RealClearSports: No Forgetting the Earthquake World Series

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO -- Twenty years ago, Oct. 17, 1989. 5:04 p.m. PDT, Athletics vs. Giants, Game 3 of the Bay Bridge World Series, a festive time that in an instant would become a tragic one.

"I didn't really feel the quake at first,'' Bob Welch said a while ago. He was in the visiting clubhouse, getting liniment rubbed on his shoulder. He was five minutes from walking to the bullpen to warm up, to prepare for his start.

"I thought they were rolling barrels on the ramps above the clubhouse.''

On the other side, Dusty Baker, the Giants' batting coach at the time, didn't have any doubts. He knew it was an earthquake.

Up in the second deck at Candlestick Park, where the overflow media had been seated, an area of temporary desks, the so-called auxiliary press box, I also knew.

What no one knew was how severe it would be. How it would knock down freeways, dissect the World Series.

Twenty years ago. I still have the memories. I still have a copy of the column I wrote for the San Francisco Examiner a couple of days after the quake. Not the night of the quake, because there was no power in the city.

The Examiner and Chronicle, a joint-operating effort, couldn't print. The Oakland Tribune could. The San Jose Mercury could, but not the papers in the city where the tragedy occurred.

Rob Matwick is an exec with the Texas Rangers now. Twenty years ago he was public relations director for the Houston Astros, assigned as many of his colleagues to work the Series. He was adjacent to me when it sounded as if a fright train were running through the park.

"What's that?'' he asked. As Dusty, I'm a native Californian. "An earthquake,'' I answered. I'd spent all my life in the state, south and north. I know earthquakes.

"But,'' I wrote 20 years ago, "I've never known one like this before. Candlestick swayed like a ship on a stormy sea. The quake lasted maybe 15 seconds that seemed like an hour.

"And then it was over, and some 60,000 cheered. They were Californians. They were Giants fans. They were survivors. Surely this was a sign from nature: No harm, no foul. ‘Play ball, play ball,' they began to chant.''

The teams couldn't play. No power. No lights. No idea of what was happening.

Norm Sherry, the Giants pitching coach, was telling those on the field, "The Bay Bridge is down.'' I had one of those little battery-powered TV sets. The bridge was standing, but a section of the upper deck had dropped onto the lower deck.

In effect, the bottom had dropped out of the World Series.

"After it stopped,'' said Welch, who now lives in Arizona, "I still thought I was going to pitch. Actually, I thought about (Oct. 1) 1987, when my last start for the Dodgers, there was a 5.9 quake in L.A. that rolled me out of bed.''

This one, the Loma Prieta Quake, named for the fault some 65 miles southwest of San Francisco, was first called at 6.9 on the Richter scale, where the rating is logarithmic and not merely one step above the next.

Then it was revised to 7.1, the worst earthquake in Northern California since the infamous one of 1906, which along with a subsequent fire destroyed most of San Francisco.

There was a fire in the '89 quake too, centralized in the Marina District, and because of low pressure, water had to be pumped from the bay. A couple of days after the quake, Joe DiMaggio was in line with Marina residents to check on property owned by his family.

That first night was science-fiction eerie. All of San Francisco was pitch-black. No lights, no elevators, no television. The next afternoon, baseball commissioner Fay Vincent spoke to the media in a ballroom at the St. Francis Hotel lit only by candelabra, as in the 18th Century.

From Candlestick to candelabra in a matter of hours.

Dozens were killed by the quake, many under a collapsed freeway in Oakland, never to be rebuilt. Damage was in the billions.

Candlestick, windy, much-reviled Candlestick, built on a solid ground, held up except for broken hunks of cement here and there.

The A's, who had taken the first two games in Oakland, decided to dress at their park and bus across the bay, maybe 23 miles from stadium to stadium. Wives and families had come in their own transportation.

Mark McGwire helped his then-girlfriend from the stands. As the A's Stan Javier, years later to play for the Giants, helped his wife, Vera. Oakland's Terry Steinbach embraced his wife, Mary. The Giants' Kelly Downs, in a photo that would be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, carried a young relative to safety.

Jose Canseco would be seen gassing up his Porsche some place down the Peninsula from Candlestick. Who knew if the San Mateo Bridge, the next one south of the Bay Bridge were open -- it wasn't at first -- or even the Dumbarton Bridge?

