Scribbled notes on a cocktail napkin, Part XIX
Old ballpark edition … Nostalgia is thick when teams leave old stadiums … and then what happens to those sites next?
"Scribbled notes on a cocktail napkin" is my weekly Sunday feature that's a tribute to the sports columnists I grew up reading who penned Herb Caen-inspired three dot columns. It's an excuse to shamelessly plug my other side projects, post my favorite Immaculate Grid from the week with a story about one of the players, link to stories I found interesting, and string together loose topics on my mind.
Scribbling from Salt Lake City
Of all the powerful nostalgic drugs in sports, nothing quite beats the nostalgia for an old ballpark. Even when the joint is old, smelly, and rotting away, the charm and the memories evoke feelings of youth and simpler times.
We think of going to baseball games with our parents, meeting crazy characters you don’t meet on Little League fields, becoming a teenager and attending with friends, the first underage beer, sneaking past ushers to the best seats, the first legal beer and dozens more, the cheers, the agony, chanting together, cursing together, bringing your kids to the same ballpark, and repeating the cycle of memories.
This topic is on my mind because I’m in Utah this weekend. It’s the final trip for my Albuquerque Isotopes to Smith’s Ballpark, the home since 1994 for the Salt Lake Bees, the Angels triple-A affiliate, and before that, the Twins triple-A affiliate. Some form of professional baseball has been played at this location since 1947.
Mike Trout played here (briefly). David Ortiz played here, long before anyone called him Big Papi.
Next year, the Bees will move 30 minutes away to the burgeoning suburb of South Jordan, where everything will be new, except the memories.
I’ve spent this week talking to locals about their memories of attending games at the old ballpark, how they’ll bid farewell to the old one, what happens next to the old one, and looked at a bunch of dirt where the new ballpark is being constructed.
Saying goodbye to inanimate objects like sports stadiums seems strange, yet vitally important.
Just tying these words in this Newsletter, Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” keeps re-playing in my head. I know the lyrics aren’t about old stadiums, but these sure seem fitting.
I can tell you, my love for you will still be strong
After the Boys of Summer have gone.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said goodbye to the Oakland Coliseum. I know that I went back at least two different years for a Raiders game and I’ll be attending the final three Oakland A’s games.
No place holds more memories for me than the Coliseum. I know it’ll be an emotional rollercoaster, but I’ll save those tears for September.
The idea of today’s Newsletter is how we say goodbye to stadiums … and then ... what we do with them once they’re gone?
This week’s not-so random Immaculate Grid story: Marvin Benard
It would take you a lot of guesses to think of the last Giants player to homer at Candlestick Park. It wasn’t Barry Bonds. Or Jeff Kent or Ellis Burks or JT Snow.
Yep, it was Marvin Benard, a leadoff homer in the first inning on Sept. 30, 1999.
On Giants TV, play-by-play announcer Duane Kuiper changed his usual home run call to “Bye Bye Baby” in honor of Russ Hodges.
Benard also made the final out at Candlestick, a groundout to Dodgers first baseman Eric Karros, ending 40 years of Giants memories at the ballpark where I’ve never been colder in my entire life.
Then came the real drama.
Telling the ’Stick goodbye
The Giants put on a masters class in how to say farewell to a beloved, yet very flawed ballpark throughout the 1999 season, culminating in the ultimate final game nostalgia for Candlestick Park.
It was a Thursday day game. The weather was warm! (September is always the best month in The City.) The opponent was the hated Dodgers. They even convinced Tommy Lasorda to come back one more time to get booed one more time.
The ’Stick was soldout, a crowd of 61,389 fans packed the old joint.
Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal tossed the ceremonial first pitch. The Giants brought back every significant former player from their past who was available. After the game, they took their familiar positions on the diamond, wearing the jersey from their era. Hall of Fame center fielder Willie Mays walked from the outfield to throw the final pitch. The players — past and present — took one final lap around the ’Stick, stirring their own memories and waving to the fans one last time.
Home plate was dug up, a helicopter immediately delivered it to the Giants new ballpark in China Basin, and everyone at the ballpark watched it live on the videoboard. The entire one-hour postgame was carried live on TV. I watched the whole thing from my apartment in San Ramon, wishing I was there in person. Here’s a link to re-watch it, if your want more nostalgia.
Candlestick Park didn’t go away immediately. The 49ers played another 13 years there, before moving to Santa Clara, and that led to another round of farewells.
It wasn’t even the first time Giants players waved goodbye to Candlestick. They did seven years earlier, on Sept. 27, 1992, when a move to St. Petersburg, Fla. seemed like a formality. A kid from my hometown of Pleasanton famously held up a sign, imploring National League president Bill White to keep the Giants in San Francisco.
A team of local investors, led by Peter Magowan, saved the team from the dead, and only fittingly, the Grateful Dead performed the national anthem on Opening Day in 1993 when the Giants were still very much alive and playing in San Francisco.
And that kid from Pleasanton grew up to become the Giants starting shortstop on two World Series winning teams.
What becomes of old stadiums?
