Turn Out The Lights, The Party's Over

1985 was the worst season in Giants franchise history. Attendance had declined to near nothing and owner Bob Lurie, who was frustrated at the failure of the city of San Francisco to either build him a new ballpark or renovate the 'Stick, declared that Candlestick Park was not fit for baseball and that the Giants would not play there in 1986. Whether this meant an attempt to play at the Oakland Coliseum or to move the team to another city, nobody knew. What it did mean was that the last game that year would be the last game at Candlestick ever.

Kevin , Louie and I were at that last game. The Giants lost their 100th game of the year that day, and I bought the last hot dog ever sold (read the story here) just after the game. We decided that we would stay as long as we could; until we were kicked out of the stadium. People left, and the security did their sweep of the stands, just ahead of the cleaning crew. They started in left field and swept around the staduim toward right. We were told to leave, so we went down to the right field corner to buy some more time. We were told to leave again. So we headed up to the upper deck. Since attendance was so small that year the centerfield stands were essentially blocked off. But a gate held loosely with a chain and lock had a bit too much slack on the chain. So we slipped through and made our way to the upper deck in centerfield and hid in a tunnel. This particular tunnel had a crawlspace access in it, so when the security crew looked down the tunnel, he couldn't see us.

We watched the cleanup and the grounds crew water the field, then leave. We were the only ones left. We made it down to the field, ran around the bases and went into the dugout. We each used the toilet in the dugout. After our fun, we decided to leave. But we encountered a problem. All the exits were closed and locked. Oh, no. So we started trying to open doors to ticket windows and equipment rooms. We found one door unlocked. It was to a small empty room. This room had a light bulb in the ceiling with a chain. It was on. There was a rear door that led out of the park. We sang, "Turn out the lights, the party's over" as we exited. Yes, we locked the door behind us and turned out the light. Of course the Giants played at Candlestick in 1986.

Reggie? Yawn...

During the 1986 season the then California Angels came to Oakland and one of the games was to be on ABC's Monday Night Baseball. Even though it was late in Reggie Jackson's career and he sucked by then, the media still gave him top billing as an attraction. So Kevin and I had a great idea for a prank. We saved up newspapers for a month or so and got together for a newspaper sorting party. When the game arrived, we stationed ourselves at each of the entrances to the bleachers and quickly gave each fan a single folded sheet of a newspaper and told them to act like they were reading it when Reggie Jackson came up to bat. We cut a tiny hole in each paper so the fans could really watch his at bat.

Well he came up the first time, and it was hilarious to see thousands of fans in the entire bleachers section from foul pole to foul pole reading newspapers! The message was that Reggie was washed up and boring. This was at a time that the networks decided not to show aberrant fan behavior like streaking and other things, so ABC didn't show us on national TV. But 40,000 other fans at the game saw us. It was worth every minute of prep.

Cast and Crew: Kevin

Kevin came into the scene in maybe '86. He also attended both A's and Giants games with us. I even did a down-and-back road trip to Anaheim for a night game with him. At first, he was a bit annoying to some of us. He seemed kind of insecure and clingy, and talked far too much. But after time, and several years in college, he really grew socially, and in the end I was glad I stuck it out with him.

He was a college student. I think I remember him in jr. college when we met him, and then went to a four year school, SF State if I remember correctly. He wanted to pursue a career in sports journalism and his idol was Gary Radnich, a Bay Area sportscaster. Kevin was a lot of fun, enjoyed a good laugh and always liked to talk baseball.

Kevin: Bleacher bum.