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This Day In Sports…April 11, 2000, 25 years ago today:
The San Francisco Giants, after 40 years in the wind tunnel known as Candlestick Park, open their sparkling new downtown stadium with a 6-5 loss to the rival Los Angeles Dodgers. But that hardly put a damper on Pacific Bell Park (now Oracle Park), as fans flocked to the new venue that gave them breathtaking views of the Bay Bridge and the Oakland-Berkeley Hills beyond the bay. The new location was slightly warmer and a lot less breezy and foggy than the Giants’ old home. Pac Bell was a tough ticket until COVID hit, but attendance is on the rebound.
How far had the franchise’s outlook evolved in eight years? It was in 1992 that the Giants nearly moved to St. Petersburg, FL. But Peter McGowan, who would become the club’s owner, rallied Bay Area business leaders to help keep the team in San Francisco. It was McGowan’s goal to get a new ballpark built, and he did it without dipping into the public trough. To get it done, the Giants underwent an aggressive marketing campaign that resulted in 29,500 season ticket holders—the organization had never sold as many as 13,500 season tickets previously.
Oracle Park’s “bio” at MLB.com describes it as a “classic urban ballpark with an old-time feel and all the amenities of modern ballparks. Inspired by Wrigley Field and Fenway Park and modeled after Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Jacobs Field and Coors Field.” Ten years after its debut, it saw the Giants win their first World Series since moving to San Francisco from New York. The 2010 championship was followed by two more titles in 2012 and 2014.
The inlet behind the ballpark, beyond the rightfield wall, was named “McCovey Cove” after the Hall of Fame Giants slugger with the sweeping lefthanded swing. McCovey Cove immediately attracted an array of watercraft, particularly kayaks, waiting for a home run to clear the park and plop into the bay. It doesn’t happen often. They’re known as “Splash Hits,” and Barry Bonds hit the first one on May 1, 2000. Bonds has, by far, the most Splash Hits with 35.
There’s nothing like a walk-off Splash Hit, and Mike Yastrzemski belted one in the 10th inning on Wednesday to give the Giants an 8-6 win over the Cincinnati Reds. It was the 167th Splash Hit in Oracle Park’s quarter-century. And how about this: There have been just five walk-off Splash Hits in the ballpark’s history and Yastrzemski has three of them.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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