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Monster Park (colloquially Candlestick, after its original name of Candlestick Park, and sometimes just simply The Stick) is an outdoor sports and entertainment stadium located in San Francisco, California. It is the present home field of the San Francisco 49ers NFL team.
The stadium is situated at Candlestick Point on the western shore of the San Francisco Bay. Due to its location next to a hill, strong winds often swirl down into the stadium creating interesting playing conditions.
The surface of the field is natural bluegrass, but from 1971 to 1978 it was replaced by artificial turf.
Park history
Ground was broken in 1958 as the new home of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants, which was 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 1971, the NFL's San Francisco 49ers became tenants as well. Richard Nixon threw out the first ever 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.
As a baseball field, the stadium was best known for the windy conditions that often made life difficult for outfielders trying to catch fly balls. During the first of two All Star games played in the park (this one in 1961, the other in 1984), Giants pitcher Stu Miller was forced into a balk by a gust of wind. Two years later, wind picked up the entire batting cage and dropped it 60 feet away on the pitcher’s mound while the New York Mets were taking batting practice.
The stadium also had the reputation as the coldest park in the major leagues, resulting in fewer home runs. The Giants played on the reputation to bolster fan support with promotionals such as awarding the Croix de Candlestick pin to fans at the conclusion of extra-inning night games. Among many less-than-flattering fan nicknames for the park were "North Pole" and "Cave of the Winds."
The Beatles performed their last live commercial concert at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966.
The stadium was enclosed during the winter of 1971-1972 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. Its views of the bay and San Francisco skyline were also lost. Candlestick Park has the distinction of being the sole remaining NFL stadium that started life as a baseball-only facility that later had a football field added. Previous baseball parks that had been converted to house football included parks such as Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Mile High Stadium, Shea Stadium, and Milwaukee County Stadium. 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. Candlestick also has the dubious distinction of being the last NFL football stadium where upper deck supports obstruct the sightlines from the prime first deck seating.
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. Amazingly, no one within the stadium was injured, but minor structural damage did occur to the stadium. The World Series between the Giants and Oakland Athletics was delayed for ten days as a result as the overall structural soundness of the stadium (and of Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum as well) was checked by engineers and the area was allowed some time to recover.
In 2000, the Giants moved to a new downtown ballpark, Pacific Bell Park (now called AT&T Park), leaving the 49ers as the lone professional sports team to use the stadium. The final baseball game pitted the Giants against their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and occurred on an unseasonably hot day.
Name changes
Candlestick Park was named for Candlestick Point, a point of land jutting into the San Francisco Bay. Candlestick Point is itself named for the indigenous "candlestick bird" (Long-billed Curlew), once common to the point.
The rights to the arena name were licensed to 3Com Corporation from 1995 until 2002. During that time the park became known as 3Com Park. In 2002 the naming rights deal expired, and the park then became officially known as San Francisco Stadium at Candlestick Point. On September 28, 2004, a new naming rights deal was signed with Monster Cable, a maker of cables for electronic equipment, and the stadium was renamed Monster Park. Many people erroneously assume the Monster Park name is associated with Monster.com.
The City of San Francisco had trouble finding a new naming sponsor due in part to the downturn in the economy, but also because the stadium's tenure as 3Com Park was tenuous at best. Many local fans were annoyed with the change and continued referring to the park by its original name, and many continue to do so to this day, regardless of the official name. Freeway signs in the vicinity were recently changed to read "Monster Park" as part of an overall signage upgrade to national standards on California highways.
A measure passed in the November 2, 2004 election states that the stadium name will revert back to Candlestick permanently after the current contract with Monster Cable expires in 2008. This highlights San Francisco's extreme distaste for corporate naming, especially of this particular venue. The stadium is still almost universally referred to as Candlestick Park by both locals and much of the media despite the name change. The Monster Park moniker is confined to the 49ers front office and to some radio and television broadcasters, all of whom are contractually required to use the corporate sponsor's name whenever referring to the park, just as they were with 3Com.
Stick trivia
- Keith Hernandez had a clause written into his contract with the New York Mets that he could not be traded to San Francisco because they played in Candlestick Park.
- In a 1983 poll of National League players, Candlestick was voted as the worst park in the league.
- Herb Caen wrote that Candlestick was "the ninth blunder of the world."
See also
- Humphrey the whale, the humpback whale who was beached and rescued south of Candlestick
External links
- USGS aerial photograph showing football layout, a 2004 image from Microsoft's TerraServer-USA website
American Football League venues | 1960 establishments | Defunct Major League Baseball venues | National Football League venues | Sports in San Francisco | Sports venues in California | MLB All-Star Game venues
"Monster Park"