands full trying to nab ballooners.

“I know, they’re legal,” the cop told me, “but I hate seeing this stuff around kids. ”

He turned and yelled at three men in their 20s, “Drop those balloons. . .now! ”

The trio sheepishly dropped them, and the balloons sputtered into the air.

The cop turned back to me and explained, “Basically, I just try to scare the s— out of them. ”

Meanwhile, the dealers are brazen.

Before the Sunday night game against Atlanta a week and a half ago, I watched a stadium security guard try to halt sales at one lot by scaring off a dealer. He grabbed the tank and opened its regulator, emptying the gas into the air.

It worked for about 60 seconds – then three burly guys surrounded the guard and threatened to “kick your ass. ”

The scared guard sped off in his golf cart and the dealer was back in business.

Ten feet away, a uniformed police officer seemed more concerned about a group of fans setting off fireworks.

At Veterans Stadium’s famous Eagles Court, Judge Seamus McCaffery said the most he can do is cite dealers for vending without a license.

“You have to be creative if you want to fine them,” he said.

Mr. X, the dealer, said: “The cops hassle the T-shirt vendors more than us. The worst they can do is take your tank – then you’re out some real money. . .

“But to be honest with you, I really don’t like the stuff. It gives me a headache. ”

Harmful to the Clueless

[sidebar]

To paraphrase drug-abusing journalist Hunter S. Thompson, there is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of a nitrous oxide binge.
That’s because the buzz lasts only a few minutes, so users must inhale the gas frequently to remain stoned. The constant inhalation of the gas turns users plain stupid.

It is, however, a fairly innocuous chemical. It is not known for causing serious medical problems and few deaths are linked to its use.

According to the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, the most serious complication of nitrous oxide abuse is brain anoxia – lack of oxygen.

It happens when especially clueless users breathe either through a gas mask or in a plastic bag. Unable to remove the mask or bag when they pass out, they succumb without fresh air.

The safer way to inhale it is to expel the gas from a tank into a balloon. (Never breathe nitrous oxide straight from a compressed tank: it will freeze your lungs. )

Nitrous oxide has been in use for more than 100 years as an anesthesic, especially during dental surgery. It’s also used to help fuel high-performance race-car engines.

Though some states regulate it as a controlled substance, nitrous oxide is legal in Pennsylvania. However, House Bill 1072 (currently before the Judiciary Committee) would make it a third-degree misdemeanor to use the gas for “dulling of the brain. ”

Meanwhile, it’s available in large tanks at compressed gas dealers, and in smaller cannisters – called whippets – that are designed to spray whipped cream. It’s also available at numerous sites on the Internet.

So, what’s nitrous oxide feel like?

Here’s how one Web site, Just Say N2O, describes a nitrous experience:

“After several deep breaths of air, I inhale a lung-full of nitrous and pull down some air on top and then hold my breath.

“Within seconds, a light tingling can be felt which seems to increase in frequency. The sensation is as if waves were traveling up your body as if you were twisting or spinning.

“Disorientation increases rapidly and the pulsing sounds/feelings increase, wrapping over one another.

“It is now, with eyes shut, that I enter a dreamlike state, where I am thinking out something and the external world has essentially ceased to exist.

“Open eyes reveal some sort of tunnel vision, with regions of disorientation about the outside.

“Slowly the throbbing subsides.”

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