Tucked away in the farthest corner of Bayview-Hunters Point since , the delicate old stadium will be taken down with care after members of the community addressed concerns that demolition would spread dust and debris to the neighborhood, site manager Jermaine Smith told SFBay.
No swinging swinging of wrecking balls like you see in movies, this is more precise demolition. But today, the stadium is literally a shell of its former self. Old posters of exers from the season still hang above nosebleed seats where many fists flew and drinks spilled. According to Smith, Lennar Urban and The City — along with retail developer Macerich — will begin construction on a new mall after Candlestick Park is nothing but a memory.
Until then, head wrecker Larry Thomas said Candlestick Park will remain upright for about three more months. Search Search. Night Mode Night Mode. Day Mode Day Mode. It is considered to be the best-lighted stadium in the United States, literally turning night into day and exceeding the requirements of color television cameras.
A new, state-of-the-art Sony video display board was installed in January In fact, the Beatles performed their last U. The Rolling Stones and Monsters of Rock concerts, in and , respectively, each drew crowds of 85,, and Pope John Paul II's visit attracted 86, people. Candlestick Park is a menacing structure that can give you the chills. Start with the breathtaking view of San Francisco Bay on the stadium's side. Add the aroma of the popular tailgate parties.
Witness hotdog wrappers swirling in the unpredictable wind. Bundle up for typically brisk and damp conditions, and brace for a sea of 49ers - red outerwear in the stands.
These are some of the things that make the "the Stick" perhaps the NFL's most flavorful venue. Unless you're tailgating, you have no reason to eat before entering the Stick, and it's always wise to bring a jacket, even if its 70 degrees and sunny when you depart for the stadium. All things considered, it's a unique experience - and the quality of football is pretty good, too. Of course, getting a ticket to this tast of the city can be difficult, but if you haven't been to a 49ers game at Candlestick, the experience could be worth the price you have to pay.
The rules prohibit alcohol, glass bottles and cans, but plastic bottles and thermoses are permitted. Fruit is allowed, although it "must be cut into pieces prior to entering" so forget the idea of hurling oranges. Now, you've made a lot of sandwiches. So you may be wondering how big a cooler you can lug in. On this issue, the 49ers are remarkably permissive. According to the club's rules on page 58 of the game program, fans can carry "coolers or ice chests measuring 14 feet wide, 13 feet high, 15 feet deep or less.
I'm not sure what to make of this rule, but I want to see your wife carry one in. And if she can, we could use her on the defensive line.
Since the Giants have departed for their beautiful new ballpark, Pacific Bell Park, the 49ers are now the sole tenant of this stadium. The building is located right on San Francisco bay on a piece of parkland called Candlestick Point. Opened in , the stadium seats just under 70, for football. It is located about 8 miles south of downtown San Francisco. Fans here arrive early to tailgate, and there is plenty to absorb in terms of the sights and smells of 49ers red and gold out in the parking lot.
Despite the teams recent swoon, ticket demand remains high, and the Niners pretty much sell out all their games. Maneuvering your way around the stadium is a chore - concourses are super narrow, despite the fact that we were told that they had recently been widened where??? There are escalators at each corner to ferry people to the upper concourse. From the mezzanine level or the upper level, one can enjoy breathtaking views of the city skyline, the bay, or the mountains depending which side of the stadium you are looking out from.
Once in your seats, you realize how many locations have hideous sightlines: the baseball configuration remains intact so if you sit along the right field seats or on the visitor bleacher sides, you are far from the action and in some cases have a partial obstruction. At one end zone is a mammoth one color dot matrix board and accompanying jumbotron.
Concessions Probably the one bright spot here is the variety of food Unfortunately, we didn't eat anything there for two reasons - first the lines were endlessly long, and second, we sampled the local fare with some of the fans in the parking lot who graciously invited us to join their tailgate party and gave us a warm San Francisco welcome.
Ron, consider this - 5 Super Bowl titles Yet no banners or names on display to enshrine these teams and these players. No problem, we thought, there must be a display in the concourse, or a team museum, something, anything! So we looked and looked, but came up empty. It's like nobody cares. Our Summary We really have so little to say about this place. The stadium is drab and ordinary, the team is mired in mediocrity, and when the best thing we have to report about is the views of the city and the french fries, you know that is a pretty sad statement.
