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ALL STAR GAMES: 1961, 1984
Candlestick Park had its origins in the shady dealings that induced the New York Giants to move to the West Coast in 1958. A cunning developer named Charles Harney got the mayor of San Francisco to offer the Giants a large plot of rocky land on the San Francisco Bay for a new stadium with plenty of parking space, but he failed to inform the mayor or the Giants' officials of the fierce winds and chilly night temperatures that plague that area. The new stadium took only two years to build, during which time the Giants played in Seals Stadium. Meanwhile, the newly relocated Brooklyn-to-L.A. Dodgers had to wait an additional two years for their new stadium to be finished. Candlestick Park in many ways fit the standard of a modern baseball stadium, with a symmetrical structure and field layout, an acute-angle grandstand configuration, and a small "roofette." It was the very last major league baseball stadium with supporting columns: almost half of the lower deck was "in the shade," and a substantial number of seats had obstructed views. In terms of design, Candlestick Park stood out in two ways: The curvature of the grandstand arc behind home plate was extremely broad, almost as big as the Giants' old home in the Polo Grounds, in fact. Second, the first deck extended way out beyond the left field fence and made a broad arc toward center field. This design resembled a football oval and was probably intended to lure the San Francisco 49ers to play there, but this didn't happen until 11 years after it opened. The stadium design was certainly ill-suited to baseball fans, who had to sit far away from the action.
Candlestick Park became the object of ridicule and scorn after the horrendous winds blew Giants' pitcher Stu Miller off the mound during the 1961 All-Star Game. Although the original field dimensions were quite deep (420 feet to center field and 397 feet to the power alleys), the outfield fence was moved inward one year after this stadium opened, especially in the power alleys. (The inner fence is marked in the "original" version diagram above, but the reduced distance markers are omitted.) Even with the shorter fences, the wind made this ballpark very unfavorable to batters, and probably reduced the lifetime home run record of Giants' slugger Willie Mays by at least a hundred. (At 660, he fell short of both Babe Ruth's 714 and Hank Aaron's 755 totals.) Because of the chilly, windy evenings at Candlestick, the Giants played most of their games during the day, even as most other teams shifted to mostly-night schedules during the 1970s.
During 1971 Candlestick Park was under construction to make room for the San Francisco 49ers, who finally decided to leave Kezar Stadium. The second deck was extended all the way around the outfield, with the front edge hanging right in back of the right field fence. Underneath it on the right field side was a large retractable grandstand section that, when pushed forward for football games, met flush with the upper deck to create one enormous deck on the north side of the field. (This innovative "massive retractable" seating system was later adopted at the Metrodome and Dolphin Stadium, and was also imitated on a smaller scale at several other stadiums.) Also, a new press box was built at the top of the second deck along the left side. As a result of the expansion, Candlestick Park assumed a sort of rounded triangular shape, somewhat like Yankee Stadium. Even though it was fully enclosed after 1971, the stadium remained plagued by unpredictable high winds. Artificial turf was also installed at that time, but the Giants and the 49ers quite sensibly reversed their decision in 1979 and put real grass back in, and Candlestick Park became one of the first stadiums to join the "back to nature" movement.
For many years the Giants languished in obscurity, but in 1989 they made it to the World Series against their cross-bay rivals, the Oakland Athletics. The Bay Area Series was rudely interrupted by a serious earthquake, as several large chunks of concrete fell but somehow managed to miss any of the spectators. I remember turning on the television to watch Game 3 just after it was scheduled to start and being irritated that some other program was being shown instead. After a few minutes the news reports came in about the calamity which forced postponement of the World Series for several days.
The passage of time did little to ameliorate the woes of this misbegotten stadium. In 1993 temporary bleachers were installed in back of the left field fence to bring the fans a little closer to the action. That was the same year the Giants acquired MVP Barry Bonds from the Pittsburgh Pirates, but it wasn't until 1997 that they managed to win another divisional title. Being close to Silicon Valley, it was probably inevitable that San Francisco would succomb to the Great High-Tech Corporate Name Sell-out of the 1990s. The computer networking company 3Com won the bidding and got their name tacked onto the place in 1995. During the 1990s the Giants put together a creative deal that led to the construction of their beautiful new home at Pac Bell Park (later SBC Park and now AT&T Park), on the south side of downtown Frisco. They said goodbye and good riddance to Candlestick Park at the end of the 1999 season. Perhaps because of the unique private funding arrangement for the Park now known as "SBC," the once-dominant 49ers are having a hard time mustering community support to build a new stadium to replace the creaky Park now known as "Monster."
The Beatles' last public concert took place in Candlestick Park, on August 29, 1966.
SOURCES: Lowry (1992), Gershman (1993), USA Today / Fodor's (1996)
