With Halloween just a few days away, I thought I'd get into the spirit by combining spookiness and sports. You see, old mansions and decrepit warehouses aren't the only places that ghosts like to hang out. In fact, it seems as if several members of the great beyond still like chilling around their favorite sports teams.
Here are the top five haunted sports stadiums in the world.
This venue was built in Rochester in 1996 and currently houses the Rochester Red Wings of baseball's International League. However, the visiting teams in this stadium aren't just baseball players.
ESPN reported in 2005 that the stadium's construction unearthed human remains. Soon after the stadium's opening, workers began complaining of strange occurrences. In 2004, stadium employees allowed a team of ghost experts to examine the grounds. The investigators came back with tales of numerous encounters with ghosts and even claimed that several of the other worldly beings were happy their old stomping grounds were converted into a baseball stadium. Pictures that revealed floating entities and strange, inexplicable activity led Rochester Paranormal to label Frontier Field as "officially" haunted.
The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame are one of the most successful college football team in history. They're also one of the most haunted.
George Gipp, who was the first Notre Dame player to make the All-American team, was a supremely talented and versatile weapon for the Fighting Irish. He still holds the record to this day for the highest yards per rush average (8.1) in a single season. However, a combination of strep throat and pneumonia took his life at age 25 in 1920.
Soon after his death, students and faculty began reporting doors throughout campus opening and closing mysteriously and a whirlwind of rustled papers blowing in classrooms. Some even claim that they could hear a French horn blowing in the night. In 1925, reports circulated that Gipp could be seen riding a white horse on campus after dark.
Gipp's story remains a popular tale at Notre Dame to this day.
This Columbus, Ohio stadium was built on the ground where the Ohio State Penitentiary once stood. This is notable because the Ohio State Penitentiary is infamous for being the site of the deadliest prison fire in US history. On April 21, 1930, 322 inmates were killed and 150 were seriously injured in a deadly blaze. Reports of the incident say that several guards refused to unlock cell doors and left the prisoners to burn.
Now, rumors exist that the ghosts of those inmates can be heard yelling in pain as they relive their final moments. The parking garage is said to smell of smoke and the sounds of screams and flames burning can be heard there.
This soccer venue was the site of public executions once upon a time. Convicts were reportedly stoned or shot to death at close range by the Taliban and limbs were hung from the goal posts. Now, the stadium is said to be haunted by the spirits of those who were killed there.
So many executions were carried out here that the stadium had to replace the grass field.
"Too much blood has flown here," Mohammad Nasim of Kabul said. Citizens rarely venture to the stadium after dark for fear of victims souls roaming the grounds.
Was it a camera malfunction? Faulty lighting? Whatever the case may be, there is no doubt that something strange is going on.
