A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (5 page)

The relationship of the players and owners, however,
was the polar opposite. Stoneham was a "real baseball fan as an
owner," his close aide, Chub Feeney said. "Winning meant a lot to
him and the team meant a lot to him. He was a rooter." Stoneham was
known for his generosity with Giants players, who he viewed as part
of a larger family. O'Malley, with slick hair, three-piece suits
and a large paunch, looked the part of a big city bank president.
Stoneham, with his rosy cheeks, thinning hair, and thick, dark
glasses, was a round-faced man who resembled the comic Drew
Carey
.
His
persona
was more like a regional branch
manager.

Stoneham loved to drink, an occupation that
coincided with watching his team. According to rumor he killed a
man in a drunk-driving incident in Scottsdale, Arizona. He had been
duped into accepting San Francisco, as if it was equal in value to
Los Angeles. There was a sense that California was one big tropical
paradise, with little regard for the enormous physical disparities
within its 900-mile north-south borders. Even within the Bay Area
itself, temperatures varied greatly. Walnut Creek for example, a
bedroom community located over the hill past Oakland, in the East
Bay, could be steaming hot at 90 degrees on the same day that San
Francisco was foggy and wind-swept at 55 degrees.

Stoneham made one thing clear, emphasized above all
other criteria: he wanted parking at his new stadium. Parking,
parking, parking. Neither L.A. nor San Francisco had much in the
way of public transportation. San Francisco’s bus service was
better than L.A.’s, and a commuter train connected people between
The City (its denizens used caps) and the peninsula towns of
Burlingame, San Mateo, Palo Alto and Mountain View, but for the
most part its citizenry traversed the freeways and numerous bridges
(the Golden Gate, Bay, and eventually the Richmond-San Rafael, San
Mateo, Dumbarton, Carquinez, and Benicia) by car.

There was available downtown land near Powell and
Market Streets, which would have been an excellent spot. Located
not far from where the current AT&T Park now is, it would have
offered reasonable weather. Certainly there would have been wind
and fog, but it would have been acceptable. Financial district foot
traffic, cable cars, ferry service, municipal bus lines, the
Southern Pacific train, and eventually the Bay Area Rapid Transit
(BART) would have provided easy access. Stores, bars and
restaurants would have benefited from the nightlife and "this is
the place to be" vibe that AT&T Park now provides. It was not
chosen because local businesses did not want increased traffic
congestion. Stoneham lacked the vision to fight for the downtown
stadium; all he saw was a big parking lot. In addition, eminent
domain laws would have cost The City $33 million to pay off
citizens forced to leave properties.

San Francisco Mayor George
Christopher saw how O'Malley had manipulated the gullible Stoneham.
He set out to do the same thing. Christopher had a sweetheart deal
with a construction magnate named Charlie Harney. Harney owned tons
and tons and tons of
dirt
. Regular
old dirt. He needed a place to put it that would pay him for it.
Within the jurisdiction of the city there were only so many places
that could accommodate Harney’s dirt.

They decided on non-descript Candlestick Point,
sitting on a section next to San Francisco Bay that was not
officially in The City. It was an unincorporated area owned by
Harney. Candlestick Point was located next to the Bayshore Freeway,
which connected The City with the airport, almost as much of a
boondoggle that was likewise not in The City. Stoneham was told of
the bayshore location. He had visions of a baseball version of
Fisherman’s Wharf, a marina-style stadium perhaps, accompanied by
waterfront vistas. In fact, the section of bay that Candlestick
Point is located on is one of the farthest from the East Bay on the
other side. Furthermore, the East Bay area across from Candlestick
is much flatter than the scenic Oakland and Berkeley hills to the
north; the lights of Oakland and the Bay Bridge providing
spectacular visuals. Trying to locate the East Bay from Candlestick
Point is little more visually spectacular than trying to spot
England on the horizon across the channel from France.

A bluff overlooked the site, which was curved away
from the downtown Embarcadero area in such a way that there was
absolutely no evidence of the beautiful downtown San Francisco
skyline to the north, or even the mountainous peninsula to the
south. It just sat there. The neighborhoods adjacent to Candlestick
Point; Bayside, Hunter’s Point and Potrero Hill, were headed in the
same direction as the Harlem slums where the Polo Grounds had been.
Stoneham was painted a portrait of racial harmony, of new thinking
in California, but in truth the black community of San Francisco
lived in sullen isolation, well away from The City’s frolicking
financial district or the tony neighborhoods of St. Francis Woods,
Mt. Davidson, Twin Peaks, and the Sunset.

