December 18th, Seven Years Ago
I recognize this is a bit of a cop out but we have ten years of this blog and doing anniversary posts is quite easy to do when you have a run like that. Also, it fills the winter gaps. So here is the post from exactly 7 years ago….
https://oneflapdown77.com/2013/12/18/candlestick-a-reluctant-goodbye/
Who did I leave off that list that you think should be on it?
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Thanks Flav, fantastic thread. Dodger Giant games at Stick were often wild, and intensity of yard was just electric. Went to one with my Dad 72 or 73 maybe (because I bought a beer legally from vendor), late summer rare warm night and we under overhang on 1b side. Beanballs went down, I think involving Buckner who lingered a while before taking 1b, and Jerry Johnson, Giants pulled game out, fights btw adults going down the hill toward parking lot. Stick at its finest.
Giant/Dodger games were always my favorite. There were always lots of blue in the crowd so banter between foes was very common. I voiced my opinions quite a lot.
flavor- unless i missed his name on that list Willie Mays gave me the most enjoyable days at candlestick. As a kid who totally idolized him it was magical just to watch him play. I remember him more for his defense that his hitting which says a lot since i saw him win multiple games with his bat. Before the 84 all-star game when they had some of the all time giants play kinda an old timers game when Mays came up it brought a tear to my eye and they were very happy tears
no twinner sighting in that thread. Surprising. That was his wheelhouse.
Great retro thread, Flav. And I saw a post by Nipper there. Where the fuck did the Nipper ever go? I remember the stories of him and his van, drinking (Sanka?) coffee.
Awesome memories of that final series. A friend and I took in all three games, and ran into Berman and Baer at MoMo’s on Saturday while checking out the new yard.
And interesting no Twin on that thread.
I though the Nipper always drank cheap cold ones in the van?
Nipper vanished like a fart in the wind, from Chuck’s blog too.
You hit a lot of bases with that listing, Flav. One that amazed and somewhat delighted me was Mike Sadek, who had a somewhat abbreviated career with SF as the 60’s segued into the 70’s. He was a couple years behind me in a suburban Minneapolis high school. Never saw him playing in a game, but had a chance or two to watch his older brother in action–quite athletic in his own right.
Coincidentally with my mother, who graduated from a tiny northern Minnesota H.S. in ’41 with Wes Westrum, Sadek was a catcher for the Giants. Westrum was the primary catcher for the NY Giants from around ’47 through ’56. He displayed incredibly beat-up knuckles on his hands, having caught Hoyt Wilhelm’s butterfly balls for a number of years. He played for the NL Champs in the ’51 Series vs. the Yankmees and in ’54 for the World Champs. In later years, Wes managed the team for a couple and then later held that post for the Braves and following that career, was a scout for Atlanta for several years.
When doing an antique show in Santa Rosa in the early 90’s, I got into a conversation with a woman there who knew Sadek quite well. Recall is that he had been living in that area. This coming year Mike would turn 75. I remember him from the locker room during the ’61-62 school year when he would have been 15. Time sure rolls on.
great Sadek knowledge
The first time I heard of Westrum was when he replaced Casey as Met manager…
Did I miss Willie Mays and Kevin Mitchell on your list?
Great nostalgia. My first game at Candlestick was a Sunday afternoon vs. the dodgers in August 78, when both teams were battling for first place. Last, Sunday afternoon in July 98 vs. the Reds with my seven year old son (and about half as many fans). Kent won that one with a loud leadoff HR in the bottom of the 10th.
And the fabled 81 concert, marred slightly by the weird Oakland a’s uni Jagger wore. I guess they’d just played in the PS. First major wireless concert, allowed Keith R. to stroll on a walkway near our seats during SFTD. I thought J Geils sucked. I thought the opener tore the place apart. George Thorogood.
Thorogood opened for a lot of bands and truly got the place jumpin. His younger days was classic stuff.
My first game at The Stick was opening day of ’78.
Cool season. Fell short, but it was thrilling for a long while.
