They're tearing down that old ballpark o' mine. They're ripping and wrecking and pummeling and ending the concrete land where millions of dreams, large and small, once took place . . . and a couple were even realized.
I saw my first Major League Baseball game at Candlestick Park. I was eight or nine and when I walked through the tunnel and experienced the biggest burst of green I had ever seen. The grass was so rich and lush it looked like a leprechaun had exploded. I thought I had found the fabled Emerald City of Oz.
This was where, over the years, I saw Willie Mays play. I watched Millie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, Gaylord Perry--Hall Of Famers all. Who can forget Jim Ray Hart, Hal Lanier, Tom Haller and three Alous in the outfield at the same time?
In 1999 I took my Dad to see a couple games during the Giants final homestand and it was a sweet time for us both, the roles reversing ever-so-gently with me buying the tickets, the motel room and the food and Dad being the grateful recipient.
Despite their enormous success winning three of the last five World Series, the Giants never won a championship during their tenure at Candlestick from 1960-1999. I know. I left my heart in Candlestick for most of those years.
The Giants came close twice at Candlestick. When in Game Seven against the Yankees in the '62 Series, down 1-0 with two outs and runners on second and third Willie McCovey hit a screaming liners to second baseman Bobby Richardson who snagged it for the final out. A foot in either direction and the Giants are World Champs and I don't have to wait until 2010 to shed the cross of Giants failure I bore for the first fifty-five years of my life.
Twenty-seven years later in 1989 the Giants came within four wins and a 6.9 earthquake of taking home the crown---which is to say not close at all.
We've known this day was coming for some time. The Giants haven't played in Candlestick Park during this century. The 49ers, another long-time tenant, played there through their 2013 season. It has been sitting vacant since with ghosts roaming the outfield and phantoms sliding into second base.
Now there is nothing left to do but turn out the lights and bid a fond adieu to this little corner of the world upon which so much depended with I was small. I use to lay under covers late at night with my transistor radio turned as low as I could to hear Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons describe the action. I could imagine the scene playing out at Candlestick because I had been there and seen it for myself.
As the concrete continues to crumble on the park at Candlestick Point in San Francisco I think of one of my favorite Gershwin tunes. For Candlestick will live on in my heart long after the new condos and retail space goes up for the trendy northern California crowd. And they can't, my friends--no, they can't take that away from me.
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