{"id":611671,"date":"2026-04-16T22:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T22:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611671\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T22:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T22:54:12","slug":"today-in-history-april-17-crowd-boos-as-stuntman-nearly-killed-in-baseball-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611671\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – April 17: Crowd boos as stuntman nearly killed in baseball stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of the season opener, the Phillies booked a stunt performer who would slide down a ramp in the upper deck of the stadium with a massive hang-glider, sail off the edge, and deliver the game ball for the opening pitch.<\/p>\n

A massive ramp was built, and advertisements went out promoting “Kiteman”.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Kiteman came off the ramp midway down and crashed into the seats. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

But the opening game was delayed because of a players’ strike, and the stunt performer was unable to make the rescheduled game.<\/p>\n

Instead, the experienced stuntman was committed to teaching the Mexican president how to waterski.<\/p>\n

The man tasked with promotions at the Phillies, Bill Giles, found a hardware store owner with some kite-flying experience to do the stunt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The replacement stuntman was not willing to risk his life for $US1000. But he said yes for US$1500.<\/p>\n

Despite the risk, he refused to do a practice run.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Kiteman stunt became a major part of Phillies lore. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“If I’m going to kill myself, I want someone other than just you watching me,” he told Giles.<\/p>\n

When the day finally came, 38,000 fans were on hand to watch the stunt.<\/p>\n

But the Kiteman was frozen in fear when the moment came. As he stood at the top of the ramp, paralysed in terror, the crowd started to boo.<\/p>\n

Eventually, he began his run, sliding down the ramp at speed. But about halfway down, he was picked up by a gust of wind and thrown hard into the stands.<\/p>\n

“I thought he was dead,” Giles said later.<\/p>\n

The near-fatal accident didn’t stop the Phillies crowd from booing even louder.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Kiteman crash as it appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer. (Philadelphia Inquirer)<\/p>\n

The failed stunt was a bad omen for the team, which finished the season last in National League East.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Kiteman came back to reattempt his stunt several other times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The failure became a tradition, and the crowd would cheer when the stunt went awry.<\/p>\n

When Kiteman finally succeeded in landing in the outfield in 1990, the disappointed crowd booed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of the season opener, the Phillies booked a stunt performer who would slide down a ramp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-611671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}