There's a Hole Right There.

By the early 1970s, Billy Sullivan had a dream - to build a state-of-the-art Taj Mahal named after a brewery for his beloved New England Patriots.

Coincidentally, that dream occurred around the same time that every stadium in the Boston area evicted the future world champs. The Pats got around in the old AFL days. They played in Fenway Park, BC's Alumni Stadium (which the fans set on fire), Harvard Stadium, BU's Nickerson Field and even one home game in Memphis. It was right around the time that the Patriots had to cross the Mason/Dixon line for a home game that Sullivan had his dream.

He scoured Boston for potential locations, but there was nothing. He then looked at surrounding suburbs and found nothing again. Finally he settled on a leafy burg called Foxboro, located about 30 miles southwest of Boston. In 1971, Billy unveiled his $4,000,000, 60,000 seat palace, called Schaefer Stadium (the one beer to have when your having more than one).

Some cynical fans had complaints. Mostly petty things like the fact that only one road, a small four-lane highway called Route 1, leading to and from the stadium, which led to some minor traffic jams. If the game ended at 4 p.m., you might be back in Boston by midnight.

Another famous whine was about the seats. Only about one-fourth of the seat had backs. The rest had to make due on steel benches. Sullivan was even nice enough to put grooves in them so you didn't fall off, but there's no satisfying some people. Some medical "experts" even said that these seats caused a generation of fans to grow up with spinal problems. You can't have everything.

And if that wasn't enough there were the complaints about the concession area. One half of this section of the stadium was opened to the elements and it just happened to be the side where the wind gusts through and carries the rain with it. Who knew? So this issue caused the occasional three-to-four foot flood? So what if some toddlers were known to get swept away in the torrent. At least it was home.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. In 1971, the Patriots finally had a franchise quarterback in Jim Plunkett (granted the Offensive Line coach appeared to be a matador in a prior life, but it was a start), and a brand spanking new stadium.

There was only one thing left to do before welcoming the Oakland Raiders to this new local treasure, check the water pressure.

The engineers were concerned about what would happened if everyone was using a toilet at the same time and everyone flushed at the same time. Yes, it was unlikely, but the Patriots always crossed their "I"s and dotted their "T"s. So the Pats send every employee they could find to flush each toilet at the same time to see what would happen.

On the count of three, each Schaefer Stadium bathroom turned into a mini-Cape Canaveral with toilets being launched into the stratosphere. After a night of brainstorming, the brass of the team came up with their only solution before the fans arrived.

"Excuse me, sir, where are the toilets?"

"Ah, yeah, when you walk into the men's room take a sharp left, look down, there's a hole right there..."