Some wanted the World Series stopped right there. Vincent, alluding to Winston Churchill insisting the cinemas in London be kept open during blitz to create a sense of normalcy, intended to continue.

Ten days after the quake, with a group of rescue workers, police and firemen tossing out ceremonial first pitches, baseball was back. But not for long. The A's won two more and swept the Series.

Twenty years ago, a time of joy and grief.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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© RealClearSports 2009 

RealClearSports: Wooden Wins a Big One, No. 99

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

He couldn't win the big one. That was the criticism of John Wooden. Fifty years ago.

Times change. Perceptions change. Integrity never changes.

Couldn't win the big one.

Wooden was in his formative years at UCLA, a team competent enough in the old Pacific Coast Conference and its successor, the AAWU. But in the tournament, there was USF with Bill Russell, or Santa Clara with Ken Sears, and the Bruins were eliminated.

Then they began to eliminate everybody else. Starting in 1964, UCLA won all the big ones, won 88 games in a row, won seven NCAA championships in a row, and John Wooden earned a reputation he's never lost as the finest college basketball coach in history.

The great man, the "Wizard of Westwood'' -- a phrase Wooden still dislikes; it came from the title of a book by Dwight Chapin and the late Jeff Prugh -- turns 99 today, October 14. Ninety-nine, one short of a century.

Sadly, he is looking his age, frail, fighting through one ailment after another, the sort of problems not uncommon to those who make it to their ninth decade.

Delightfully, he never acts his age. He hates being pushed in a wheelchair. Doesn't want to be fussed over.

"I'm embarrassed not being able to get around,'' he said a while back. "I don't like it.''

Who does? In our minds, it's always yesterday, always a time of youth, when we never imagined what the future would be, never dreamed those old guys would be us.

The India Rubber Man someone called Wooden. He was the All-America from Purdue in the early 1930s. He would hit the floor and bounce up. Then he would hit a basket.

He became an English teacher and a coach. No, he became The Coach. After serving as a naval lieutenant in World War II.

UCLA hired him from Indiana State in 1948. He headed west and almost headed back to Indiana. Life in southern California, call it the "Hollywood Effect,'' was unsettling. Wooden considered leaving not long after he arrived.

But he still was there when I entered in 1956, a freshman on the school paper, the Daily Bruin, sent to interview Wooden in less than elegant campus surroundings, a spartan office in a wooden bungalow maybe 150 yards from an antiquated gym so small (2,500 seats) and so closed-in it was, in a word-play on the Tennessee Williams drama, nicknamed "The Sweatbox Named Perspire.''

Wooden was polite if impatient. Businesslike. Efficient. The Pyramid of Success, now marketed, was attached to the wall. He had his ideas. When he would get his players, Walt Hazzard (Mahdi Abdul-Rahman) and Gail Goodrich, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton, the ideas were brilliant.

Twenty-seven years, 10 NCAA titles, 620 wins, 147 defeats. UCLA finally got its building, Pauley Pavilion, in 1965, and Wooden finally got an office worthy of his status. But deep down, he was still the no-nonsense guy from Middle America.

For many years, Wooden has lived in an unpretentious San Fernando Valley condominium that is more museum than residence. Memories, homilies and most of all awards are on virtually every inch of the walls, atop every desk, table or trophy cabinet.

There is a letter from Richard Nixon, a bobblehead doll of Tommy Lasorda, a Yankees cap from Derek Jeter, a photo montage of John Stockton, of whom Wooden wistfully noted, "Was the last player in the NBA to wear shorts, not bloomers.''

He has books about Mother Teresa, a Medal of Freedom award from George W. Bush, a football autographed by Don Shula and, of course, photos of the UCLA teams he coached to titles before retiring in 1975.

"Nell arranged those pictures in the Pyramid of Success,'' explained Wooden, alluding to his wife, who died in 1985. "I didn't like that, but I wasn't going to change anything she did.''

Nell Riley was the only girl John Wooden of Martinsville, Indiana ever dated. There's a framed photo, leaning against a wall, of the two of them, John 16, Nell 16. The love of his life, to whom he still writes a letter the 21st of every month.