I’m endlessly fascinated by what municipalities due with the land of older sports facilities and the process involved. To be fair, it’s complicated, and a lot of people have ideas. It takes time to settle on plans and the financing.
In Houston, the Astrodome is still there, right next to the Houston Texans NFL stadium. The Astrodome was condemned in 2009. The doors are locked shut and the city has no plans for what to do with the space. It just sits there. I rode bikes with my camera-shy friend Ferris and we took photos in 2021.
In Bloomington, Minn., old Metropolitan Stadium (the home of the NFL’s Vikings and MLB’s Twins) was vacated in 1981 when those teams moved into the Metrodome. The ballpark sat empty for a few years, then was redeveloped and became the famed Mall of America.
The Twins and Vikings now have their own stadiums. The location of home plate at the old Metrodome is on the concourse of the Vikings new stadium. My friend Matt and I took a photo there in 2019.
In New York, the Giants left the Pole Grounds after the 1957 season. It was demolished in 1964. The site is now home to the Polo Grounds Towers, a public housing project opened in 1968.
It’s a similar fate in Brooklyn. Ebbets Field was demolished in 1960. It’s now the Ebbets Field Apartments.
In Seattle, Sick’s Stadium was the home of a minor league team, then the expansion Seattle Pilots for their only season, then became a minor league park again. It was demolished in 1979 and an Eagle Hardware & Garden store opened in 1992. It became a Lowe’s in 1999. Inside the store are markings for where the bases were, and the pitchers mound, while home plate is near the cash registers. The store has a glass display case with mementos of the baseball teams that played there.
In Omaha, Rosenblatt Stadium was the site of the College World Series and the minor league Omaha Royals. The CWS moved across town and the O-Royals moved to the suburb of Papillion. Rosenblatt is now the parking lot for the Omaha Zoo. The foul poles are still in their original location and a small whiffle ball field exists with the iconic ballpark sign. I took this photo in 2016.
In Detroit, it took a long time to decide what to do with old Tigers Stadium in the Corktown district. Eventually, the stadium was demolished and the land was repurposed as The Corner Ballpark, home of the Detroit Police Athletic League, plus youth, college and amateur teams, along with summer concerts.
While municipalities decide what to do with old stadiums, the growth of weeds, animal takeovers, and homeless invaders lead to disturbing and shocking images.
Six years ago, Bright Sun Films produced an 11-minute story about the deterioration of the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich. The roof was gone. Parts of the artificial turf were visible. People routinely broke into the facility. Arson led to a fire in the old press box.
In Nashville, old Greer Stadium, former home of the minor league Nashville Sounds, was finally demolished recently. When the mayor announced plans to restore the land into parks, the media was allowed inside to see how much graffiti (lots more photos on that link) and overall decay had fallen onto a site that had previously furnished so many blissful family memories.
I’m told the famed Guitar Scoreboard is being repurposed in what’s now an up-and-coming section of Nashville and the new area is almost complete for the public to once again enjoy.
In San Diego, the Padres left Jack Murphy Stadium after the 2003 season and the Chargers abandoned America’s Finest City for Los Angeles in 2017.
After much debate, voters in San Diego approved a plan for San Diego State University to buy the land in Mission Valley and turn it into SDSU West. The first phase was a smaller college football stadium for the Aztecs, which is also used by the women’s pro soccer team, for rugby, and lots of concerts.
The next phases are a river park that just opened, followed by affordable housing, retail space, and facilities for campus research.
Candlestick now
In 2016, I was back visiting the Bay Area, driving north on I-101, saw the Hitachi building to the right where my Dad once worked. And then. There it was.
Candlestick Park!
I spontaneously pulled over with my friend Peggy Fok to take a look.
What’s there now?
The answer in 2016: not much.
The answer in 2019: not much either.
During a 49ers playoff game that year, NBC’s cameras provided overhead images of Candlestick Park and the great Al Michaels narrated a few words.
The answer in 2023: still not much.
As Alissa Greenberg reported for SF Gate on March 14, 2023:
Ironically, the last event held at the Stick was a Paul McCartney concert in August 2014; he even used footage from his previous performance there as a Beatle as a backdrop. The stadium was eventually demolished in September 2015.
Since then, the site has sat empty, waiting for its next act. Over the years, shifting plans have called for the construction of various shopping centers, office parks and housing developments, many as part of larger projects that aim to bring new life to the surrounding Hunters Point/the Bayview area.
But the COVID-19 era has not been kind to the real estate and retail industries, nor to the conventional office building. FivePoint, the site developer, has faced layoffs and other setbacks. And concerns remain about soil safety at the former Hunters Point shipyard next door, a former Navy site that is heavily-polluted. Clean-up efforts have been roiled in controversy after allegations of fraud by a contractor hired to test samples for radiation.
One day, perhaps, crowds will return to shop, work or live at Candlestick Point. For now, the area’s hiking trails offer nothing but beautiful views of San Francisco Bay — and of course, those trademark cold breezes.
The fun part is one last nostalgic party.
The hard part is the cleanup and paying for the repurposing.
Join the conversation:
What memories are the most powerful for you at stadiums that no longer exist?
These are additional posts I’ve written that are somewhat related to this topic: