Saying a Final Goodbye to the Big Concrete Toilet Bowl
I’m not gonna lie, during the first series when Seattle had the ball, and the crowd was chanting “De-fense” over and over, I got a little choked up. I didn’t just hear hear the pride of Niner fans, I felt it in my soul. So much great history, resonating, reverberating, shaking…..
As Giants fans, we said goodbye to Candlestick Park 14 years ago. I’ll never forget my first game at AT&T, coming up the stairwell seeing that brand new beautiful park—it took my breath away, literally. But I will never stop missing games at the ‘Stick and all of the amazing moments I was a part of, as a fan, in that place.
My dad had season tickets to Niner games in ’79 and ’80. He gave them up the year before they won the Super Bowl. My parents got divorced in ’78, I think it was his way of apologizing to me or something. While I’ve been to a few Niner games since then, I went to a bunch with him over that 2 season period. I was too young to really remember them much. At least, not like I remember going to Giants games. I think that’s where the “knowing dude head nod” was born. Although now I think those weren’t really “knowing dude head nods” that I shared with my Giant’s brethren—our heads were just shaking involuntarily from the freezing temperatures, lol.
Still, yesterday, I felt the Niner pride all the way from Candlestick, through my tv and into my living room. So many great memories from that shit hole. Giants games, Niner games, even a Monsters of Rock event that I remember a little of.
I think I’ll remember that Frank Gore run that set up the game winning field goal for the rest of my life. I am so jealous of the fans that got to watch it live, erupting in unison. One of the great Candlestick moments. There have been so many.
I had a half-hearted plan to hit a final Niner game this year but didn’t get off my ass to make it happen. I can’t actually remember the last Giants game I went to at Candlestick. I think I’ve been to a Niner game or 2 over the last 14 years. Still, it would have been great to go to one final game. I doubt I’ll go to the final regular season game and we likely won’t have any playoff games at home this year. I regret not going to a final game at the ‘Stick this year. One final game.
I’m not going to watch them blow her up. My heart couldn’t take it. It would be like blowing up part of my soul….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
How weird. I just wrote this on the previous thread, not knowing the new one re:Candlestick was up.
Isn’t that site an EPA superfund toxic waste site? I think they have to launch all the dirt around there into space, or some shit.
Yeah, I did get to a game (AZ) earlier in the year. I may go to the Ram game for a final farewell. This is the 3rd nominal dynasty I’ve seen. Starting with Brodie, Gene Washington, Ted Kwalick, Dave Wilcox, Jimmy, Johnson, etc. the Montana years, and now Harbaugh and Kappy. Off all the games I saw, I didn’t see the Catch, or the Catch II, or the Catch III. Saw Young’s mad scramble, Brodie’s triumphant comeback and subsequent heartbreak a week later in 1972. Montana’s coming out 28 point comeback game in 1980, Steve Young’s hard fought victory in the 1994 NFC Championship game, Saint Kenny Stabler nearly erasing a 21 point deficit in the waning minutes of a rain-soaked game somewhere around 1980, John Taylor and his 2 epic punt returns on a must-win Monday night game vs Washington, Montana and Dan fouts deuling in an epic game the Niners eventually lost 41-37. Got a stack of ticket stubs about 2 inches thick of various games.
Not to mention the thousands of Giants games, including the infamous 2-outs-Clark game, the Maddox hat game, seeing Tommie Agee smash his face against the chain link fence in the OF, Mays and Bonds colliding and Bonds getting knocked out, Mike Ivie’s granny, Darrell Evans hitting a ball 10 rows into the RF upper deck (2 rows in front of me), Lou Pinella pulling 1st base out of the ground and throwing it into the outfield, the Lasorda riot, Krukow out-deuling Fernando Valenzuela 2-1, Gaylord Perry winning game 1 of the 1971 playoffs over the Pirates, aaaaaaaaaaaaaah. crazy……………………. We came, We saw, We survived . . . I got drunk, stoned, got arrested, thrown out, snuck back in countless times. My 2nd date with my future wife was an afternoon Giants game. Croix de Candlestick, baby!!! It was a shit-hole, but it was OUR shit-hole.
Mine got left behind too Chuck . . . Excellent post Chuck. I saw the 1st 1981 Montana 49er game against the Cowboys where they destroyed the Cowboys 45-14, but didn’t see the “Catch” playoff game. Lon Simmons son in law (a fire captain at the fire department I worked at in Mountain View) invited me to the game. I took my girlfriend and he was with his wife. At this October game, I was so shit faced that when I was introduced to Lon Simmons, I said, “You sure as hell don’t look like Bill King.” Umm . . . He wasn’t amused. Fuck him. LOL. I also almost fell off the 2nd level, while cheering for the ‘Niners, but my buddy pulled the back of my shirt, where I plopped back in my seat.
I also saw the Mays/Bonds collision as they went up against the cyclone fence in center right field. Everything else is a blur . . . Like you, I was mostly stoned and/or bonzoed at most of the games I went to. 😉
Ha ha! Lots of good times. Saw lots of shit games there as well. 2 NFC Champiopnship losses to the Packers, both in the pouring rain, The epically tragic 1972 Dallass loss in the playoffs, a terrible rain-storm game agaisnt the LA Raiders that the Niners lost 12-6 on a 4th and 1 where Walsh tried an end around to Rice that lost 6 yards. I was so drunk, the girl that took me (1st date) ditched me midway through the 3rd quarter.
The Giants losses I can’t quite recall with any certainly. Many many many losses though! Certainly the twi-night double header vs the Dodgers that resulted in the melee in the 9th ranks up there. The Giants lost both of those.
Flav, there’s the Ram game December 23rd. Take Katie. She can tell her grandkids she went to the last game ever played at Candlestick park.
Is it just me, or does your screen mutate through different fonts when you are on this site? This is happening to all my wordpress sites that I look at. Including my blog as well as this one.
that’s an acid flashback,. Chuck., Ride it out, it can’t go on forever. 🙂
Go ask Alice . . .
“that’s an acid flashback,. Chuck., Ride it out, it can’t go on forever.”
That cracked me up!
It took a special kind of bureaucratic apathy for the owners of Candlestick Park (whoever owns it…..city of San Francisco? South San Francisco?) to never have paved over the dirt parking lots, considering the amount of money the Park must have made over 50+ years. Those dirt parking lots, of course, were dust storms in the wind, and bogs in the rain.
And calling the thing a “Park” is a pretty egregious misuse of language.
But having said that, none of that mattered when the Niners were winning Super Bowls. It was a glorious haven during those years.
Zume, there were some awesome pre-game football games in mud bowl parking lots back in the day. You did need 4 wheel drive to safely navigate out of the quagmire at times. Got more than a few free beers pulling people out of the mud.
Yeah, that would be SF. It is about 15′ past the city limits.
Lyrical. So lyrical. Thanks for such a sweet valediction, Magnus.
Change sometimes is good. Getting out of SF is the smartest move the 49ers have made. Good riddance to the Stick! Still……. it was our dump.
Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre were unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame. No use for any of these managers. Cox beat his wife, La Russa is an asshole, and Torre had a job that any of us would have excelled at (let’s face it – that Yankee team was like a 747 on autopilot).
No players were elected. Logjam into the HOF is extended one more year. Hilarious.
What happened to being retired 5 years? Does that not apply to managers? As for LaRussa and Torre, how is it that managers who managed guys on ‘roids get a slick ride straight into Cooperstown, but the guys ‘roiding that they managed are tarred and feathered, have no shot at the HOF?…
Good point.
Morris denied again eh? That’s too bad. I think he is deserving.
I think he’ still on the regular players ballot for the BBHOF writers for the last (15th?) time; that comes out next month. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong…
So many memories of the Stick, good, bad and ugly. Oh yeah, and a lot of weird. Who could forget Little Joe’s home run. Or how about Scott Garrelt’s first start where he loaded the bases (hit the batters or walked them) for the first couple of innings until fans started yelling “Don’t walk him, hit him” or the infamous “Beam him up Scotty” chant, from the 2,000 or so people there that night. Raining baseballs against the Braves, the 84 All-Star game, the 89 earthquake. Little Joe behind me in line to get a polish dog before a broadcast, Jerry Brown pointing at my band tee shirt and asking “What’s that?” and my smartass reply “It’s a tee shirt Jerr”. That last game in 92 when we thought the Giants were leaving SF, the final game before moving to the new yard. Many football games, Montana’s last as a 9er against the Lions (I think it was Charlie Garner, after catching a TD pass said “Hey, that guy is pretty good”), the Ditka gum game, a SFPD friend telling me to go out the back door of the Hobrau and back to me seat so he didn’t have to bust me. Passing out in the Stadium club while the Stones were playing, blah, blah, blah.
I was happy when the Giants moved, hell I bought in before they laid the first bricks, but I’m one of those weirdos that really did love that strange world called Candlestick Park.
Not certain Clown, but aren’t Flappers still on a mission to find your brick at the Phone Park? I frickin’ forgot to look at the last Flapalooza. 😉
Mine is closer to the Mays statue than Brandon Crawford’s brick. I always thought that was pretty cool, Brandon’s folks getting a brick when he was a kid and now he’s the starting SS.
