1989 World Series Earthquake

Last night, both CNN and ESPN's 30 for 30 aired specials about the 1989 earthquake during the Battle of the Bay.

Just curious, was anyone else on this board at Candlestick that evening? Crazy scene, crazy week

 

I remember being 13, in a suburb of Pittsburgh and amazingly pissed off that ABC had "accidentally" taken off the World Series and put on Roseanne.

 

I was at football practice in Sacramento and we all just kind of stopped and were looking around because we felt something strange, but didn't know what it was.

Our coach ran off and came back and canceled the rest of practice. We walked over to the swimming pool that had overflowed and still had waves going all over the place.

 

I was a recent law school grad working in downtown SF. Having been through numerous earthquakes since childhood, after the first 5 secs or so, I knew this was going to be big one. Thankfully the vast majority of the City pulled through nicely. With photos of the section of the Bay Bridge collapsing and the collapse of the double decker MacArthur Freeway section, there was a sense that things could have been much, much worse. We collectively went without electricity for about a day. It was surreal, the sense that things as we knew them were not going to be "normal" for a while.

Even being a diehard Giants fan, after the quake, baseball was a mere footnote to life. I did attend Gm 4 at the 'Stick but by then it was almost pro-forma.

 

When I saw the video of the I-880 collapse and realized it was a double decker, I feared several hundred if not well over a thousand were dead right there.

The WS game starting time might have saved a lot of people from being on that road when it hit.

 

The no-electricity thing was weird - I remember leaving Candlestick that night after dark and all you could see was a long red string of tail lights up and down the hills because no street lights were working. I was terrified of driving back to the hotel, imagining there would be gaping holes in the road that you wouldn't be able to see. Once back at the hotel, the elevators were all out (because no power) and people were sleeping all over the floor.

But just before the thing hit - do you remember a loud rumbling noise? I was in an enclosed TV truck, and I could have sworn that a giant swarm of enthusiastic Giants fans were outside trying to push the truck over with us inside. Once the ground started rolling under us like we were on the open sea, I realized it was quake, my immediate worry was that all 24-30 monitors would explode in our faces. When that didn't happen, I assumed we'd be flattened by the upper deck of the stadium. When that didn't happen, I picked up my notepad and got the hell out of the truck in case there was an aftershock. And then we mostly waited - for days to figure out how (or if) MLB was going to proceed with the series.

 

The 30 for 30 was well done.

 

I was a high schooler, and my parents had always nagged me to do my homework at home instead of study hall and on the bus. So that night, I decided I was going to turn over a new leaf and do my homework in my room. I was busy doing it, and my dad called to ask me if I was going to come down and watch the Series with him. I yelled back that I had homework to do, and they were both happy I was doing it.

A short while later, my dad yelled up the stairs that an earthquake had hit the stadium. I came down, and saw the news coverage. Didn't really hit me until they announced the game was postponed.

 

I went to the second Game 3. We had neighbors who didn't want to go after everything had happened. I was more than thrilled to take the tickets even if it involved me watching my favorite team get its ass kicked.

 

Was in the upper deck when it hit. Never felt a stadum jump before. Ran down the concourses to the field, saw Rickey asking a fan with a TV if the Bay Bridge was down. His mother lived in Oakland, I think. Wrote half my story in the backseat of a car, the other half in the half-darkened Chron/Examiner office.

Best part was the reaction of city desks to sports reporters writing disaster stuff. Remember: Most were stuck in town now. And no one is better trained -- after enduring day after day, year after year, of baseball cliches -- to recognize good quote from bad, and know which scenes evoke emotion -- better than baseball writers. City guys kept saying to their guys after filing: 'Stuff's incredible! How did you get this?'

Answer: "Uh, because we've been wading through years of Dave Dravecky dreck...? I mean, if you can't write an earthquake after that...

The fact that 'Stick didn't crumble with me and thousands of others on top of and below the second deck was something I'll be forever grateful for. I know it's a dump. And I will love that place forever....

 

It was weird watching the footage as a 6-year-old in Colorado and having no grasp for what was going on. I vividly remember seeing the footage of the Bay Bridge and my mother's friend going on about how someone's brains were on the street (don't know if that was actually real or if some chemical enhancements were clouding her perspective).

The 30-for-30 was extremely well done as far as giving perspective about the Cyprus Freeway and how people at the stadium really didn't have a reliable source for information.

One critique, not that Will Clark and Mike Krukow were bad interviews, but why couldn't they get a few others from the Giants? Or did LaRussa, McGwire and Williams (who are all still Major League Baseball) and the like all say no to ESPN because of scheduling problems?