Candlestick Park in San Francisco was ostensibly a sports stadium that was built on the shores of San Francisco Bay. It was home to the San Francisco Giants major league baseball team for over forty years, as well as the San Francisco 49ers football team. The stadium was named Candlestick Park in reference to the many long-billed curlews who frequented the Bay area. These curlews were often referred to as “candlestick birds”. When the stadium was first being built, members of the public were invited to submit names for consideration as the stadium’s new name. Candlestick Park emerged as the winning entry. Because Candlestick Park was built next to San Francisco Bay, weather conditions tended to wreak havoc with home games for the Giants and 49ers. It was often foggy, windy, damp and cold there. Consequently, a majority of the home games for both professional teams were played during daytime hours in the hope that the warmth of the sun would be a mitigating factor in allowing the weather conditions to be tolerable. The fact that attending a game at Candlestick Park could be such a miserable experience for fans caused the owners of the Giants to come up with a special pin called the Croix de Candlestick. This pin would be issued to any fan in attendance at a baseball game that ended up tied at the end of regulation play and that was forced to head into extra innings. Although Candlestick Park was home to many championship moments for both home teams, the stadium itself was never a popular, money-making venue. A little over a decade ago, it was demolished and the former site of the stadium was slated to be turned into office towers.
While the history of Candlestick Park is primarily one of sporting achievements, there were two non-sports related events that are forever associated with this stadium. The first of the two that I want to talk about happened in 1989. The eyes of the baseball world were firmly on the Bay area as the San Francisco Giants were playing their rivals from across the Bay, the Oakland A’s, for the World Series Championship. The first two games of the best of seven series were played in Oakland, with Game #3 set to take place in San Francisco at Candlestick Park. However, not long after the ABC Television Network went live with their pre-game show, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the San Francisco area. Not only did the earthquake happen live on air on ABC, this was also around the time that cable news station CNN was just coming to prominence. CNN was famous for its wall-to-wall saturation-style news coverage so the San Francisco earthquake dominated their broadcast coverage for days afterward. One aspect of those reports that aired on repeat was ABC’s live baseball coverage and how anchors Al Michaels and Tim McCarver handled themselves once they realized what was happening in real life all around them. While there were several deaths and much property damage as a result of the earthquake, there were almost no injuries reported inside the stadium and only minor structural damage to Candlestick Park even though over fifty thousand people were in attendance at the stadium for Game #3 of the World Series. One of the reasons for this was that just one year prior, structural upgrades had been made to the stadium. As part of the city of San Francisco’s annual plan, reinforcing the structural integrity of existing buildings, highways and other important pieces of infrastructure are always items that come up for review. Because the famous San Andreas Fault line is located only a few hundred kilometres away from the city centre, officials are always cognizant of the need to earthquake-proof their buildings. This often results in amendments to zoning bylaws being passed that force such improvements to be carried out by the owners of various important structures within the city. It just so happened that Candlestick Park had come up for review a few years earlier and had been found wanting. Its owners reluctantly paid for the structural upgrades, which were completed not very long before the earthquake struck. It was those specific upgrades that allowed Candlestick Park to withstand the effects of that quake thus saving the lives of over 50,000 people in the process. ***A video of the earthquake striking while ABC was airing its pregame World Series baseball coverage can be viewed here. A second, longer report based on eyewitness accounts of people who were there can be found here. It is well worth checking out. What a surreal moment that played out in real time from Candlestick Park while we watched TV from the comfort of our homes.
