Today, San Francisco will be at the center of the American sports world from about 1pm (west coast time) onward. First, the 49ers host the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants at Candlestick Park in a rematch of last year’s NFC Championship game. Then, starting about half an hour after that game ends, the Giants host the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series at AT&T Park.
Something that outsiders may not understand about Bay Area sports fans is that they are intensely traditional. Not in the way that, say, southern frat bros rock ‘Bama bangs and wear neckties to the football game every Saturday, but more in the sense that they are proud of their pro sports franchises’ history and continuity.
Big time baseball didn’t start in San Francisco when the Giants relocated in 1958 (that’s 54 years ago, by the way); the Pacific Coast League was nearly a rival major league for over a half a century, and the San Francisco Seals were a flagship franchise. Furthermore, the 49ers didn’t just spring to life in 1981. They actually began play in 1946, joined the NFL in 1950, and have been in San Francisco — continuously — since then, drawing massive crowds from the start.
But that’s just the start of the traditionalism. The shell of the Niners’ old home, Kezar Stadium, still stands and is used for rec and prep soccer, track, and football games, and is open for people to run around the track, should they prefer the composite surface to the environs of nearby Golden Gate Park. Here’s the thing: Even though it’s a completely different place from what it once was it’s still known primarily as the old home of the 49ers.
All that’s to say that despite the region’s well-deserved reputation for iconoclasm and live-and-let-live-ism, the Giants and 49ers (and, to a different degree, the Athletics, Raiders, and Warriors), are virtually untouchable institutions. After all, they’ve been there longer than most area residents. Continuously.
(Images cc-licensed: "AT&T Park - night" by RAPACIBLE, "Kezar Stadium" by The West End)
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