Blowing out the flame at Candlestick Park
After over fifty years, and being the home of five Super Bowl winners, its the curtain call for Candlestick Park.
After its construction in 1960 for the baseball Giants, the San Francisco 49ers football team moved there in 1971. The 2013 season will be the last time it will be used for sports.
The 49ers will be moving out into their new $1 billion Santa Clara Stadium for the start of the 2014 season. The baseball team has already long gone. Back in 2000 they moved out to play in what was then called Pacific Bell Park.
Candlestick Park, or “The Stick” as it is more affectionately known as, has seen its fair share of sporting drama.
Major League Baseball hosted the All-Star game there twice, in addition to the Giants having several playoff games and two World Series in 1962 and 1988. Some of the greatest players in NFL history played here, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Steve Young helped the 49ers to win five championships. On the way eight NFC title games were played here, the most famous being in January 1982. The play simply known as “the Catch” (Montana to Dwight Clark) helped the Niners to their first Super Bowl.
Despite it’s traditional beginnings, the stadium fell foul to corporate business. It’s nice to have money coming in from external sources and so from 1995-2008 in the age of naming rights The Stick was to be known as 3com Park and Monster Park. It just didn’t sound right and sit well with locals, and sporting purists. In 2008 when Monster Cables pulled out their deal , it went back to what we all know it as today.
The stadium has hosted college football, and was host to the final Beatles concert on August 29th, 1966.
So after surviving Beatles-mania, earthquakes, and poor naming rights, it will be lights out next January. Of course the way the 49ers are playing the life of the stadium could be extended through to host a ninth and final NFC title game. The Bay area would sure love that to happen.
Unless you happen to be an Oakland Raiders fan.