The second famous non-sports related event for which Candlestick Park is known for hosting happened way back in 1966. On August 29th of that year Beatlemania officially came to an end when the Beatles gave their last ever public concert at the stadium. When we think of the career of the Beatles, the atmosphere of unbridled exuberance from fans that became known as Beatlemania actually lasted for only a handful of years. For the members of the Fab Four, it was all fun and games until it wasn’t anymore. That world tour in 1966 was when it all became too much and the decision to stop playing live music in public became official. While many fans point to the US leg of the tour as being when the world’s love affair with the Beatles fell apart, the truth is that there was a growing backlash to the band long before that. In the early stages of the 1966 world tour, the Beatles agreed to perform at Tokyo’s Budokan arena. Prior to the arrival of the Batles, this venue had been used exclusively as a martial arts competition site. Because of the cultural reverence for martial arts in Japan, the decision to allow a western-based rock n’ roll band to be allowed to play music there was considered to be sacrilege. Protests were held. The concert went ahead but the band played surrounded by a ring of security in order to ensure their safety. *(you can read more about Budokan here, including seeing photos of the security that surrounded the Beatles at all times). The bad vibes that emanated from the Tokyo concert carried over to America in the form of an interview given by John Lennon in which he stated that in his opinion, popularity of the Beatles and of rock n’ roll, in general, was bigger than that of Jesus (which referred to organized religion). The politics of the moment in America were such that an organized pushback against the playing of “the devil’s music” by a variety of religious organizations had begun to gain steam. When John Lennon’s comments became public, they were easily twisted to come off as arrogance and as an attack against God. There were many instances all throughout that US leg of the tour of organized protests springing up in the cities where the Beatles were scheduled to play. These protests included attempts at having the band banned from appearing at all, to creating pyres made from smashed Beatles record albums. In almost every city of that tour, the members of the Beatles were forced to remain holed up in their hotel rooms for safety reasons. They had become prisoners of their own success. The flipside to all of this negativity was the incessant screaming by fans who did turn out to watch those final concerts. Because of the noise levels reached by the screams of the fans, it was becoming increasingly difficult for John, Paul, George and Ringo to even know if they were in tune or not while they played. By the time they reached Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the Fab Four decided that playing in tune didn’t really matter at all. In fact, playing live didn’t matter at all, either. What they were doing wasn’t playing music anymore. It was controlled chaos. It was a circus of epic proportions and they had had enough. And so it was at Candlestick Park that the Beatles played before a live paying audience for the final time as a band. That show lasted only 33 minutes. There is hardly any existing live video of that show except for what I could find from news reports which you can watch by clicking here and here. There is some debate among Beatles fans as to whether the decision to stop touring was made prior to this final concert or afterward but the fact remains that Candlestick Park was where the heady days of Beatlemania came to an end. From the end of that concert onward, the Beatles became a studio band. The only time they ever played out of doors again was that final rooftop performance at the Abbey Road studios that acted as their official farewell. But what happened that day at Candlestick Park left an indelible impression on those in attendance, particularly on those in the Beatles themselves. When word was made public that Candlestick Park was shutting down and would be demolished in 2014, Paul McCartney reached out and requested that he be allowed to put on a concert that would act as the final event in Candlestick Park’s history. That request was granted. Beatlemania ended at Candlestick Park in 1966. The former Beatle ended Candlestick Park’s history in 2014. The circle was now complete.
Not long after that final show by Paul McCartney, the wrecker’s ball swung and the walls of Candlestick Park came down for good. The days of baseball games being played in the fog and drizzle and gale force winds had come to an end. A new stadium called Oracle Park was built that is now home to the baseball Giants. A football stadium called Levi Stadium was built for the 49ers in nearby Santa Clara. As of the writing of this post, there have been no more earthquake events while either stadium has been in use. However, in 2022, after COVID restrictions began to be lifted, one of the first concerts that Paul McCartney gave was in the new Oracle Park. Not only did he perform for over two hours at that show but, through the magic of computer technology, he performed a duet with his famous songwriting partner John Lennon. As much as the history of the Beatles revolves around Liverpool, there is something special about the city by the Bay that makes it an important part of Beatles lore, too. Beatlemania may have ended there but the connection between the Beatles and San Francisco lives on almost sixty full years later. Amazing!
The link to the official website for Oracle Park can be found here.
The link to a video about the history of Candlestick Park can be found here.
The link to the official website for the city of San Francisco can be found here.
One of San Francisco’s most famous hometown bands was the rock band Journey. The link to the video for their song “Lights” (which is about what it is like to live in San Francisco) can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to the video for Tony Bennett’s ode to San Francisco, “I Left My Heart…” can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to the video for the song “Standing on the Moon” by The Grateful Dead can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
FInally, the link to the video for the song “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” by Scott McKenzie can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
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