RetroSimba

(Updated April 5, 2018)

The lineup of luminaries who participated in the first event held at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park included Stan Musial, Willie Mays and Richard Nixon. The story of the day, though, wasn’t created by ballplayers or politicians. Instead, the wind, sweeping across San Francisco Bay and swirling throughout the $15 million stadium, produced the most attention.

Candlestick Park was dedicated on April 12, 1960, when the Cardinals played the Giants in the National League season opener for both clubs. Video

After two years at Seals Stadium in San Francisco’s Mission District, the Giants played at Candlestick Park from 1960 through 1999 before moving into a ballpark in the China Basin section of San Francisco in 2000.

Tricky winds and Tricky Dick

Vice President Nixon took part in the Candlestick Park dedication ceremonies before the start of the Cardinals-Giants game and called the facility “the finest baseball park in America,” the Associated Press reported. “It is truly a magnificent stadium,” Nixon said.

The sun shined brightly that Tuesday afternoon, but those among the 42,269 seated in the shade, especially in the lower level underneath the overhang of the upper deck, were chilled blue by the wind which relentlessly rolled in from left field.

Ray Haywood of the Oakland Tribune wrote, “Although Candlestick Park undoubtedly is the Taj Mahal of baseball _ a beautiful, commodious creation in steel and concrete _ it might not be a fit place either for shirtsleeves or right-handed hitters aiming for the left field fence. A spring wind, eager and brisk from the north, put the air brakes on everything hit toward left and boosted balls hit to right.”

Wrote Art Rosenbaum in The Sporting News: “It was like a Sierra winter day, warm in the sunshine but freezing under the trees. The coffee sales at Candlestick more than doubled the pre-game estimate of concessions experts.”

Musial, playing first base for the Cardinals, told the Oakland Tribune, “This wind will force teams to change their style of play. Right-handed power will be neutralized and clubs will have to go more for running and stealing bases.”

Future and former Cardinals

Bill White, the Cardinals’ center fielder, got the first hit in Candlestick Park, a two-out single in the first inning off Sam Jones. A year earlier, White and Jones were traded for one another.

Orlando Cepeda of the Giants hit a two-run triple in the bottom of the first off Larry Jackson, giving San Francisco a 2-0 lead. Cepeda’s sinking line drive darted wickedly in the wind and eluded White about 15 feet from the center field fence. “I should have had it, wind or not,” White said.

In the third, Cepeda increased the San Francisco lead to 3-0 with a single, scoring Mays from third.

Leon Wagner, traded by the Giants to the Cardinals four months earlier, hit the first Candlestick Park home run on a curve from Jones in the fifth. In the book “The Original San Francisco Giants,” Wagner recalled, “He threw me one of his long, hooking curveballs, the ones that broke about eight feet, and I just waited on it and hit it into the bay … I had the breeze blowing with me at Candlestick. I just had to get it up in the wind.”

Jones threw 121 pitches and finished with a three-hitter (the Wagner homer and two singles by White) in the Giants’ 3-1 victory. Boxscore

It was Jones’ fifth consecutive win against St. Louis since his trade to the Giants.

“I was more impressed with Jones than the wind,” Cardinals manager Solly Hemus said. “Sam was as good out there today as I’ve ever seen him.”

Musial went hitless in three at-bats. Mays and Willie McCovey each was 1-for-3 (each hit a double) with a walk apiece.

White works wonders in wind

One more wind story from that game:

In the eighth, with McCovey on first and no outs, Cepeda crushed a pitch into center field. White, still burning from failing to catch the Cepeda rocket in the first, raced after the ball as the wind pushed it away from him. White tracked it, grabbed it, crashed into the fence, 420 feet from home plate, and rolled on the ground without dropping the ball.

“That ball was my best shot,” Cepeda said. “I just can’t hit it any better.”

Said Wagner, who watched from left field: “If it hadn’t been for the wind, it would have gone 700 feet.”