One of these days I’ll be back out west to spill beer on my brick.
Once upon a time in the Stick time machine, I had a Ford Fairmont that looked so much like an undercover car that I kept an empty box of doughnuts on the dash. Drove out to a Giants game but didn’t want to pay for parking because it looked like it might get rained out. So my buddy and I just parked behind all the cop cars, at the entrance where the buses dropped people off at. Sat there for a good half hour before one of the cops came over. He asked us what we were doing there and after we explained about the rain out he told us we couldn’t park there. We decided to go over to the Old Clam House to get a few beers. On our way out, the gate I wanted to go through was closed but the cops standing there opened it up and waved at us as we went by. Cracked us up.
I lived a couple of blocks from Kezar before they tore it down, helped a buddy get a piece of the wood bleacher seat on the final day, never went to game there but wasn’t happy about them tearing it down. No, I wouldn’t want to be the one to push the button.
I still think a final game next March Giants v. Dodgers, the last preseason game or some such, should be played at the Stick, for charity (how bout some to Brian Stow?). It would be a blast. And, pregame, after all the other Dodgers had hit the dugout, LaSorda could waddle out of the RF clubhouse door and across the field to the Dodger dugout, blowing kisses to the ‘Stickians for one last time. It would be incredible…
OK, all you guys with the loving memories of the ‘Stick.
Which one of you would NOT love to press the button on the implosion?…
Mgr HOF vote is separate. The players won’t be announced till Jan. Maddux Glavine are locks.
Got it, thanx. I googled to an article on it, got the scoop.
I guess the Vet Committee doesn’t give a crap about managers managing roiders like Canseco, McGwire, A-Rod, but if you were a ‘roider player, that’s different, you’re dirty, so you’re persona non grata in the HOF. Meanwhile, Marvin Miller was on the Vet Committee ballot, he’s left out. Did he do ‘roids?
The baseball HOF, whoever votes for them now, is a joke…
Not certain Glavine is a lock.
He should be.
Ahhh, forgot to mention dear ol’ mom taking me and 16 other 2nd grade (and then 3rd grade) classmates to Bat Day as it was near my birthday. I’ll never ever forget the sound of thousands of bats hitting the ground in unison . . .
“I had a Ford Fairmont that looked so much like an undercover car that I kept an empty box of doughnuts on the dash. Drove out to a Giants game but didn’t want to pay for parking because it looked like it might get rained out. So my buddy and I just parked behind all the cop cars”
Awesome, Bozo. This reminded me of one of the greatest music videos ever made:
That’s funny Zum. Do you think if I had actually kept doughnuts in the box the cops would have let me stayed? My buddy always thought they would have.
Gotta love it:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/49ers-season-ticket-holders-can-buy-their-seats-4959186.php
Irritating. D-backs about to acquire Trumbo. Think SAbes is already in Tampa? I do.
Per RotoWorld, “The Giants are “intrigued” by Yankees’ outfielder Brett Gardner, according to the New York Post’s Joel Sherman. “Not likely, but not impossible,” a source told Sherman, referring to the odds of a Gardner-to-the-Giants trade. It was reported over the weekend that New York would field trade offers for Gardner. In addition to Gardner, the Bombers currently employ outfielders Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran, Alfonso Soriano, Ichiro Suzuki and Vernon Wells.”
Not certain about that Flavor – Again, per Roto, “Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times hears that the Angels are not willing to trade Mark Trumbo for Tyler Skaggs, “at least not straight up.” Skaggs has naturally been linked in the Trumbo/Diamondbacks rumors, as he has plenty of upside but doesn’t appear to have a spot in the club’s 2014 rotation. He would be slotted into the Angels’ rotation, but the Halos might prefer a more proven commodity. As Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic notes, Skaggs is coming off a poor season in which he lost some velocity. However, he also came into the year as a top-15 prospect.”
Too funny, maybe not only Trumbo, but Choo as well . . .
FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reports that the Diamondbacks are in on Shin-Soo Choo. They’re also in on trade talks for Mark Trumbo, as Rosenthal notes that the D’Backs are “active on multiple fronts.” He says Arizona could potentially sign Choo and trade for a pitcher or trade for Trumbo and sign a free agent pitcher. Rosenthal reported earlier Monday that the Choo negotiations “appear to be reaching a critical stage.” The Rangers are also in on him, with additional clubs likely in the mix.