There was no fan-friendly business for miles and
miles and miles near Candlestick; just slaughterhouses, packing
plants, and a few liquor stores. An eyesore for the ages, a huge
crane dominating a nearby Naval shipbuilding facility, blocked
whatever views of the bay that there might have been. Fans exiting
the 101 freeway found themselves on narrow streets that quickly
became boondoggles before and after games with any kind of large
attendance. Local kids threatened to vandalize cars unless money
was extorted from scared drivers. But all of this was nothing
compared to the elements.

Christopher and Harney knew that Stoneham was a man
who wanted to get to his drinking early. They arranged for a tour
of Candlestick Point around 10:30 in the morning. Mark Twain once
said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San
Francisco.” The best time of year there is the fall, the Indian
summer months of September, October and early November. Instead of
directing Stoneham to Candlestick on one of those Mark Twain days –
cold, drizzly, windy – they drove Horace out on a sunny, clear
morning. All Stoneham seemed to see was room for parking. Of
course, that room was still part of the bay. This was where
Harney’s dirt would be dumped, creating landfill and a
toxicological disaster. On top of that, nobody understood much
about earthquakes back then, other than the Big One had virtually
destroyed the entire city only 50-some years before that. Sure, go
ahead, build a stadium on the shifting sands of loose dirt dumped
into the water!

Stoneham enthusiastically endorsed
the whole plan; hook, line and sinker. Christopher and Harney just
looked at each other. This was a savvy New York businessman? The
West Coast rubes had pulled the sheet, er, the dirt right over his
head. Stoneham was spirited away and by 3:00 P.M. was in his cups.
Around that time, a violent windstorm descended on Candlestick
Point. It was like something out of
Lawrence of
Arabia
, or Biblical fogs that might have
killed every first-born child on the point if it had been fit for
human habitation in the first place. Dust from the nearby bluffs
swirled in a sea of drifting garbage wrappings. Fetid smells filled
the air, but Stoneham neither saw, felt nor smelled it. It was
cocktail hour.

Walter O’Malley toured Wrigley Field, a quaint
little park located in an industrial area that was becoming more
and more crime-ridden. It held about 22,000 fans. The Hollywood
Stars had a stadium located where the CBS Television studios are
currently located. That neighborhood was better but the capacity
was not. There were no alternatives. Everyone assumed O’Malley’s
team would play at Wrigley Field until Dodger Stadium was built,
just as the Giants would play at little Seals Stadium until
Candlestick Park was erected.

“What about the Coliseum?” O’Malley asked.

His tour guide scoffed at the notion. The Coliseum
was strictly a football stadium with a track. But O’Malley knew it
held 100,000 fans. "Walter was a business man - first and only,"
said Bavasi. "He was not a baseball man and admitted as much. He
left that part to others. Contractual work with television and
radio was about all he was interested in. He was not an emotional
man and he never got close to any of the players."

He saw dollar signs in each of those 100,000 seats.
He decided the Coliseum, not Wrigley Field, would be the home of
the Dodgers. O’Malley appeared before the Los Angeles City Council
in 1957, asking for permission to play four seasons at the Los
Angeles Memorial Coliseum. There was one dissenter, John Holland,
who turned out to be in league with C. Arnholt Smith, who was
lobbying for the prized first big league franchise in San Diego,
not Los Angeles. Smith later did time for fraud, and Major League
baseball would not come to San Diego until expansion in 1969.

Between 1958 and 1961, the Dodgers played in the
venerable stadium, which all things considered must be the most
famous all-around sports facility in the world. If there was any
competition for such a moniker, the Dodgers’ four years there ended
the discussion.

It was built in 1923 to serve a number of purposes.
First and foremost, it was erected to house the University of
Southern California Trojans. USC had emerged as a major university
in the years immediately after World War I. Long overshadowed by
the respected University of California-Berkeley and Stanford
University, USC now accommodated a large urban population and grew
in prestige because of it. In 1919, they hired Elmer “Gloomy Gus”
Henderson to coach the football team, which until then had been a
second rate outfit, not considered a big-time collegiate program
like those at Pacific Coast rivals Cal, Stanford, Washington,
Washington State and Oregon.