But you know what? And you know what else? Our day is not over yet Sunday night ESPN game of the week The court has heard arguments in an appeal by a Danville couple whose lawsuit challenging the pat-downs was tossed out on the grounds that they consented to be searched when they bought season tickets. Their lawyers say any consent was coerced and that a company could give the same rationale for conducting body searches at work or wiretapping customers' phones, as long as it announced its intentions ahead of time.
He said that's particularly true in this case because the National Football League, which ordered the search policy, is "the only game in town" - fans of big-time football can't simply patronize a competitor. Sorry, the 49ers replied. White's clients and every other fan can either buy tickets, which tell them they will be patted down, or find "an alternate form of recreation," the team told the court. Football fans spend hours in stadiums packed with tens of thousands of people and don't have much of a "reasonable expectation of privacy in the sense of not being touched by strangers," said Sonya Winner, a lawyer for the team.
A ruling is due within 90 days. The justices may use the case to define the privacy rights of business customers in California. The NFL required the searches at all games as an anti-terrorist measure in , three years after Super Bowl spectators were first subjected to pat-downs.
Screeners outside the stadium pat down fans' backs and the sides of their legs and upper bodies. The policy has survived all legal challenges so far, including a ruling by a federal appeals court in Atlanta that said fans at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games agreed to be searched when they bought their tickets.
The current suit may be stronger, however, because California voters added privacy rights to the state Constitution in - rights that, unlike their federal counterpart, protect people against intrusions by businesses as well as the government.
Proposition C, if approved, would allow the 49ers, who are leasing the city-owned site at least through , to sell the naming rights to the stadium. The Recreation and Park Department would be a beneficiary of the legislation. The proposition establishes a city policy that half of any revenues taken in by San Francisco be directed to fund directors at recreation centers.
November 5, Copyright MediaVentures San Francisco voters have repealed an earlier measure to allow naming rights to be sold for the 49ers stadium. Candlestick Park will now be eligible for a corporate name.
Half the proceeds of any sale must go to help fund city recreation centers. The Niners recently filed a formal claim with the city, a precursor to a possible lawsuit, saying they have lost revenues because the city hasn't maintained the stadium as required in the lease signed back in and amended over the years.
Michael Cohen, head of the city's economic and workforce development office, downplayed the development as fairly routine. The claim cited by the paper cites Mayor Gavin Newsom's comments from a year ago when he said Candlestick Park was "a lousy stadium" and "in terrible disrepair.
Thirty-three years later, having hosted an inordinate share of magical, unconventional and captivating sporting events, Candlestick Park will stage its official farewell. In what almost certainly will be the last football game at the stadium that has hosted the 49ers since -- and which housed the baseball Giants from to '99, not to mention the AFL's Oakland Raiders in -- the Niners will pay their ceremonial respects before and during their upcoming "Monday Night Football" clash with the Atlanta Falcons.
With former owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. Fittingly, the defending NFC champion 49ers will either be playing to clinch a playoff spot or to improve their postseason seeding, transcending the night's sentimental value. Though the Candlestick legacy includes a slice of rock n' roll history the Beatles' final full concert in , a Papal Mass by Pope John Paul II in '87 and a World Series-delaying earthquake interrupting the Bay Bridge Series between the Giants and Oakland A's in '89 , it was the 49ers who brought the big-game buzz that will remain on the rocky shores of Candlestick Point long after the facility is demolished next year.
And this is why, despite the obvious excitement surrounding the team's impending move 30 miles south to a state-of-the-art stadium in Santa Clara, Monday will be a night of emotional reckoning for many of the people in attendance -- even DeBartolo, who famously decried Candlestick as a "pigsty" to then-San Francisco mayor and current U.
But oh, the memories When Candlestick opened on the first day of the baseball season, then-Vice President Richard Nixon, who threw out the first pitch, declared it to be "the finest stadium in the land. Though the 'Stick had its share of moments -- hosting the All-Star Game in which Giants pitcher Stu Miller was literally blown off the mound by a gust of wind, resulting in a balk , the World Series which the Giants lost to the Yankees in heartbreaking fashion and the Niners' devastating, last-minute playoff defeat to the Dallas Cowboys the final act of a trilogy of postseason disappointments at the hands of their Texas-based rivals -- it became known primarily for three things: unseasonably chilly and windy weather; a distinct lack of amenities; and the home team falling short in games that mattered.