I missed all of J Giles, caught a little bit of George Thorogood and a couple of tunes of the Stones. I had started drinking Jack and cokes in the AM and continued in the Stadium Club until I passed out. I just sat at the bar just watching it rain in Montreal (Expos vs LA championship series). The Stadium Club folks were great when I was too drunk to sit on the barstool, they moved me to a booth and put a bar towel under my head. After the show, when my friends came to get me, they were all pretty happy about being able to sit at the prime table I was at because the place filled up pretty fast. I have a lot of stories from that day and some I actually remember.
Loved the memories Craig. I wanted to post one! Now i’m on the current thread and will.
Forgive me if i mentioned this years ago. Sometimes I might be a few beers in when I post:)
The wife got my family and hers (everyone else lives in bay area, or did then) to meet for a day game at the Stick. Total surprise. We flew from LB to SF and went straight to the game. All the others in the seats already. So cool. Best gift ever. i was blown away she pulled it off without me knowing. Mid game I go to get a beer for us and my brother, and no one wants me to leave my seat. In between innings…
Fully covering the scoreboard is Happy Birthday Mike Love Shell
I’d post a pic if I could. I’ve tried many times and can’t figure out how
PS We both went to the Thur, Fri, and Sat games ending the year in 93. We won them all. Huge comeback with Bonds hitting 2 three run homers either Fri night. heaven.
I tried but couldn’t get any tickets for the Sunday game. What a gift that turned out to be!
Bonds was off the hook in ’93, just phenomenal. No one in baseball could touch him. I remember early in that season he hit a massive 3-run shot off of Greg Maddux at Candlestick that portended the great season to come, even though it ended in disappointment. Greatest free agent signing in G’s history, as if that even needs to be said.
The Stadium Club was a place I rarely got into but wanted to badly. The few times I did, I ended up like Bozo.
Great reading that old thread. The lists were phenomenal.
First Candlestick game was bat day in 1970. My mom (brave soul) took 15 2nd grade boys to bat day as it was always around my birthday (April 25). It was a weekday game, so that made it even more special. No idea how she worked the logistics around getting 15 kids to a game, but I do remember the game. It was against the Astros, and the Giants took an early lead, but the Astros stormed back and won behind a couple home runs from Toy Cannon Jimmy Wynn. Coolest part of the day was hearing like 20,000 kids hitting their bats on the ground in unison during the rallies.
We had upper reserved seats behind home plate, and it was a pretty big crowd. There were three old guys in front of us. Early on they were talking about the early Stick days and telling stories of a young Willie Mays, the ’62 series, and the greatness of Bobby Bonds. They proceeded to get hammered, and one of them passed out/fell asleep. We spent the next couple innings stacking empty peanut shells on his hat while his friends laughed and egged us on. Every time he moved, he’d get showered with shells. Good times.
I bought walk-up upper-deck-at-the-rail tickets for our July 98 game. Few fans; not a bad view of the action. Two old-timer season-ticket guys moved over to talk for a while. One of them had been about my son’s age and with his father for the Marichal-Roseboro bat-day game. (I believed him.) My son still recalls some of the other stories those guys told.
Bummed I never saw George Thoroughgood. Did see Pat Travers a few times though.
Boom boom out go the lights.
Long live the Sheik!
I figured it out and my last game at Candlestick was 7/9/99 against the Cards. Giants walked it off in 11 innings on a JT Snow home run. I alluded to this game on the original thread years ago, but did not try to figure out the exact date. The internet is something else.
Ashamed to say we did not stay for the whole game. I was with my brother and my friend Doug that Flav has met a couple of times. Can’t remember why we left.
I wonder if I knew at the time it was going to be my last time there?
And JT was one of my all time favorites too. That would have been a great way to see my last Giants game at The Stick.
Fred Dean and the incomparable Merton Hanks….
Hanks and that crazy neck dance thing! Awesome!
Merton Hanks and his wife came to our office once to discuss a legal matter. Very elegant, intelligent people.
Outside of Lott my fav defensive Niner of all time in Hanks!!! He could punish a dude…Ken Norton turned his back on the team so should not qualify nor Deon Sanders…
Hanks developed into a great free safety. He could really cover some ground.
My ticket to the final Giants game at the Stick.
