Once Candlestick Park Now Renamed "Monster Park"

[matcom]

<snip>

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco renamed its most storied sports stadium "Monster Park" in a deal that trades $6 million from an electronics cable company for the name to Candlestick Park.

"It's a only-in-San Francisco-name and San Francisco prides itself on being different and this is just another example of us standing out in a crowd," said Sam Singer, spokesman for the San Francisco 49ers football team that plays at the stadium.

The name comes from its new sponsor, Monster Cable Products, a San Francisco-area company which sells audio cables such as those connecting guitars to amplifiers.

"Monster has always been an unusual name. But at least within the consumer electronics industry it's a famous name," Monster Vice President David Tognotti said Tuesday in an interview.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=573&e=1&u=/nm/20040929/od_nm/candlestick_dc

[Bluzmann57]

1. Fitting name

Went there many years ago for a baseball game while visiting relatives in the Bay area, and it truly is a monstrosity. Cold and windy, as well as ugly.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

2. They can slap whatever name....

they want on that beautiful monstrosity but, for us natives, it always has and always will be The Stick.

Loving that place is a matter of local pride. PacBell Park is a yuppy stadium for soft, SUV drivers. The Stick is a working class stadium for folks who will watch sports on tiny b&w teevees in their basements 'cause it's old school.

The Stick hosted the last Beatles concert, shook like a motherfucker live on national teevee during the '89 World Series, and was home to a tough breed of baseball fans -- spawning the infamous Croix de Candlestick. What's not to love about it!


http://www.baseball-statistics.com/Ballparks/SF/Candlestick.htm

Perhaps the most hated ballpark in baseball - Keith Hernandez once negotiated a clause with his New York Mets that forbade them from trading him to San Francisco, and in a 1983 poll of major league players, Candlestick was voted as the worst ballpark in the majors - the Stick was nevertheless a baseball icon.

There was nothing like it in baseball - the peaceful little stadium would fill with papers spinning cyclones in the air; swirling dust clouds would dance across the infield like ghosts before skipping back into the sky and obscuring the sun. And cold? The game time temperature would frequently drop into the mid 50s, with a wind chill in the low 30s. Yes, indeed, there was a certain San Francisco charm to the park. Still, the first big league baseball field in the West always drew complaints.

...The Giants tried everything to improve attendance - once, they handed out a tiny pin, called the Croix de Candlestick, to any fan who sat through an extra-inning night game. Don't think that's a feat? Try sitting through a 30-mph gale one summer evening when the wind chills makes it feel about 30 degrees.

[ronnykmarshall]

3. I agree.

I still call it 'The Stick'.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. Did you catch...

the first World Series game after the '89 earthquake? They had the full cast of Beach Blanket Babylon with Mr. Peanut singing "San Franisco" before the start?

I was crying like a baby! :cry: :cry: :cry:

That is what the spirit of San Francisco and The Stick is about. :)

[underpants]

5. Hold on-How many of these cales could they have possibly sold?

Really? That many?

[NashVegas]

6. Nothing Like Having Your Civic Heritage Put Up for Sale, Is There?

When I think of the phrase, "Architecture and Morality" and its implications beyond OMD, I am reminded of how very immoral our world has become.

[VOX]

7. The Stick is probably the only park where you could suffer...

heat stroke in the afternoon, and hypothermia after dark.

Where else could the wind literally blow a pitcher (Stu Miller, All-Star Game, 1961) off the mound?