Her name is alongside his on the basketball floor at Pauley. It was the only way he would allow the court to be dedicated, to both of them.

Wooden is a baseball fan. He would come to UCLA games when they still played at a utilitarian facility on the land where Pauley was erected and harass the opponents, a classic "bench jockey,'' insulting but never obscene. Wooden can talk about Babe Ruth. Or about Barry Bonds.

John Wooden knew. John Wooden knows. In 99 years, he hasn't missed much. Including winning the big one.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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© RealClearSports 2009

SF Examiner: The day the Battle of the Bay was rocked

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

It began with more sound than fury, a rumbling as if every fan at Candlestick Park was stomping their feet. Up in the second deck, where tables had been knocked together to serve as an auxiliary press box, the man alongside choked out a question.

“What’s that?” asked Rob Matwick, now an executive with the Texas Rangers.

Twenty years ago, he was the public relations director for the Houston Astros. He had never experienced what he was about to experience. Neither had anyone.

“An earthquake,” I answered flippantly.

Then as the grandstand vibrated and the noise exploded, Matwick, panicky, gasped, “Is it a bad one?” Soberly, I responded, “Yeah, it’s bad.”

We know the date: Oct. 17, 1989. We know the time: 5:04 p.m. We know the setting: Game 3 of the World Series between the Giants and A’s. We know the result, dozens killed, billions of dollars in damage, a Richter reading of 6.9.

Candlestick, nicknamed the “The ninth blunder of the world,” by the late, great Herb Caen, was a terrible place for baseball. “Blow it up,” was one man’s slogan. But when that quake hit, loathed, belittled Candlestick held firm. As do the memories across two decades.

When the quake stopped, the chanting started, “Play ball, play ball.” But they could not play. Power was out in The City. They would not play. The A’s and Giants were scattering from the clubhouses onto the diamond, looking into the stands for loved ones.

The first two games of what was nicknamed the Bay Bridge Series had been won, easily, by the A’s in Oakland. Someone had hung a bed sheet sign from the upper deck at Candlestick before Game 3: “I am the Giant. I will be heard.”

What we heard was a giant of another sort. One that tumbled freeways and severed a section of the Bay Bridge. One that had journalists wondering whether the 86th World Series should be resumed, which it was 10 days later.

The A’s had dressed at the Coliseum and traveled to San Francisco by bus. The quake created chaos. There was a famous photo of Jose Canseco in his uniform, pumping gas somewhere down the Peninsula, the car having been driven over by his wife at the time.

That first night San Francisco was dark, without any lights. Hotel elevators didn’t run. Visiting sportswriters hiked up pitch-black stairwells. The day after the quake, a candlelit press conference with baseball commissioner Fay Vincent was held at the St. Francis Hotel on Powell Street.

A few days later, Joe DiMaggio appeared in the rubble of the Marina district, waiting in line with others, to check on a residence owned by his family.

Baseball resumed Friday, Oct. 27. Ceremonial pitches were thrown by 12 public servants and rescue workers, one of whom, Steve Whipple, had seen Buck Helm alive in the wreckage of the Nimitz Freeway.

We sang, “San Francisco open your Golden Gate.” Someone held a sign, “Most Valuable Park, Candlestick, No Crumble Under Pressure.”

The Series was back, if not for long. The A’s swept. They were champions. It almost didn’t matter. We were survivors. Which did matter.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-The-day-the-Battle-of-the-Bay-was-rocked-64186587.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Spectacle of Presidents Cup comes to a close

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

And so the golfing gods depart, the marquees come down and Harding Park, the little muni that could, goes from Tiger and Phil to a lot of neighborhood Joes, which is as it should be on a public golf course.

The weather wasn’t quite what was expected — brrr! — the competition was less than hoped, but The Presidents Cup was four days of memories and birdies. That ain’t bad.

Once again the United States was a winner against the international team, this time 19½ points to 14½ — not exactly a shock when the top three players in the world rankings are Americans and they play like the top three players in the world rankings.

Tiger Woods, No. 1 on the list, was a winner in all five of his matches; Phil Mickelson, No. 2, had four wins and a tie; and No. 3 Steve Stricker was 4-1.