Flav, let me know if my photos are too large and/or if I’m clogging up the blog with them
Never mind, I deleted it. It looked pretty large to me.
Great thread, Flav. So many terrific names were listed in the original, it really makes you take a step back and appreciate the rich history of San Francisco sports. Just reading those names brings back a flood of memories. My last game at Candlestick was in ’93 against the Braves during that ill-fated run they made to overhaul a very good Giants team. Win 103 games and don’t make the playoffs, in the last season without the wildcard. The Braves were on fire during that series and swept it, IIRC. They had just recently acquired Fred McGriff and he killed the Giants in that series. I’ve hated Atlanta ever since. Skip Caray had a lot to do with that also. I remember he’d constantly bitch about the park during the TBS broadcasts. He never missed an opportunity. Fat fuck.
The highlight of that trip though, was a couple of games prior to that last Braves game, against the upstart Marlins. Robby Thompson hit a walk-off 2-run homer off of Brian Harvey, who was very good at the time. My brother and I were sitting in box seats down the left field line and it wasn’t looking good. Robby got into a hanging splitter with two outs and hit a soaring shot to straightaway LF, right over our heads. Great moment. Still have the ticket stub from that one.
I’ve seen the Giants play many times in Seattle since then, and once against the Dodgers at AT&T, but that was my last time at the Stick. My old man hated baseball, so there weren’t a ton of opportunities as a kid. I remember it was a gorgeous day. I miss the old girl. So many great memories, Niners and Giants.
Great stuff, LJ. 1993 still hurts and always will. Just like 2002.
Yep. That team would’ve been very interesting in the playoffs.
I always liked Dwight Hicks who helped put together “ Dwight Hicks and the Hot Licks” Great name for a punishing secondary!
He was the old man at the time when the 49ers drafted Ronnie Lott,Eric Wright,and Carlton Williamson but his already experience helped mold the rest into one of the all time greatest secondaries EVER..
Hicks also got a small part in “The Rock” as a FBI agent trying to guard the elusive Sean Connery from escaping the Fairmont Hotel without success…
That secondary was legendary, and they blew up teams across the league that first year. What a draft. To get that good that fast on defense. The draft, a couple of key free agent signings, the Fred Dean trade and boom, arguably the best D in the NFL. I like the current team, but Shanahan and Lynch can’t hold a candle to Bill Walsh’s abilities as a talent evaluator. Best ever, IMO.
For sure LJ nobody pulled the rug from under Bill Walsh come draft time. I remember the story when Walsh went to Clemson to check out this QB named Steve Fuller who he had high expectations of drafting.Well he needed someone to catch his throws and this original walk on to Clemson said he would help out.Fuller didn’t impress Walsh much but the walk on was catching every errant throw and showing great hands.He jotted down his name and come draft day he was still there in rd10? His name Dwight Clark!
Oh and deciding to pass on Fuller, Walsh went with this skinny leg kid from Norte Dame instead named Joe Montana and the rest is history!
I believe it was 1978, but Mike Ivie hitting that grand salami off of the hated Don Sutton. I wasn’t at the game, but I remember it was a packed and rowdy house and I’ll never forget Lon Simmons’ call, executed like only he could. Spectacular day and 58,000 Dodger-hating Giants fans in full throat. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Simmons and his “Tell it goodbye” was tremendous announcer, at football too. Grew up with he and Russ Hodges “How you doin everybody?” KSFO was on at house all day.
Yup, I loved KSFO. They also used to run those old-style radio serials all the way into at least the ’70’s, a la “The Shadow.” Listened to a ton of Giants games on that station back then. When that’s all you have you appreciate the hell out of it. Not too many games on TV, mostly just when they played the Dodgers.
i was at that game, my dad took me. I still tell people that’s the loudest I’ve ever heard a stadium (when he hit that grand slam). My ears were ringing till we got back to the car.
1993 still gives me nightmares! And I won’t even bring up Solomon Torres, thanks Dusty!
The season changed for the worse even though the Giants had a great team when Atlanta looking for a spark acquired Fred McGriff from the Padres.In 68 games with Atlanta McGriff hit .310 with 19 homeruns and 55 RBI’s as the Braves WON 51 games and loss just 17! Yeah that was some spark, more like a powder keg, no way they beat out the Giants without him..