The first two issues couldn't and wouldn't be fixed; the bit about the unsatisfying outcomes, however, underwent a major facelift, as DeBartolo, Walsh, Montana and so many other defiant Niners created an uncharted standard of excellence.
Beginning with the thrilling triumph over the Cowboys punctuated by The Catch, and ending with an overtime defeat to the New York Giants 30 years later, the 'Stick opened its gates for eight NFC Championship Games and served as the backdrop for all sorts of heart-stopping, remarkable happenings. Candlestick Park was where the postgame prayer circle was born, albeit in abruptly audibilized fashion; it's where Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka received the spiteful inspiration for "The Fridge" and, three years later, got so enraged that he threw a wad of chewing gum at a fan's head; it's where an A-list actor did cartwheels in the owner's box, a star quarterback got spooked into taking a career-turning phantom sack and Mike Singletary dropped trou in front of his stunned players in his NFL head-coaching debut.
And while the fans didn't always go home happy, they usually got their money's worth, especially during the two-decade stretch that spanned Montana's and Young's Hall of Fame careers.
It's leaking and musty, smelling like a mix of low tide and sweat. People are right above you. You can hear conversations in the stands and feet stomping. It wasn't the nicest stadium, but it was charming and wonderful and awesome -- and it was our home. And just about every great memory I have in football is buried in that turf. Adds Lott, the Hall of Fame defensive back who helped the Niners win four Super Bowl s in the '80s: "There are so many great memories underneath -- in that locker room, in the hallways, and of course on that field.
The big ceremony is Monday, but instead, I think I'll go there alone on Sunday, take one last walk, and get some dirt and dig it up. So did we -- at least in a metaphoric sense -- unearthing some compelling stories, many of them previously untold, during interviews with more than a dozen of the competitors who helped carve out the 'Stick's place in history:. Gil Brandt, Cowboys vice president of player personnel, When we came back to beat them in '72, scoring twice in the last two minutes after recovering an onside kick, Candlestick was not a happy place.
I almost got hit by a pair of binoculars that some fan threw. They landed about 10 feet away, but it seemed like about six inches. I got the hell off the sidelines. Joe Montana, 49ers quarterback, If that comeback against the Saints gave us the feeling we were never out of a game, it was that game against the Cowboys a Niners victory in October that kind of pushed us over the edge, to get us to believe that we were now at that level where we could compete for a championship.
Dwight Clark, 49ers receiver, That was a point in our history with Bill Walsh when everybody really started believing we might do something special. After Dallas had run up the score on us the year before, We were ready for a fight, and some payback. I loved that we just tried to score even when the game was out of hand.
That's what they had done to us. Ronnie Lott, 49ers safety, We were so hyped up. And then to get defensive end Fred Dean Fred Dean was the bazooka that they didn't know we had. He kind of just changed the whole tone. It was like, "There's a new sheriff in town. What he did early in that game took everybody's confidence to another level. One of the first sacks, he went over the center and cracked the guard's leg We came in at halftime and I remember sitting there looking at him going, "Man, I gotta check this dude out.
And he pulls out a pack of Kool cigarettes and starts smoking a Kool. You know how they say, "Shaft -- that's one bad mofo. Shut your mouth For the rest of the year, Fred Dean smoked a Kool at halftime, and nobody said anything. That was one of the great moments in sports for me. Lott would enjoy another great moment in that season when, before another game, a San Francisco Giants legend made an unscheduled appearance in the Niners' locker room.
Lott: One of the great moments of my life, before a game my rookie year -- I'm sitting there at my locker, praying, and I hear Willie Mays, arguably the greatest baseball player of all time, saying, "What the hell are you praying for? You've just gotta go out there and play. He was right. You can pray, but you've gotta play. The final home game of Lott's rookie season was a rematch with the dreaded Cowboys , with a trip to the Super Bowl hanging in the balance.
Montana: After we beat the Cowboys in the regular season , they'd been talking about how they didn't have respect for us, even though we'd just beaten them by a bunch. That was kind of where we left off.
