It wasn't just football they played at the Stick; its been 14 years, but there used to be a baseball park there too. Here are the 75 greatest baseball moments at Candlestick. At least one for each year of its existence. In chronological order. I may combine the baseball and football lists and rank them qualitatively when the season nears an end, probably shaving down to 100.
1.
4-12-60 Giants v. Cards
-First game at Candlestick, Sam Jones
throws 3 hitter.
2. 7-11-61 All Star Game
-NL gets two in the tenth to win, Stu
Miller cements Stick national reputation by getting blown off the mound. Mays
doubled in the tying run in the tenth and then scored the winning run.
3.
4-16-62 d. Dodgers
Scored 19 against LA. Billy O’Dell threw a complete game despite
giving up 19 baserunners. Mays hit his 4th of the first six games of
season.
4.
5-27-62 Swept a doubleheader against the Mets,
got into a brawl
5.
8-12-62 Best Giants team ever down 5.5 to LA
when Dodgers came in for 3, this finished off a sweep to get us to 2.5.
Marichal threw a 4 hitter and struck out 8. That’s the Giants are watering the basepaths
to slow down Wills game.
6.
9-30-62 Even with 101 wins we went into the last
day of the season down 1, but LA lost and we beat Houston 2-1 to force a
playoff, Mays homered in the 8th to break the tie.
7.
10-1-62 Beat Koufax 8-0 0 Mays hit two homers,
Billy Pierce threw a three hitter, the Giants take the first game of the 3 game
playoff.
8.
10-5-62 Game 2 of the Series, Jack Sanford
throws a three hitter, Willie McCovey homers, we even up the WS with a 2-0 win over
NYY
9.
10-15-62 down 3-2 SFG stays alive in Game 6,
Piece throws the ever popular 3 hitter, Cepeda gets 3 hits by himself. We force game 7
10.
6-15-63 Marichal no-hits Houston, first
franchise no hitter since Hubbell.
11.
7-2-63 Marichal beats Spahn, 1-0 in 16, both
pitchers going the distance. Marcihal
struck out 10, Mays walk off HR in the 16th. Magic.
12.
8-27-63 Mays’s 400th HR We beat Cards 7-2.
13.
4-14-64 Mays hit two opening day homers off
Spahn, we win 8-4
14.
8-22-65 The Marichal/Roseboro game. We beat
Koufax, Mays hit a three run HR.
15.
9-8-65 Fewer than 9,000 paid to see us take
first place for the first time all season, in the middle of a 14 game winning
streak, beating Houston 12-3. Mays homered twice.
16.
5-4-66 Mays hit his 500th on the road
in ’65, but this was his 512th, breaking Mel Ott’s NL record, and it
was against the Dodgers in a 6-1 win.
17.
5-26-66 Marichal nearly repeated that Spahn
duel, he went 14, shutting out Phillies, striking out 10. A Davenport
triple/Barton sac fly got us the walk off 1-0 win.
18.
7-22-66 The most strikeouts by a SFG pitcher in
one game? 15 – Gaylord Perry, here,
against the Phillies. We won 4-1.
19.
9-27-67 In front of less than 4,000 paid,
McCovey hit his second grand slam in four days, we beat the Mets 7-2 and were 2
out with 5 left.
20.
9-17-68 Gaylord no-hit the Cards, 1-0, striking
out 9. They no-hit us the next day.
21.
9-16-69 Marichal threw his second shutout in 4
days, against the Braves 2-0, and we went into first place with 2 ½ weeks
left.
22.
9-21-69, 41,000 paid, our biggest crowd in 2 ½
years, and we beat LA 4-3 in 10 to keep a half game lead with a week and a half
left. LA intentionally walked McCovey
with nobody on and 2 out in the 10th – then gave up back to back
unintentional walks and lost the game on an error.
23.
7-18-70, Mays’s 600th HR, like his
500th, was on the road the previous year – but his 3,000th
hit came in a home win 10-1, against the Expos.
24.
8-28-70 Marichal’s 200th win, one of
only 4 pitchers since 1920 to win 200 before losing 100. Only 6000 paid to see him beat Pirates 5-1.
25.
9-27-70 Russ Hodges’s last home game as the SFG
announcer. We beat Padres 3-2
26.
5-31-71 The high point of the division winning
season; Mays hit his 11th HR and scored winning run in the 11th,
we beat Mets 2-1 to go 23 over .500 with a 10.5 game lead.
27.
