2007.1.304
(20.95 cm HIGH x 27.94 cm WIDE)
Frank RobinsonFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Robinson (5/30/2007) Frank Robinson (born August 31, 1935 in Beaumont, Texas), is a Hall of Fame former Major League Baseball player. He was an outfielder, most notably with the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles. During a 21-season career, he became the first player to win League MVP honors in both the National and American Leagues, won the Triple crown, was a member of two teams that won the World Series (the 1966 and 1970 Baltimore Orioles), and amassed the fourth-most career home runs at the time of his retirement (he is currently sixth).During the last two years of his playing career, he served as the first permanent African-American manager in Major League history, managing the Cleveland Indians to a 186-189 record. He went on to manage the San Francisco Giants, the Baltimore Orioles, the Montreal Expos and the Washington Nationals. Monster ParkFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (6/8/2007) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlestick_parkMonster Park (colloquially Candlestick, after its original name of Candlestick Park, and sometimes just simply The Stick) is an outdoor sports and entertainment stadium located in San Francisco, California. It is the present home field of the San Francisco 49ers NFL team, who moved over from Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park before the 1971 season.The stadium is situated at Candlestick Point on the western shore of the San Francisco Bay. Due to its location next to a hill, strong winds often swirl down into the stadium, creating interesting playing conditions. At the time of its construction in the late 1950s, the stadium site was the cheapest plot of land available in the city which was suitable for a sports stadium. Legend also has it that city officials and stadium designers made visits to the site during the morning when the breezes are usually calm, but not during the late afternoon and evening when the winds frequently pick up quite dramatically, even on clear sunny days.The surface of the field is natural bluegrass, but for nine seasons the stadium had artificial turf, from 1970 to 1978. The "sliding pit" configuration, with dirt cut-outs only around the bases, was installed in 1971, primarily to keep the dust down from the breezy conditions. Riverfront Stadium had introduced the sliding pit layout in June 1970. Following the 1978 football season, the decrepit artificial turf was mercifully removed. Natural grass was re-installed before the 1979 baseball season. Monster Park's East FacadeGround was broken in 1958 as the new home of the National League's San Francisco Giants, who were moving west from New York. The Giants officially chose the name of Candlestick Park after a name-the-park contest on March 3, 1959. Prior to that, its construction site had been shown on maps as the generic Bay View Stadium. Richard Nixon threw out the first ever baseball on the opening day of Candlestick Park on April 12, 1960. The Oakland Raiders played their 1961 American Football League season at the stadium. In 1971, the NFL's San Francisco 49ers became tenants as well.The Beatles performed their last live commercial concert at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966.The stadium was enclosed during the winter of 1971_1972 for the 49ers, with stands built around the outfield. The result was that the wind speed dropped marginally, but often swirled around throughout the stadium, and the view of the Bay was lost. Candlestick Park has the distinction of being the sole remaining NFL stadium that started life as a baseball-only facility that underwent extensive reconstruction in order to add a football field. This accounts for the stadium's odd oblong design that leaves many seats on what was the right-field side of the stadium behind the eastern grandstand of the stadium during football games. Other baseball parks that had been converted to house football include Angel Stadium of Anaheim and Mile High Stadium. Bob LurieFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (6/8/2007) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_lurieRobert Alfred Lurie (born 1929) is a real estate magnate and former owner of the San Francisco Giants franchise of Major League Baseball from March 2, 1976 until January 12, 1993.In 1976, Lurie led a group to buy the Giants from Horace Stoneham for $8 million, thereby saving the team from potentially being sold to a Canadian brewery and moved to Toronto. Although Toronto was awarded with its own expansion team, the Blue Jays in 1977, it would not be the last time that San Francisco's baseball fans would fear the possibility of losing its team.The 1970s was a generally disappointing decade for the Giants and the trend continued throughout Lurieﾐs ownership. In 1985, a year which saw the Giants lose 100 games (the most in franchise history), Lurie responded by hiring Al Rosen as general manager. Under Rosen's tenure, the Giants promoted promising rookies such as Will Clark and Robby Thompson, and made canny trades to acquire such players as Kevin Mitchell, Dave Dravecky, Candy Maldonado, and Rick Reuschel.Meanwhile, in both 1987 and 1989, San Francisco voters rejected two stadium referenda to replace the notoriously unaccomodating Candlestick Park as the home of the Giants, despite the franchise's offer to pick up most of the tab for a new downtown park. Worst still, a plan to improve the existing stadium failed by an even wider margin. Frustrated, Lurie looked south toward Silicon Valley only to see San Jose and Santa Clara voters reject three more proposals to build a Giants ballpark.Finally, in October of 1992, Lurie announced that he would sell the Giants, claiming that he could no longer sustain the financial losses (averaging about $2-7 million annually) that had accumulated over the last few years. During his announcement, Lurie appeared visibly emotional, his voice breaking as he explained his hopes for turning the business side around when he bought the team in 1976. Nonetheless, losing teams and poor weather conditions at Candlestick Park kept many fans away, and at the time of Lurie's announcement, the team had finished with a 66-96 record--the worst in the majors and the poorest in its 27 seasons in California.Originally, Lurie had agreed to sell the Giants for $115 million to an ownership group headed by Vincent Piazza (father of baseball player Mike Piazza) with plans to move the club to St. Petersburg, Florida. However, the National League nixed the deal, pressuring Lurie to sell the club to Bay Area investors. In an 11th hour effort to save the team from moving, a group of local investors headed by ex-Safeway magnate, Peter Magowan, offered Lurie $100 million for the Giants.
Used: Oakland Tribune