Don’t forget Rockies laying down and getting swept by Braves that last week of 93.
I’m sure someone had him on the list, and maybe it was me, but . . .
Frank Gore
Jimmy Johnson
Tommy Hart
Skip Vanderbundt
I could do this forever
I remember at the time Fulton County stadium caught on fire during a game or some shit. The running joke was the season was up in smoke. It was either right before or right after the Crime Dog trade. Fucking Padres. That is why the 2010 season was juuuust a little bit sweeter. Catching those punks and rubbing their faces in it.
Fuck you Latos!!
It was right after the trade…
McGriff was a monster player. Still seems like he’s underrated.
If I ran a team these incentives would be built into all the contracts I offer. Except the would be much bigger. You win the CY? That’s an extra 5mil. You win the WS MVP? 20 mil.
20 mil for WS MVP. That is awesome. Great idea!
there must be a cap on bonuses this idea is too good to not have already happened regularly.
Haven’t seen anything from OSF in a while.
Hope he’s ok…
Can’t remember the last baseball game at the stick. I guess it was never supposed to be my last. I still think best game for me was the the Morgan homer game.
My only Stickman presence at the Stick was in August of ’89 shortly after what I recall as the Mulholland-Bedrosian trade in which the former beat his old team-mates. It was s night game and I’d heard the tales so wore a leather jacket. This stick it to me preceded a weekend antiques show I did at the Cow-Palace. Recall having been on the road for hours before coming down to The City. Found a motel close to Candlestick and totally crashed out that night, not even availing myself of its swimming pool.
Seems like everyone who’s ever been there has a boatload of memories of San Francisco. It sure was a memorable place to live from large summer to early winter of ’69. Took part in the immense peace-march in October. Tens of thousands showed up in major opposition to the Vietnam War.
“It was a night game and I’d heard the tales so wore a leather jacket.”
goddamn I wish I’d run into you during this trip.
I always wore a coat at a night game and many times I was still cold. Still have some Croix de Candlestick buttons somewhere in a box.
I wish I had more positive memories of Candlestick regarding the Giants. There are many for me regarding the Niners. Getting to Candlestick from the Central Valley was a pain in the neck. And the ballpark would often be Arctic cold because of the wind. That’s OK football weather, but not pleasant baseball weather.
i never went to Candlestick a single time expecting nice weather. In fact, i was always hoping it would be terrible. Dress warm, get drunk, celebrate the worst weather on the planet for baseball. We embraced it, lqt-ourselves and at the end of the night knowing dude head nods abounded. It was one of the main reasons I loved that place
Last game I saw at the Stick was vs. the Dodgers 7/5/98, Estes threw 7+ shutout innings and the Giants blanked the Bums on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. I was in town on vacation with my wife and 7-month-old daughter. Two nights earlier we got the full Giants-Dodgers experience as part of a massive, raucous Friday night crowd, although I had to be on my best behavior, in a rousing Giants win, Hershiser beating his former Bum-mates and Snow hitting a tremendous bomb that brought down the house. Got hit in our rental car in an interminable traffic jam trying to get out of the parking lot, no one hurt and besides, it was only a rental. In between games we saw fireworks in the S.F. fog on the 4th. One night we stayed at a hotel I think in the hills near Brisbane, and it was here where our daughter first began to walk. Second part of vacay took us to Colorado Springs, including a trip to Pike’s Peak and to Denver, where I saw the Rox rout the Giants at Coors, which had just hosted the All-Star Game. Quite the memorable trip.
That is great stuff Mac. Orel was pretty solid that year. Getting out of the parking lot, through the local neighborhood, and back on the 101 could be pretty brutal leaving Candlestick.
My first visit to the Stick was in ’86. Had an uncle who lived in Berkeley, he took me to the game and showed me a utility road nearby where he’d park for free. It was a bit of a walk but that was always an option depending on how cheap I wanted to go.
Yeah your car should have plenty of gas and keep those windows rolled up tight when maneuvering thru Hunter’s Point…