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Sorry...Hemisfair...not hemisphere.
Yes, this venue deserves its own thread. Alot of you youngsters dont know what I am talking about but the old folk will. You may have heard about it or may have been there for a game when you where in single digits in age, but let me tell ya. It was the best Spurs arena that will ever be. Every Spurs fan was like family in that place. I'll give you a case in point...Pat Riley, while he was coach of the Lakers, was on David Letterman. And David asked him.."what is the most difficult place to play on the road?" You would think he'd say Madison square or Boston gardens..but no...he said Hemisphere Arena in San Antonio. He said it felt like the fans were on top of him and the building was literally moving on its foundation when we were making noise. I miss that place....it was and always will be the best for San Antonio.
Sorry...Hemisfair...not hemisphere.
That was when the baseline bums were really on the baseline and acted like the Cleveland dog pound. I kid you not I went to a game recently and when they were intoduced my wife looked at the section full of passive elderly women and said, "Did they say the baseline mums?"
+++++1. Baseline Bums were incredible.
29 went there alot as a kid good memories
In high school, some buddies and I would all pitch in and buy ---1 ticket--
to a spurs game then on game night we would all go and the one guy would go inside and then he would walk around to the side exit doors...
the mgmt used to have an old guy with a cane sitting on a chair---watching those doors...
it was the old doors with just a bar that you can push from the inside....
the one guy would walk past the old guy...push the bar on the door and all of us would run in and the poor old guy would just yell and try to stop us but we were gone...
not proud of it but when you are young and poor...you find ways to do ...
that hemisfair was once called the loudest arena in the NBA and it used to rock like you would not believe...and the fans were not SPOILED ----YET!
many fond memories of the ICEMAN going nutz and carrying the spurs on his back...
Great place to watch a game. Sean Elliott said after the 95 playoffs that if they had been in the Arena that year instead of the Dome, they would have won the le. That place was the ultimate home court advantage.
Good times.
squeezed inbetween the gate bars, in the back where the players would leave in their cars, when i was a kid(7 i believe) with my brother and we met almost all the spurs and then came david robinson and he was a freakin giant to me then and still is but he was cool as my mother came running up with some usher through the door the players exit at. good memories! that's the same arena i played in during half time vs the coyote.
Some good floor level Spurs action (7 1/2 min.) "In a Single Day"
Last edited by Solid D; 08-06-2010 at 11:12 PM.
I remember one time we made a sign "LA Lakers: Welcome to Your Chamber of Horrors" that was about 6 ft high and as long as the whole court and we hung it from the 2nd level railing; ah it was a great night! My sign was even mentioned in the paper. Also, at Hemisfair, after the first quarter you could move down to the good seats, no nazis checking tickets.
Great arena to see Spurs games. My parents would take me there when I was kid and our seats were right in front on D-Rob's parents. They were great people, and were always very kind in putting up with me and my relentless questions as a kid.
As a season ticket holder for all those years, from the first game to the last in the old Arena, I had some of the best times of my life there--or after the games. I kid you not.
Being a bum in that arena was a lot of fun. Even when the team was rebuilding around Alvin after trading Ice the bums were still rabid as . Good times!
This was where I saw my first dozens of Spurs games as a kid. Yes, the sound was deafening. And this was Pre-D-Rob, when the team was not good at all. The fans in attendance were still rabid. It seemed like the arena was specifically designed to blow the roof off the place.
I see there's someone named MullinFan browsing right now. It brings up one of my funniest memories of the bums at Hemisfair. A dude named Leon dressed up in a giant beer costume one time to heckle Mullin his first game back after checking out of the Betty Ford Clinic. It was cold, but man, it killed me then and it still does now.
On a side note, if you go into the LA Times archives from one of the days around the 2003 Finals, they have more stories about Leon doing stuff like dressing up in a big diaper with a baby bottle full of beer and calling Magic a crybaby when LA came to town. His exploits were part of the front page story in the Times Sports section that day.
Last edited by baseline bum; 08-07-2010 at 12:17 AM.
and no mention of the live band??????? Come on people. Does anyone remember the columns that blocked the views? haha. Was a great place. Was able to get real close to the players. im not sure if it was louder or not before they raised the roof too.
We use to buy cheap tickets then walk down in 2nd quarter, but I think kids still do that now. haha. I really hoped the new building woudl be like that, but its more about money now.
no doubt! my brother and i used to sit right behind the bench all the time. damn good memories.
i also won a duffle bag with the old spurs logo on each end screenprinted and 2 boxes of skybox cards off one of those program guides back in the day.
Good memories but the arena sucked. Only good thing was it was really loud.
Cant forget the red white and blue basketballs....great place, loud as , started going in 76'....
I was 10 at the time and remember going to a Spurs-Sonics game in the Hemisfair back in 77. After the game I wanted Iceman's,James Silas's, or Larry Kenon's autograph. So I just walked right into the Spurs locker room. About 2 steps inside the locker room, some security guy yanks my collar from behind and kicks me out of the locker room. The security guy did get one of the Spurs to give me a an autograph, but the guy was some dude named Mike Ward, who I don't even remember playing for the Spurs. Oh well. I absolutely loved the old arena. Best place ever to watch a basketball game.
Cotton-eyed Joe, line dancing en masse on the concourse at halftime?
I remember that.
(Bull- !)
You could hear the profanity of the Bums clearly from about anywhere in there.
Saw fans pour beer on the opposing team. A number of times.
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