“That’s what you expect out of your No. 1 player in the world,” Greg Norman, the international team’s captain, said of Woods. “You need him to step up to the plate. And sometimes he hasn’t done that, [but] this time he did do it.”

This time he teamed with Stricker to win their two foursomes and two four-ball matches. And then Sunday on his own, in what some called revenge for the stunning outcome of the PGA Championship in August, Woods crushed Y.E. Yang of Korea 6 and 5 in one of the 12 singles.

When Lincecum and Cain pitch shutouts, the Giants can’t lose. When Mickelson and Tiger pitched virtual shutouts, the U.S. couldn’t lose.

“I needed him — it sounds stupid — to go 5-0,” Fred Couples, the U.S. captain, said of Tiger’s perfection. 

The event needed him to provide the cachet of a high-level attraction, which The Presidents Cup certainly was.

If San Francisco didn’t exactly need the match-play event to verify its status as a world-class city, it still was a welcome addition.

Big-time golf makes such infrequent appearances in the West — although the U.S. Open will be at Pebble Beach next year and San Francisco’s Olympic Club in 2012 — that The Presidents Cup became a special presence in The City.

Yes, there are cable cars that climb halfway to the stars, but how often do guys such as Tiger, Ernie Els and Geoff Ogilvy walk the fairways out beyond Twin Peaks?

America again had a home-nation advantage in winning the event for the sixth time in eight chances. But Norman, the Aussie who grew up playing Royal Melbourne — where the tournament will be in 2011 — pointed out that the Harding crowd gave support to the international team, if not as fully as to the U.S. squad.

“I think it was a 70-30 split,” Norman said. “That would be expected here in San Francisco. We have a lot of ex-pats from around the world. Asian nations are represented very well here. There were a lot of Australians, and I saw a lot of Canadians out there and a lot of South Africans wearing their rugby jerseys.”

If Norman was impressed with the gallery, he was no less impressed with the venue. “I think,” he said of Harding, “with just a few minor adjustments it could be a magnificent course worthy of holding a PGA or a U.S. Open championship.”

Norman has no idea whether he will be asked to repeat as captain, but everybody has the idea Ryo Ishikawa of Japan is going to be one of the game’s best. In a match crossing generations and cultures, the 18-year-old on Sunday beat America’s 49-year-old Kenny Perry, 2 and 1. Ishikawa had three wins and two defeats.

Sean O’Hair of the U.S. — who had been coached during the week by Michael Jordan on intensity, and by Tiger and Phil on putting — overwhelmed Ernie Els, winning 6 and 4.

“I always enjoy getting advice,” said O’Hair, the team’s rookie. “Tiger always has been a friend of mine, and it was good to play Saturday with Phil. I learned so much about reading greens.”

Mickelson, a 2 and 1 winner against Retief Goosen, was elated when his wife, Amy — receiving treatments near San Diego for breast cancer — arrived Saturday.

“That was awesome,” Mickelson said. “What a wonderful surprise.”

The way he, Tiger and Stricker played also was wonderful, but it hardly was a surprise. They’re the top three in world rankings. And they played like it.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company 

SF Examiner: Stricker’s comeback lands him on Team Tiger

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

He’s seen as the other guy, the accompaniment to the main act, part of a twosome which some might consider a single. Steve Stricker was Tiger Woods’ partner in all four Presidents Cup team matches, an accessory, perhaps, also a necessity.

A man who almost left the game, Stricker, 42, has no ego problems. And of late, after twice winning the Comeback of the Year Award and this year having won three times and moving to third in the world rankings, no golf problems either.

The person assigned to join Tiger, especially in the alternate-shot, foursomes format, has to understand it’s not going to be a walk at Harding Park. The fans are there to see Woods. Saturday morning they were yelling, “Hey, Tiger.” No reference to Stricker.

But he and Tiger work well together. And when Tiger holes a 22-foot birdie putt 17 and then rips a 3-iron onto the green for his second shot on the 18th to set up Stricker’s eagle putt, Steve just smiles. “I have a front row seat,” said Stricker. “We all know what he does.”

What the two of them did was win the final two holes of the foursomes to beat Mike Weir and Tim Clark of the Internationals, 1 up.