10-2-71 Our first postseason game since the ’62
WS; we win Game 1 of the NLCS, 5-4 over the Pirates. Mccovey and Fuentes both
homered in the 5th.
28.
7-21-72 The first sub .500 SFG team, Mays hit
his 650th HR against us and the Mets beat us. His last Stick HR.
29.
4-12-73 McCovey hit two homers in the same
inning, we beat Houston 9-3 to go 6-1 on the season.
30.
5-1-73 The high water mark of ’73, we went to
19-6 with a 4 game lead when, down 7-1 to the Pirates with 2 outs in the 9th
we scored 7 runs and won 8-7. We had a
-0 Win Probability. But Chris Arnold hit
a grand slam, his only HR of the year – and Bobby Bonds finished with a 3 run
triple.
31.
7-15-73 McCovey hit 2, including his 400th,
in a 12-0 win over Bucs.
32.
9-16-74 we were only 5 back when fewer than a
thousand paid to see us beat the Braves in a 98 minute game.
33.
8-24-75, Candlestick’s third no-hitter, Ed
Halicki walking two in beating the Mets 6-0 in the back half of a
doubleheader.
34.
6-23-76 Darrell Evans Candlestick debut as a
Giant, a HR/Triple in the first game, a grand slam in the second game – Giants
sweep doubleheader against Padres.
35.
4-15-77 Mays and Marichal didn’t come back – but
McCovey did, this is his return to Candlestick as Giants first baseman. He walked twice, but we lost to Dodgers.
36.
5-14-78 How about a double header sweep of the
Cards, both games going extra innings, that put us in first place? Game 1 was 5-4, Terry Whitfield hit a walk
off homer in the 12th. Game 2
was 4-3, Whitfield doubling and scoring winning run in the 10th.
37.
5-28-78 56,000 paid to watch the Giants go up
1.5, we beat LA 6-5 on a Mike Ivie grand slam.
38.
9-3-78 a doubleheader sweep of the Phillies put
us 23 over .500 and a game out of first, as close as we had been so late in the
season in years. Bob Knepper had a
complete game in Game One, Hector Cruz had a two out, two run single in the
bottom of the 8th to give us a come from behind win in game two.
39.
4-10-79 all downhill after the home opener, Vida
Blue beat Gaylord Perry in a complete game, John Tamargo hit a walkoff homer
off another former Giant, John D’Acquisto, and we beat Roger Craig’s Padres 4-2.
40.
4-17-80 another season where the home opener is
the highpoint, another complete game for Vida to beat the Padres. McCovey had
three hits.
41.
10-4-81 we hovered around .500 all season, the
very last day that’s where we stood, a win would knock us over – we scored 3 in
the 8th to beat the Padres 4-3.
42.
8-6-82 On July 30, the Giants were 13.5
out. We went on for the best run of
Giants baseball in a decade with a ten game winning streak to get us to 4
back. The Giants were down here 6-0 to
Nolan Ryan in the 6th, giving the Astros a 98% win expectancy. Chili Davis and Jack Clark homered to get us
to 604, and still down 2 in the bottom of the 9th, Clark and Reggie
Smith homered and three singles later we won 7-6
43.
8-8-82, two days later we swept a doubleheader from
the Astros. We scored 2 in the bottom of
the 9th to win game 1 3-2, that got us over .500 for the first time
all season.
44.
9-30-82, we went into the last 3 days of the
season 1 game out after scoring 2 in the bottom of the night to beat Houston
7-6. Ron Pruitt had two hits as a Giant, one of them was a 2 out, 2 run, 9th
inning single to put us right in the middle of the pennant race.
45.
10-3-82, the Dodgers knocked us out with wins in
the first two games of the last series of the season, but we knocked them out
with a 3 run Joe Morgan homer in the 7th
46.
6-15-83 Darrell Evans hit 3 homers against
Houston
47.
7-10-84 The last All Star Game at the Stick, the
NL won, Dwight Gooden became the youngest player, 19, in ASG history, striking
out three in two innings.
48.
4-9-85 the everpopular opening day as the best
moment of the season, Vida got the win in relief, Chris Brown broke a 3-3 tie
against, who else, the Padres with a walk off single.
49.
6-22-86 47,000 to see the Giants sweep a
doubleheader over Houston to go up 1.5 in the West. Mike Krukow struck out 7 in
a complete game one and Robby Thompson scored the winning run in game two as
the Giants won a game in which Mike Scott, in his career year, was the opposing
pitcher.