Sabes working hard on his tan. 😉
How is it that the Dbacks are supposedly onto these two top guys, and are “active on multiple fronts”, yet don’t have near the revenue of the Giants?…
No idea, but it is irritating. Like I’ve said a number of times, I’m patient, but it will be disappointing if Sabes doesn’t do anything between now and Spring training.
A lot of Gardner to the Giants buzz out there, I was just told…
You must know Sherman too.
I wonder if the poor slob who married Kathy knows that story.
Yankees are looking for a ready to go starter for Gardner. Giants don’t have any of those unless you wanna consider the dude who just missed a no-no this past season. Petit would not fetch him on his own, but toss in a couple good pitching prospects from the pipeline such as Blackburn and one of the three top bullpen arms and mayyybe that would work. Two decent starter prospects could intrigue them.
Though Gardner might present the best fit for SF they are also sniffing around Hart and Morse. It’s also worthy of note that the Twins are still in hunt for a catcher. Free Agent receivers got snapped up fast. Josh Willingham had a down year for them and has a year left on his contract. Would you trade Hector for a water-buffalo?
in case you have the ability to appreciate *awesome*:
Also, I had sex with my girlfriend Kathy in a bathroom during a Friday night game when nothing but the wind was whistling through the stalls. Maybe the 5th inning? I should have waited till the *7th inning stretch*. 🙂 I know I’ve told that story before but it’s still something I’ll remember fondly for the rest of my life. 🙂
Maybe they’re selling not just the seats, but the bathrooms stalls to the public, too. Memorabilia with a romantic twist?…
Pretty sure that goes above and beyond Kruk’s definition of “Gamer Babe”…
Back in the ’80s in Boston, Lou Gorman was the GM for awhile; a rather oversized gentleman who didn’t seem very competent, and the joke about him going to the GMs’ meeting every December was, you always knew where to find him; at the buffet table. There was one year the Sox needed an outfielder and some speed in the lineup, and Willie McGee was available, and the equivalent of the lunatic fringe was crying out for Gorman to get him. Gorman’s quote was, “Willie McGee? What would we do with Willie McGee?” Inaction at that GMs’ meeting (and I think that quote, too) got Gorman fired shortly thereafter. Sure don’t want to hear Sabes being quoted at the strip joint in Tampa, “Trumbo or Choo? What would we do with Trumbo or Choo?” ….. Not that his job is in jeopardy… Well, still two months before Spring Training… plenty of time…. … ….
Trumbo sucks. In order for him to hit his 30 bombs you’d have to watch him strike out 200 times and hit .230.
AZ can’t hit the guy in the middle of the order; golds would walk 200 times a year with Trumbo behind him.
He’s the next Adam Dunn –zero speed, terrible defender anywhere.
I’d like to know the reasoning behind why AZ rebuilds its OF every year too.
Is it because the guys not named G Parra all suck?
Um, Zum, did that Kings raptors trade I heard about go through? Rudy Gay to Kings, Vasquez and a few others to Raps. Guess that means Thomas takes over the point.
I don’t care for PGs who over dribble and don’t get others involved. with another legit scoring threat maybe Thomas tones down the act a bit and takes better care of the ball. Hey it took steph a while to figure out lazy passes and turnovers hurt the Dubs big time and usually result in points at other end.
How did Jimmer not end up in that trade? 🙂
“The deal involves seven players, with the Kings sending John Salmons, Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes to Toronto in exchange for Gay, Aaron Gray and Quincy Acy. It was required to be a large trade to accommodate Gay’s salary, which is more than $17 million this season.”
Yeah, I’m not thrilled with more minutes for Thomas. I’m not a big fan of the point guard competing to be the leading scorer of a team.
Having said that, the Kings were very groovy in their victory over Dallas tonight. Thomas with 12 assists; Cousins with 32 points, 19 rebounds. So maybe Thomas got the memo finally.
I missed the game. I was watching the new Bonnie and Clyde movie. A very entertaining film, which is cool; but like the Warren Beatty film, takes a lot of artistic license with the facts. That aspect was kind of disappointing to me, especially since the film showed on the History channel, in addition to the Lifetime network and the USA network, I think. People seeing the film on the History Channel are going to be thinking they’re getting a highly factual account, and that isn’t so. It’s pretty much the gist of the story, but a lot of stuff got changed. And maybe that’s just the history nerd in me; but still, why mislead people in a movie that was being billed as a “docu-drama”? Still, it’s worth seeing.
I would much more recommend Jeff Guinn’s excellent and definitive book about Bonnie and Clyde, called “Go Down Together.” It’s a great book.
Go Down Together? I thought that was Flav’s escapade in the bathroon stall . . .