I was 10 years old in 1989 and had been to more baseball games than a kid could ever hope to attend. My Dad, a baseball fan his entire life who used to watch games at Seals Stadium and went to the first game at Candlestick Park in 1960, had bought season tickets in 1988 after buying tickets to 30-plus games every year. It was a baseball-obsessed kid’s dream.
The ’89 Giants were World Series bound after a great season, and even though I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the significance of the city’s first pennant in 27 years it was still an incredibly exciting time. They were up against the A’s and the whole Bay Area was caught up in it. I missed the NLCS clincher vs. the Cubs because of school- of all things- and I damn sure wasn’t going to miss the World Series. I’d been waiting my whole life for this, after all.
Even though the Giants had lost the first two games of the series and looked overmatched against the powerhouse A’s, there was an electricity in the crowd before game 3. A full house at Candlestick is something that’s hard to properly explain to someone who’s never experienced it. Over 60,000 fans crammed into every seat on every level, creating a level of noise that AT&T Park just can’t replicate, with an edge to it that made visiting teams and their fans anything but comfortable. The Stick was an intimidating place, and it was in rare form that afternoon.
I don’t remember exactly what I was doing at 5:04 PM. I do remember that I was sitting in my seat in Lower Box, Section 2, Row M. I remember that the A’s were stretching in left field and Jose Canseco had just thrown his bat down on the field before doing sprints. I remember looking up at the light towers and seeing a guy climbing up the ladder on the side of one.
Then, I remember the noise. A loud, low roar that started just before the shaking. Actually, it wasn’t so much shaking as it was rolling: the ground was moving in waves, like we were all sitting on top of water. And it seemed to go on forever, even though in reality it lasted no more than 15 seconds. I remember looking back up at the light towers and seeing them sway back and forth, and wondering what would happen if one of them fell over. I don’t remember looking back up to find the guy who was climbing up the side of one.
When it was over, the crowd was stunned silent for a few seconds before a huge cheer swelled up and overtook the stadium. This was San Francisco, after all! Earthquakes were just another part of living here and they were no big deal. We took it as a sign that the Giants were about to get themselves back into the series and anxiously awaited the first pitch.
But then, reality started to sink in. The lights and the scoreboard were all out and weren’t coming back on. People around us pointed up to the upper deck and swore they could see cracks where concrete had been. The players on the field weren’t warming up anymore, but instead were milling about looking as confused and as bewildered as we were.
My Dad had brought his radio to the game that day- his boombox, as he liked to call it, even though it was your standard two speaker radio- and instead of using it to listen to the Giants’ broadcast, we turned it on to get the latest news on what had happened. An entire section of people were crowded around our seats to listen, and I distinctly remember one man reaching out to turn the volume knob up before my Dad admonished him that it was at full blast. Why I remember that one moment I don’t know, but I do.
The reports started to come in over the radio that the damage to the city was catastrophic. One of the early reports, the one that made everybody start to really worry, was that the Bay Bridge had collapsed. It turned out only a small portion of the upper deck had fallen onto the lower deck, but with no cellphones and no Internet back then we only had the reports we were hearing. We heard the Marina District was one huge fire, we heard buildings were crumbling, and we heard power was out everywhere. One thing we didn’t hear was that they’d play game 3 that night.
Looking back at it now, it seems silly to think they would have even attempted to play baseball after the quake. But almost everyone in the ballpark stood around waiting for the game to start because we didn’t know any better. Until the reports started trickling in, we had no idea how bad the damage was or that the Bay Area had suffered its worst earthquake since 1906. We just wanted to see baseball.
By the time we realized that wasn’t going to happen and started filing out of the ballpark, my 10-year-old imagination went crazy with thoughts about what to expect on the drive home. The reports were scary enough to make someone think the whole outside world was destroyed. I don’t remember exactly how long it took us to get home that night, but for a long time it was the most agonizing drive of my life. And the euphoria of getting home and seeing our house still standing and no one hurt didn’t last long after seeing the death and destruction to the area and to my city.
The Giants and A’s eventually finished the World Series, but it was anticlimactic. The A’s finished it off easily, and no one seemed to pay that much attention to it. The most anticipated series in the history of Bay Area baseball was an afterthought.
I have a hard time believing that today is the 25th anniversary of the 1989 earthquake, since it’s so fresh in my memory what happened that night. I couldn’t tell you with any certainty of anything else that happened to me in 1989, but I will never forget those moments that are burned into my memory.
Back then, I was sure going to the World Series was going to provide me the most memorable moment of my life. Turns out I was right, for different reasons entirely.