Clark: According to some of the Cowboys , the real Cowboys didn't show up the first time. Which caused Eddie DeBartolo to say, "They ate it once, they can eat it again. Lott: That week, I was driving down the freeway, and a fan was yelling at me.
I literally thought it was road rage. Finally, I realized he was saying, "Frickin' beat Dallas! It scared the crap out of me. Clark: I remember going onto the field to the yard line with remaining, trailing thinking, We've gotta go 89 yards against the Dallas Cowboys.
That's gonna be tough. But as we marched down the field, Bill and offensive line coach Bobb McKittrick were just masterfully calling these plays. A bunch of runs, and a reverse! To take the risk of a reverse took cojones on Bill's part. The offensive line, they were just annihilating people. The throw to Freddie Solomon that got down to the 13 -- Joe was scanning the field and finally saw Freddie and drilled it in between three Cowboys.
On the third-and-3 play that ended with The Catch, we had scored on that play on the first drive -- Sprint Right Option -- from a different formation. This time, Freddie kinda slipped in that Candlestick mud, and Joe's second option -- run -- wasn't there. The third option was me sliding across the back of the end zone. Bill's coaching point on that play was, "This is not a fourth-down play, so don't throw an interception.
Throw it high enough where Dwight can catch it or it goes out of bounds. In the game, under duress, with three people on top of him, Joe puts it in the exact spot.
Just amazing. After The Catch, which came with 51 seconds remaining, the Cowboys threatened to render it irrelevant. Quarterback Danny White threaded a pass over the middle to star receiver Drew Pearson, who caught it in stride and appeared to be gone -- until Eric Wright, Lott's fellow rookie cornerback, grabbed hold of Pearson's shoulder pad and dragged him down at the Niners' Two plays later, Lawrence Pillers sacked White and dislodged the ball, and teammate Jim Stuckey made the game-clinching fumble recovery.
Eddie DeBartolo Jr. They wanted to get in field-goal range. When Eric grabbed Drew Pearson and held him down, if he doesn't make that play, that could've turned the whole franchise around in a negative way. And let me tell you something -- if Eric Wright doesn't get the pelvic bone injury he gets in -- and he was never the same after that -- he would've been in the Hall of Fame. Lott: I was a nickelback, covering the receiver in the slot. I'll never forget that play that Eric made.
I took the wrong angle. Dwight Hicks, the safety and I hit each other and Pearson split us. I'm sitting there going, "Oh, my God -- oh, no. It was an incredible play. I thought, "We get to live another down. Montana: I was down at the far end of the bench, looking at it from behind. Everybody talks about The Catch, but wow -- that was really what saved the day. George Seifert, San Francisco native, 49ers assistant and head coach : The Eric Wright tackle, which people don't recognize as being that significant -- well, I was the defensive backs coach, and my coaching career would have ended real quick if he didn't make that play.
At the beginning of that season, we played San Diego in a preseason game, and we were winning at the end of the game when Dan Fouts threw to a guy named Bobby Duckworth, and Eric dove and tried to tackle him the same way, but the guy ran through his grasp and scored the winning touchdown.
Bill was livid. He made a big point of, "Don't ever tackle like that again. A lot of people in that movie never thought you could kill the witch.
And yet, it happens. Eric could've quit, and usually in situations like that, most people do. Most people don't have the courage to go get somebody. That was the reason that team won those kind of games. Guys had the courage to be different. Dwight didn't know that you weren't allowed to jump that high. Joe didn't know you're not allowed to throw that ball. Seifert: To see the excitement and the exuberance, in the stands and in the city, that was a highlight.
After the game, I drove to see my mother-in-law in the Upper Mission and there were people on cars, people climbing up poles -- it was a zoo. The corner of Geneva and Mission, it was like Mardi Gras.
Mike Walter, 49ers linebacker, That '84 game was what gave Ditka the inspiration for "The Fridge. Ditka didn't like that, so when they beat us in Chicago in the '85 regular season , he took it to another level and had defensive tackle William Perry, a.
And a craze was born. After rupturing a disc during the season opener, Montana underwent career-threatening back surgery, sending Niners fans into a protracted state of sweat-inducing stress.