50. 10-10-87 Game 4 of the NLCS, down 2 games to 1. In the playoffs for the first time in 16 years. We’d lost the night before, needing to win to even the series. Krukow threw a complete game; Jeffrey Leonard grabbed the sports headlines with his one flap down home run trot and we tied the series.
51.
10-11-87 Game 5 of the NLCS, Joe Price threw 5
innings of one hit ball in relief of Rick Reuschel and we moved one game away
from our first World Series since 1962.
We didn’t score another run.
52.
7-9-88 Not exactly revenge, we scored 21 against
the Cards. Chris Speier hit for the
cycle.
53.
8-10-89 On a Thursday afternoon, Dave Dravecky
came back after months of cancer treatments to go 8, beat the Reds 4-3 and put
us up 3.
54.
10-7-89 Game 3 of the NLCS, with the series
tied, we were down 4-3 in the 7th inning, Robby Thompson hit a two
run HR that held up.
55.
10-8-89 Game 4 of the NLCS, Greg Maddux is one
of the great pitchers who ever lived, but we blitzed him in this series. He
didn’t get out of the 4th here; Matt Williams broke a 4-4 tie with a
two run homer in the 5th for the final score.
56.
10-9-89 Game 5 of the NLCS, our first pennant
since ’62. Will Clark hit a two run single to break a 1-1 tie in the 8th
and Steve Bedrosian held on in the 9th. The Giants win the pennant.
57.
10-17-89 The Earthquake
58.
9-18-90 Out of it from the beginning of the
season, this was the culmination of a 9 game winning streak that got us to 5
over .500. Kevin Mitchell homered off Ed
Whitson and we beat the Padres.
59.
7-29-90 8 2/3 no hit innings by Scott Garrelts
in front of 55,000 fans beat the Reds and got us to 5.5 back.
60.
8-9-91 Another lost season, beat the Dodgers 1-0
in 13 on a Mitchell HBP.
61.
5-21-92, John Burkett/Michael Jackson combined
to give up 2 hits and no walks, we beat the Pirates 1-0 to take our biggest
lead of the entire season, 2 games.
62.
4-12-93 Barry Bonds homered in his first
Candlestick at bat, Giants beat the Marlins on an 11th inning Darren
Lewis single.
63. 5-2-93 Bonds homered and hit a game winning 11th inning single as the Giants took over first place against the Expos.
64.
6-24-93, Bonds homered, Clark homered, Thompson
hit 2, the Giants beat the Rockies 17-2 to go up 9 games in the west and 25
over .500.
65.
9-24-93 Clark homered in the 10th to
beat the Padres; after losing our lead we moved back to 1.5 out with 9 left.
66.
9-28-93, we won our 7th straight, our
100th game and caught the Braves, 6-4 over the Rockies – another
homer for Clark.
67.
7-26-94 Twenty days before we were 8.5 back,
after beating LA 12-5 we had shaved 7 games off the lead. Matt Williams hit his
38th homer in 101 games and Barry Bonds stole his 300th
career base.
68.
5-2-95 Scoreless through 14 innings, LA scored 3
in the top of the 15 and we came back with 4, 3 on a Robby Thompson homer, in
the bottom to get them.
69.
4-27-96, Bonds became the 4th member
of the 300/300 club, taking John Burkett deep in a Giants win over the Marlins.
70.
9-18-97 We were up 6 in July but down 2 to LA
when the Dodgers came in, we won the night before and then caught LA here;
Bonds homered and tripled, Rod Beck got out of a bases loaded, no out spot in
the tenth, and Brian Johnson walked them off with a 12th inning
homer.
71.
9-27-97 We clinched the west by beating the
Padres; Wilson Alvarez struck out seven.
72.
9-22-98 Down 5 in the Wild Card with ten left we
went on a run to force a one game
playoff; in that run came this 14-2 win over the Pirates where Bonds was a
double short of a cycle.
73.
9-11-99 A 3-2 win over the Braves included Bonds’s
2000th hit
74.
9-29-99 last win at the Stick, Livan Hernandez
got it, the unlikely Bronswell Patrick got his only MLB save. Bonds and Kent both homered and we won 5-1.
75.
9-30-99 Why were we on the road to end the
season? We lost the last game at the
Stick, to the Dodgers, 9-4. Shawn Estes was the last ever losing pitcher;
Julian Tavarez the last ever Giants pitcher.
Last Giants out, Marvin Benard.
Last Giants hit, a single by Ramon Martinez. They scored the last run
and hit the last homer. Jay Canizaro
scored our last run. Benard hit our last
homer.
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