Everything about Candlestick Park totally explained
Monster Park (colloquially
Candlestick, after its original as well as future name of
Candlestick Park, and sometimes just simply
The Stick) is an outdoor sports and entertainment stadium located in
San Francisco, California. Originally built as the home of the
San Francisco Giants, who played there from 1960 until moving into Pacific Bell Park (since renamed
AT&T Park) in 2000, it remains the home field of the
San Francisco 49ers NFL team, which moved in before the
1971 season.
The stadium is situated at
Candlestick Point on the western shore of the
San Francisco Bay. Due to its location next to the bay, strong winds often swirl down into the stadium, creating interesting playing conditions. At the time of its construction in the late
1950s, the stadium site was the cheapest plot of land available in the city that was suitable for a sports stadium. Legend also has it that city officials and stadium designers made visits to the site during the morning when the breezes are usually calm, but not during the late afternoon and evening when the winds frequently pick up quite dramatically, even on clear sunny days.
The surface of the field is natural
bluegrass, but for nine seasons the stadium had
artificial turf, from
1970 to
1978. The "sliding pit" configuration, with dirt cut-outs only around the bases, was installed in
1971, primarily to keep the dust down from the breezy conditions.
Riverfront Stadium had introduced the sliding-pit layout in June
1970. Following the
1978 football season, the artificial turf was removed. Natural grass was re-installed before the
1979 baseball season.
Park history
Ground was broken in
1958 for the new home of the
National League's
San Francisco Giants, who were moving west from New York. The Giants officially chose the name of
Candlestick Park after a name-the-park contest on
March 3,
1959. Prior to that, its construction site had been shown on maps as the generic
Bay View Stadium. In a sense, it was the first modern baseball stadium, as it was the first to be built entirely of reinforced
concrete.
Richard Nixon threw out the first
baseball on the opening day of Candlestick Park on
April 12,
1960. The
Oakland Raiders played their
1961 American Football League season at the stadium. In
1971, the
NFL's
San Francisco 49ers became tenants as well.
The Beatles performed their last live commercial concert at Candlestick Park on
August 29,
1966.
The stadium was enclosed during the winter of
1971–
72 for the 49ers, with stands built around the outfield. The result was that the wind speed dropped marginally, but often swirled around throughout the stadium, and the view of
the Bay was lost. Candlestick Park has the distinction of being the sole remaining NFL stadium that started life as a baseball-only facility that underwent extensive reconstruction in order to add a football field. This accounts for the stadium's odd oblong design that leaves many seats on what was the right-field side of the stadium behind the eastern grandstand of the stadium during football games. Other baseball parks that had been converted to house football include
Angel Stadium of Anaheim and
Mile High Stadium, although Angel Stadium has long since been reconverted to baseball-only, and Mile High Stadium was demolished in 2002.
Candlestick also has the dubious distinction of being the last NFL football stadium in which upper-deck supports obstruct the sight lines from the prime first-deck seating.
The Stick was also home to dozens of commercial shoots as well as the location for the climatic scene in both the
1962 Blake Edwards thriller
Experiment in Terror, starring
Glenn Ford and
Lee Remick, and the
1973 Richard Rush comedy
Freebie and the Bean, starring
James Caan and Al Arkin.
On
October 17,
1989, the
Loma Prieta earthquake (measuring 7.1 on the
Richter Scale) struck San Francisco, minutes before Game 3 of the
World Series was to begin at Candlestick. Amazingly, no one within the stadium was injured but minor structural damage was incurred to the stadium.
Al Michaels and
Tim McCarver, who called the game for
ABC, later credited the stadium's design for saving thousands of lives.
On
February 29,
2008 it was announced that the
Candlestick Park name would be returning to the stadium in June of that year at the conclusion of Monster Cable's contract. The team wouldn't be seeking a new naming rights deal in accordance with the 2004 city law.
Future
Plans were underway to construct a new 68,000-seat stadium at Candlestick Point . However, on November 8, 2006, the 49ers announced that they'd abandon their search for a location in San Francisco and begin to actively pursue the idea of building a stadium in
Santa Clara, California. As a result, San Francisco withdrew its bid for the 2016 Olympics on November 13, 2006, as its centerpiece stadium was lost. However, 49ers ownership is still willing to hear any offers San Francisco may want to bring, including the
Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard.
Further Information
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