He returned two months later, throwing for yards and three touchdowns all to second-year standout Jerry Rice in a victory over the St. Louis Cardinals at Candlestick.
On his first touchdown throw, Montana absorbed a late hit from Cardinals linebacker Charlie Baker -- and, to the relief and delight of fans and teammates, popped up clapping his hands. Montana: I just remember the excitement of getting back to the field, and the big concern -- they told me everything seems to be OK with my back, but I just hadn't taken any hits yet. I think Bobb McKittrick was gonna have a heart attack. I was about pounds when I came back.
You always want to take that first hit, but I was never more relieved than after Baker's , I'll tell you. Lott: Oh, my God Because I didn't expect him ever to play again. And then to see him run out on the field that day -- if there was one guy that really showed you, "Hey, just follow me," and he showed it when he got hurt, in close games People forget about what he suffered through.
The gum was booked as evidence as San Francisco police investigated the Bears ' coach for assault. DeBartolo: He was walking past those risers outside the tunnel to the locker room and somebody said something and he hit somebody in the head with his gum. That January, the top-seeded 49ers were stunned by the Minnesota Vikings in a divisional-round playoff game. With Montana struggling, Walsh put Young into the game in the third quarter, and the mobile backup led the Niners on a pair of scoring drives in a defeat -- sparking an enduring quarterback controversy.
Young: Bill used to throw me in there. He'd tell Joe before the game that he planned to throw me in, and literally, if Joe's head could have exploded, it would have.
The first time I got into a game at Candlestick, against the Saints in the '87 regular season , Bill put me in on this play, and at the line center Randy Cross was yelling, "Get out of it, get out of it.
Jerry Rice came out of nowhere and made an awesome fingertip grab and we scored, and when I came to the sideline, Bill said, "How did you know? How did you know to get to the pass play and to get it to Jerry Rice? I told myself, No, just go with it, and I shrugged and said, "Coach, I just felt it. I was talking to offensive tackle Keith Fahnhorst. The two quarterbacks alternated through the first two-and-a-half months of the season before Montana seized the job and led the 49ers to their third Super Bowl championship.
Prior to that, however, Young secured a dramatic, late-October victory over the Vikings at Candlestick thanks to an indefatigable, yard touchdown run in the final minutes. Young: As I stumble into the end zone, I'm physically finished.
If it was five more yards, there would be no way. DeBartolo: That was probably one of the great things that happened at Candlestick Park. He stumbled into the end zone. I think about that '87 playoff game against the Vikings.
Joe had a bad game, and I don't know if we ever could've come back, but maybe if Steve comes in earlier, I don't know With the Bay Area enjoying a sporting renaissance in the late-'80s, many Niners players became immersed in the World Series, which featured the Giants and A's. The A's eventually won in a four-game sweep, but only after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck just before the scheduled start of Game 3 the first at the 'Stick , causing a day delay to the Fall Classic.
Walter: One of my great memories of Candlestick was a baseball game. I went with Doug Cosbie, whom I'd played with in Dallas, and we met a bunch of my 49ers teammates in the parking lot and we tailgated.
We were like, "Oh, this is what it's about. This is awesome. There was a big cheer -- and we were out of there. In '89, the Niners split a pair of games with the rival Los Angeles Rams , who returned to Candlestick for the NFC Championship Game as a trendy underdog pick, having won there in the regular season. Early in the game, with the Rams up , quarterback Jim Everett faked a reverse and threw a deep ball to fleet-footed receiver Flipper Anderson, who appeared to be wide open. Lott, however, somehow managed to break it up after sprinting all the way across the field.
He says, "You're an MF for getting that ball. They had run that same play early in our game in Anaheim during the regular season. They ran the reverse and I tackled Ron Brown for maybe a 2-yard gain. And they're like, There is no way that he should be able to fly up there and make that play. Everybody's still trying to figure out how I got there to break up the pass. It's because Jim Everett ducks his head.
The first time in Anaheim , he didn't do it. Hey, man -- this ain't "Duck Dynasty. When anybody ducks like that, they're not giving the ball up. It didn't look right. He sold it too much. I thought, "Oh, my God, there's Flipper Anderson all by himself.
Spurred by Lott's deflection, the Niners roared back to win,
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