Welcoming Meisha Johnson

While listening to Michael Barkaan on WIP this morning – with Ray Didinger filling in for Ike Reese – Mike started welcoming CBS3’s Meisha Johnson to Philadelphia. In the course of their conversation, the subject of throwing snowballs at Santa Claus came up.

I was there that day – almost 47 years ago – and here’s pretty much what happened.

Bad Football Team

The Eagles were a bad football team in 1968.

The Birds lost their first 11 games of the season – that 11th loss was a 47-13 shellacking at the hands of the Cleveland Browns. And then the Eagles won two straight:

1. A 12-0 shutout of the Detroit Lions.
2. A 29-17 victory over the second-year New Orleans Saints.

And now came the final game of the season at Franklin Field – and I was there as usual. My dad and I attended almost every Eagles home game from 1958 thru 1970.

The date was December 15 and it was a matchup with the Minnesota Vikings (7-6-0) on a cold and snowy Sunday afternoon.

These Eagles featured Norm Snead, Ben Hawkins, and my buddy Tom Woodeshick.

The score was deadlocked 7-7 when halftime arrived. Gary Ballman had scored on a five-yard pass from Norm Snead and Bill Brown took a short pass from Joe Kapp and carried it for 57 yards into the end zone.

Now it was time for the halftime show and the arrival of Santa Claus – but there was a problem.

Neither Fat Nor Jolly

The fat and jolly Santa who’d been hired by the Eagles was snowbound somewhere in New Jersey and never made it to Franklin Field. What to do?

An Eagles staff member scanned the grandstands and spotted a fan wearing a Santa Claus suit. But this Santa wasn’t fat and – if he were jolly, he wouldn’t remain jolly for very long.

He was a 19-year-old kid from South Philly who graduated from Bishop Neumann a year or two earlier. His name was Frankie Olivo – although he remained anonymous to most Eagles fans to this day. When asked if he’d fill in for Santa, Frankie Olivo agreed.

Big mistake.

His Santa outfit notwithstanding, Frankie Olivo just didn’t look like any Santa I’d ever seen before – and most of the 54,535 fans in attendance felt the same way. As the loudspeakers poured out “Here Comes Santa Claus,” a scruffy-looking Santa paraded across the field accompanied by cheerleaders.

Many of the fans started booing.

Frankie Olivo later recalled the incident:

“You hear the booing. You hear it. I said, ‘Well, you know, I understand what’s going on here. They’re not booing me. They’re not just booing Santa Claus. They’re booing everything.’”

Before Santa completed his rounds of the field, some fans started throwing snowballs at him – and more than a few found their target.

From that day forward, Philadelphia became “The city that snowballed Santa Claus.”

The next season, the Eagles asked him if he’d like to appear as Santa once again, but Frankie Olivo wisely declined.

Frank Olivo died in April at the age of 66.

For the record, I didn’t throw any snowballs at Santa. For one thing, I wouldn’t have been able to reach him from where I was standing. For another, I wouldn’t have done it even if I could. Just not that kinda guy.

[The header photo is Frankie Olivo in his Santa getup.]

Barry Bowe is the author of:

• Born to Be Wild
• 1964 – The Year the Phillies Blew the Pennant
• 12 Best Eagles QBs
• Soon-to-be-published Caribbean Queen