When a few weeks back Stricker briefly was atop the standings of the FedEx Cup, eventually won by Tiger, Steve said, “We’re taking up space in [Tiger’s] world, but I’m thrilled to death to be playing how I’m playing.”

Especially after never finishing better than 151st on the PGA Tour money list from 2003-05.

His wife, Nicki, once his caddy, was home with their two young children. He was feeling sorry for himself, was ready to quit.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do the rest of my life,” he said once. “I didn’t have the desire that I really needed to play this game ... Then at the end of the 2005 season, I went back to Tour school, didn’t make it and just kind of rededicated myself to work harder.”

Obviously, it worked far better than anyone might have imagined.

“I think we approach the game with the same mentality,” said Tiger of Stricker. “We just play it differently. I hit the ball a little farther. But our mentality and how we play and compete is exactly the same.”

Stricker, who grew up in Wisconsin but went to the University of Illinois, also has the right mental approach to be Tiger’s teammate.

“It’s been a blast,” said Stricker. “I hope he’s not sick of me.”

Nobody gets sick of winning.

Local legends make return to Harding

They had come home, in a sense, back to the course where long ago they had perfected the game. Ken Venturi and Johnny Miller were at Harding Park, for them a place of history and memories.

Each graduated from Lincoln High, a few miles away from Harding. Each had gone on to win a U.S. Open. Now Miller, 62, was working The Presidents Cup as NBC’s co-lead announcer with Dan Hicks, while Venturi, 78, was in attendance to observe and remember.

The trophy case inside the entrance to Harding’s Sandy Tatum clubhouse is dominated by the huge cup Venturi earned in the famous San Francisco City Championship of 1956, when he defeated E. Harvie Ward in a finals watched by 10,000 people.

Miller told the TV audience he used to fish in Lake Merced off the edge of the 18th hole, which for The Presidents Cup was played as the 15th hole.

“I followed him,” Miller said of Venturi who later was a commentator for CBS, “in his two careers, as a golfer and an announcer.”
Venturi, won the U.S. Open in 1964, the last year two rounds were held the final day, surviving 90-degree temperatures at Washington’s Congressional Club. Miller’s title came nine years later at Oakmont outside Pittsburgh.

It was fitting Venturi’s final tour victory was at the 1966 Lucky International at Harding, where his father once had been the pro. Miller never won at Harding but he did at Pebble Beach and Silverado in Napa.

On target

Despite an unseasonably cold, cloudy Saturday, another sellout crowd of some 28,000 — including Condoleezza Rice and former U.S. Open winner Juli Inkster — swarmed about Harding Park to watch The Presidents Cup. Support from Northern California sports fans has been overwhelming for this second of the five golf events promised to Harding Park over a 15-year span after $16 million was spent for improvements on the public course.

Who said it

Steve Stricker

Tiger Woods holed a 22-foot birdie putt on 17 in the morning after Steve Stricker’s relatively poor bunker shot and squared the match against Mike Weir and Tim Clark. Asked how he continues to come through, Woods quipped, “Luck.” Not exactly.  Stricker  said, “He kept telling me we are going to win. He was calling it all the way. Believing is one thing, and he pulled off some great shots at the end.”

Jim Furyk

“I love playing with Justin,” was Jim Furyk’s comment after he and Justin Leonard beat Ernie Els and Adam Scott, 4 and 2, in foursomes. “But we split up in the afternoon. We hit the ball so much alike. You need someone who plays totally different. Anthony [Kim] and I are two different people who get along great.” They also played strong against Scott and Angel Cabrera in four-ball.

Match to watch

Who else but Tiger Woods? Teaming with Steve Stricker, so far he is 4-0 in two foursomes, two fourballs. Today Tiger and the 23 others on both teams play singles, match play. Woods is 3-2 overall in five previous Presidents Cup singles, his losses coming in the last two Cups, to Retief Goosen of South Africa in 2005 and Mike Weir in 2007. After Saturday, he is 9-2-1 in foursomes, or alternate shot competition.

By the numbers

Total singles matches that will be played today: 12

Tiger Woods’ career Presidents Cup singles record entering today: 3-2

Vijay Singh’s career Presidents Cup singles record entering today: 1-4-2

To see The Examiner's complete coverage of the Presidents Cup go to http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/presidentscup/

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