Remembering the Stick: Candlestick Park-1960-2013

by Steven Travers

Overview

Described by famed baseball scribe Roger Angell as looking like “a festive prison yard” during the 1962 World Series, Candlestick was loved and hated by sports teams and fans alike for its 43 years of existence. Built on a landfill above a garbage dump in a city rocked by an 8.6 earthquake only 54 years earlier, it was notorious for the tornadic winds that came off the bay, probably costing Willie Mays at least 100 career home runs. The fogs that rolled in looked like something God sent to pass over His Chosen people. And of course, there was the famous 1989 World Series earthquake that postponed the opening game for 10 days. But it was also home to the greatest run of sustained excellence in pro football history: the 1981–1994 49ers, as well as the exploits of baseball stars such as Mays and Juan Marichal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630760717
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Pages:	376
Sales rank:	1,105,417
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Steven Travers is the author of more than twenty books, including the best-selling Barry Bonds: Baseball’s Superman, nominated for a Casey Award as Best Baseball Book of 2002; and One Night, Two Teams: Alabama vs. USC and the Game that Changed a Nation. He was at Candlestick when the stadium was rocked by the 1989 World Series earthquake, witnessed the 49ers winning their first NFC title there in 1981, and was busted for trying to bring beer into the stadium as a teenager. He lives in northern California.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Rivals 1

Harney's Dirt 8

Landfill 14

Ineptitude and Inferiority 16

Superiority Complex 23

Alex Pompez and the Latino Pipeline 27

The Preacher 31

Meet the 1962 San Francisco Giants 39

Death Struggle 50

September 1962 61

1951 Redux 69

Beat L.A.! 77

"A Festive Prison Yard" 95

October 1962 100

The East-West Fall Classic 112

For the Record: 1962 126

Duel 129

The Roseboro Incident 139

Year of the Pitcher 145

The 600/3,000 Club 151

Last Hurrah 155

Here Comes the Niners 160

A Black Day by the Bay 162

1970 Redux 168

It Is Darkest Just before the Dawn 172

Celebrity Corner 179

Halicki's No-Hitter, Montefusco's Boasts 183

The Melancholy Story of Jim Plunkett 188

Renaissance in '78 194

The Catch 199

Birth of a Dynasty 207

Morgan Breaks Dodger Hearts 214

Super Bowl XIX: 49ers 39, Dolphins 16 221

Craig and Clark and Mitchell and Dravecky and … "Humm Baby!" 225

"It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" 246

So Close and Yet So Far 263

Saviors 268

The OJ Scandal 271

Super Bowl XXIX: 49ers 49, Chargers 26 281

The North versus the South 284

The Greatness That Is, Er, Was the Raiders 293

The Computer That Was Dallas 298

The "Steroid Era" 303

Farewell to the "Prison Yard" 316

TO the Whiner 326

Doldrums 335

Harbaugh and Kaepernick: The Dawning of a New Age 338

49ers of Silicon Valley 343

Bibliography 353