April 12, 1960: Candlestick Park Opens

April 12, 1960: Candlestick Park opens, at the southeastern corner of San Francisco. Vice President Richard Nixon, a California native and about to become the Republican nominee for President, throws out the ceremonial first ball. He calls it "the finest ballpark ever built."

Nixon told a lot of lies in his long political career. This was not one of them. It wasn't a lie, it was a delusion.

The San Francisco Giants, formerly the New York Giants, took up residence at Seals Stadium, which had been the home of the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League from 1931 to 1957. They would play the 1958 and 1959 seasons until Candlestick Park was ready in 1960. They were taking the place of not just the Seals, but of the Oakland Oaks, who had already moved after the 1955 season.

Seals Stadium only seated 23,000, so a bigger stadium was needed. In 1957, as the Giants were preparing the move, Mayor George Christopher and contractor Charles Harney, who was to build the stadium, showed Giants owner Horace Stoneham land that Harney owned, at Candlestick Point, named for pelican-like "candlestick birds" that lived there. (Just as Seal Rock, in San Francisco Bay, gave its name to a minor-league baseball team, its stadium, a minor-league hockey team, and finally a major-league hockey team.)

The area was beautiful, and Stoneham accepted it. The next year, visiting the site during construction, he noticed the wind in the area. Harney had purposely shown Stoneham the land in the morning, when there wasn't much wind. That wind would prove a major problem.

The stadium opened with a game between the Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals. Orlando Cepeda tripled home 2 runs in the bottom of the 1st inning, and singled home a run in the 3rd. In the top of the 5th, the Cards' Leon Wagner hit the park's 1st home run. That was all the scoring: The Giants won, 3-1, with Sam Jones as the winning pitcher, and Larry Jackson as the losing pitcher. Willie Mays went 1-for-3 with a walk. For the Cards, Stan Musial went 0-for-3.

San Francisco fans loved the players who came up to the Giants in San Francisco, like Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, and Juan Marichal. But, being from a rather provincial city, they didn't really trust outsiders like Mays. A few years later, after the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev visited America, New York Journal-American writer Frank Conniff wrote of San Francisco, "What a town. They boo Willie Mays and cheer Khrushchev."

The Giants won the National League Pennant in 1962, losing the World Series to the New York Yankees. They fell just short of the Pennant in 1965 and 1966, both times losing to their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The ballpark's wind was terrible. In the 1961 All-Star Game, pitching for the National League, Giants pitcher Stu Miller was nudged on the mound, and he became unfairly known as "the pitcher who got blown off the mound in the All-Star Game." It was especially unfair because he ended up as the winning pitcher in that game.

The ballpark was fully enclosed, to expand the stadium from 43,000 seats to 63,000 for baseball and 70,000 for football, so the NFL's San Francisco 49ers could move in for the 1971 season. The natural grass field was replaced with artificial turf, but it was so hated that, in 1979, Candlestick became the 1st NFL stadium to switch from turf back to grass, and the 2nd in MLB, after the regrettable experiment at Comiskey Park in Chicago, with its natural infield and its plastic infield, known as "Sox sod."

The 49ers' 1st game at Candlestick was on October 10, 1971, losing to their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Rams, 20-13. They would win 5 Super Bowls while playing at Candlestick, starting with the 1981 season, in which Joe Montana's last-minute pass to Dwight Clark for "The Catch" beat the Dallas Cowboys for the NFC Championship. While the Giants could claim Mays, McCovey, and eventually Barry Bonds, the 49ers could claim Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott and Steve Young.

Football setup

The Giants wouldn't have similar success. In 1989, they won the Pennant, but were swept in 4 straight by the team across San Francisco Bay, the Oakland Athletics. However, right before Game 3 was to start, the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck the Bay Area. Candlestick sustained only minor damage, and kept all the people inside safe. The most-hated ballpark of all time, at its most important moment, had its finest hour -- or its finest 30 seconds, as the case may be.

The stadium's naming rights were sold: In 1995, it became 3Com Park at Candlestick Point. In 2004, it became Monster Park, after job-hunting site Monster.com. In 2008, it became Candlestick Park again.

49er fans usually didn't complain about the weather. But that's because, as with so many other things about the City By the Bay, the weather is weird. San Francisco is the only city in America that has baseball weather during football season, and football weather during baseball season. Eventually, for fans who stayed to the end of an extra-inning game, the Giants would give out "Croix de Candlestick" pins, with the Latin motto, "Veni, Vidi, Vixi," meaning, "I came, I saw, I lived." (A parody of Julius Caesar's "Veni, Vidi, Vici," meaning, "I came, I saw, I conquered.")

Note the ice on the SF monogram.

(NOTE: That wouldn't work in Italy. There, "I lived" is past tense, so it means, "I am dead." For this reason, Italian athletes don't want to wear uniform Number 17, because the Roman numeral for 17, XVII, is an anagram of "VIXI.")

Several movies filmed scenes at Candlestick, including Experiment in Terror in 1962, Freebie and the Bean in 1974, The Enforcer in 1976 (a Dirty Harry film, with the original Dirty Harry, in 1971, having filmed a scene at Kezar), Getting Even with Dad in 1994, The Fan and The Rock in 1996, and Contagion in 2011.

Stoneham wanted the City of San Francisco to replace Candlestick with a new ballpark. They wouldn't do it. He almost moved the team to Toronto for the 1976 season, before Bob Lurie bought the team. Lurie wanted a new ballpark. The City wouldn't build one for him, either. He almost moved the team to the Tampa Bay area for the 1993 season, before Peter Magowan bought the team. He made a deal to build what is now named Oracle Park.

The Giants played their last game at Candlestick on September 30, 1999, losing to the Dodgers, 9-4. The 49ers stayed through the 2013 season. Their last game was on December 23, 2013, a 34-24 win over the Atlanta Falcons. They moved down the Peninsula to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara.

The Beatles played their last touring concert at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. With some of the bloom off the rose, including some scandal, only 25,000 of the stadium's 43,000 seats were sold. Former Beatle Paul McCartney returned to host Candlestick's last event, a concert on August 14, 2014, 48 years later.

Kezar Stadium, built in Golden Gate Park in 1925, was torn down in 1989 -- before the earthquake, not as a result of it. It was replaced on the same site with a much smaller stadium that is used for high school sports. Some of Candlestick's seats were moved there.

Originally, the plan was for an office park and housing on the site of Candlestick Park. That plan has stalled, and the site has remained clear since demolition was completed in 2015.

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April 12, 1960 was a Tuesday. There were 3 other baseball games played that day:

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Brooks Lawrence outpitched Robin Roberts. Frank Robinson went 1-for-4.

Eddie Sawyer, who managed the Phillies from 1948 to 1952, including their "Whiz Kids" Pennant, returned to the job in 1958. After this Opening Day game, Sawyer resigned, saying, "I'm 49 years old, and I want to live to be 50. He lived to be 87.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Warren Spahn was the winning pitcher, and helped his own cause with a home run. Joe Adcock went 3-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4. Roberto Clemente went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Chuck Essegian won the game with a home run in the bottom of the 11th inning. Don Drysdale went all 11 innings for the win. Duke Snider went 0-for-4 with a walk. Don Zimmer hit a home run for the Cubs. Ernie Banks went 0-for-3 with 2 walks.

The NBA Championship was decided 3 days earlier, with the Boston Celtics beating the St. Louis Hawks in the Finals. Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals was played, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-2. Phil Goyette scored 2 goals for the Canadiens, and Maurice "the Rocket" Richard scored what turned out to be his last competitive goal. The Canadiens completed the 4-game sweep 2 nights later.