Henderson quickly turned them into champions. In
1922, the Trojans entered the Pacific Coast Conference. Stanford
lobbied to get the Rose Bowl game, previously played at Tournament
Park where Cal Tech is now located in Pasadena. The city of
Pasadena responded to Stanford’s challenge by building the Rose
Bowl in the Arroyo Seco in 1922. USC Christened it by winning the
first Rose Bowl game played there, beating Penn State, 14-3 on
January 1, 1923.

In 1923, the Coliseum was built, seemingly
one-upping Pasadena by creating a stadium located across the street
from the university that would also lure the 1932 Olympics and the
growing football aspirations of nascent UCLA. Started as the
Southern Branch of the University of California system, UCLA was
located on Vermont, near Griffith Park, but quickly outgrew its
humble beginnings. They moved to a location in Westwood that seemed
preposterous at first.

“
Nobody will go all the way out
there,” people said of Westwood. Everything west of Western Avenue
was rural until one got to Santa Monica, where the West Coast
version of the Gatsby crowd frolicked in their exclusive beach
cottages. Ironically, UCLA had enough open space to build a stadium
larger than the mightiest South American soccer colossus, but chose
instead to rent the Coliseum, meaning their fans had to drive to
USC, walking across their rivals’ campus shrines in order to watch
the games.

When the USC-Notre Dame football
rivalry began in 1926, it ensured huge crowds at the Coliseum. When
Coach Howard Jones turned Troy into a collegiate dynasty with four
National Championships between 1928 and 1939, the Coliseum was
packed, the Trojans the
cause celebre
of Hollywood. UCLA moved in and, when Jackie Robinson starred
for the Bruins, they too filled the stadium. Games played between
the integrated Trojans and Bruins in the 1930s were nothing short
of social statements a decade before baseball broke the “color
barrier.”

The 1932 Olympics were a huge success. USC athletes
dominated for the American team, giving the school and the city the
imprimatur of “Sports Capitol of the World” when Troy won their
second straight National title in 1932.

The Coliseum was the home of the mighty Trojans and
the mighty Bruins, who by the 1950s were challenging and beating
USC. The Los Angeles Rams moved in and won the 1952 National
Football League crown. Crowds of well over 100,000 fans came to
watch USC-UCLA, USC-Notre Dame, and Rams-49ers spectacles.

In addition to pro and college football, and the
Olympics, the Coliseum was the site of the popular East-West Shrine
football game, a prep extravaganza. It hosted the Los Angeles City
Section and CIF-Southern Section championship games. Many stars
played high school, college and pro football in the Coliseum. The
USC track team, probably the single most dominant collegiate sports
dynasty in history with 26 NCAA championships, ran their major
meets in the Coliseum. In its heyday, close to 100,000 people came
out to watch the USC-UCLA meet.

For many years, the Pro Bowl game was played at the
Coliseum. In 1984, a second Olympics was held there. Every major
rock band – The Who, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and many
more – played to sold-out Coliseum crowds. In 1945, war hero George
S. Patton addressed a capacity nighttime crowd when he returned to
his hometown after defeating Nazi Germany. Billy Graham held
Christian revivals in the Coliseum, filling every seat.

The adjacent Sports Arena, built in 1959, was – and
this is not a misprint – the finest basketball arena in the nation
in its early days. The home of USC until 2006, it also was UCLA’s
arena when they won their first two NCAA titles; the Lakers' arena
until the Forum was completed in 1967; and the home court of ABA’s
Los Angeles Stars. John F. Kennedy accepted the Democrat
Presidential nomination there in 1960.

In 1958, Los Angeles struggled in their first year,
finishing seventh, but was successful at the game. 78,672 attended
the first game played at the Coliseum. 1.8 million passed the
turnstiles that season. The Dodgers won the 1959 National League
pennant playing at the Coliseum. They set the all-time attendance
records, drawing crowds of more than 90,000 fans for each of three
World Series games against the Chicago White Sox en route to the
World Championship. Home plate was set next to the entrance where
football teams emerge, with left field a scant 290 feet away. A
high screen was erected so that balls would not fly out. The result
was that legitimate line drive homers would hit the screen and, if
played correctly by the left fielder, held to singles. Conversely,
lazy, arcing pop-ups would drift over the screen for home runs. A
left-handed-hitting journeyman, Wally Moon, seemed to specialize in
these “Moon shots.”