MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: The day the 'Stick shook, and the story changed

Apologies for writing about anniversaries on consecutive Sundays.

Or at least, “almost anniversaries” — since neither of the two events in question happened on the exact dates on which we’re publishing these tales.

Also, I say “apologies,” since these two moments in my journalistic life don’t exactly touch on happy subjects.

Beyond that, writing about the Wichita State plane crash in 1970 did not involve me directly, except as an observer of the Shockers’ tear-stained return to football three weeks later in Arkansas.

Today’s story, well…

How different was this one?

More than any other single time in a fairly long life, I truly believed I was going to die.

Along with thousands of others, by the way — but when you suddenly and honestly think there’s every chance you’re going to lose your life…

The people around you begin to blur.

YOU MAY have guessed this already, but the date was Oct. 17, 1989.

Just a week more than 31 years ago, but it still feels like yesterday.

I was standing in the upper-level press box atop Candlestick Park in San Francisco, waiting for Game 3 of the World Series to begin in roughly 20 minutes.

The scene is still set perfectly in my mind.

I was laughing about something with Murray Chass of the New York Times (now an independent baseball blogger).

Murray felt a little jolt before I did, and started to say, “What was…”

But then, of course, in seconds we ALL knew.

What later was officially recorded as the Loma Prieta Earthquake (named after a mountain peak in Santa Cruz County, about 70 miles or so from the ballpark), gave Candlestick, and all of Northern California an almighty jolt.

Then everything seemed to rock violently (south to north, if you’re interested), and although scientists insisted the quake itself — originally designated 7.1 on the Richter scale — lasted from 15 to 45 seconds…

It seemed like forever.

BY THE time the shaking died down, I was clinging to a railing on a different row of the press area — with no idea how I got there.

I do have a vague recollection of seeing the giant scoreboard in right-center field tipping forward, then back, then forward…

I think.

At that exact second, I did not believe that Candlestick, a crappy stadium built on the cheap, would hold up.

It strikes me that perhaps I tried to pray, but in an earthquake, there is no warning, no split second to put things in perspective, and worst of all, no clue when or if the thing is going to end.

You can easily Google the quake to get many of the gruesome facts — 63 dead, 3,757 injured, about $12 billion in damage.

Mainly, though, what I can share is what it was like to be on that rooftop (me, in person, not watching on TV), along with the incredible irony of my presence there, and the daze I felt in the hours and days after the shock.

Oh, and despite it all, like most journalists right in the middle of it, I never stopped working.

Well, not for nine days, while I was assigned to cover the horrendous collapse of what locals called the Cypress Freeway, a double-deck section of I-880 that ran for a couple of miles through a poor neighborhood in West Oakland.

You’ve probably heard this before, but if the World Series weren’t just about to start — a Series that miraculously matched the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants, I am convinced that thousands would have died.

But instead of being on the Cypress in commute traffic (the quake struck at 5:04 p.m.) or jammed up in any of the other Bay Area roadways, literally millions of people were safely at home — waiting to see two hometown teams play in the World Series.

SO, IRONY…

I’ve mentioned in other columns that I grew up in the Bay Area – but I’d never really worked there, except as a visitor.

Oh, I’d seen a dozen or so games at Candlestick as a kid, but I left California to join the U.S. Air Force, was discharged eventually in Kansas and decided that I really liked the Midwest.

Plus, I was offered a job.

From the time I left, until the earthquake, I’d been in Candlestick exactly one time, attending a 49ers game on vacation to visit my sister and brother-in-law, who had season tickets.

We sat up, up, up in the south end zone (I’m not wild about heights, by the way), and sometime on that sunny afternoon, I told them…

“You know, this isn’t really where I’d want to be when “The Big One” hits.”

Hahaha!

And so, less than a decade later, I was indeed on top of that hideous stadium when a pretty good imitation of “The Big One” DID hit.

So weird…

You grow up in earthquake country, experience a few mini-shocks (once in seventh grade at St. Dunstan School, when a nun was telling us about the end of the world), and then you move away.

No more quakes.

Except one, when you’re working for the Kansas City Star and just happen to be back home to cover the World Series.

YOU’RE going to have odd experiences and strange memories when enduring a severe earthquake – especially in a roof-level media area at the top of a building you recall being constructed.

Along with accusations of kickbacks, shoddy work, sub-standard materials…

Lord, what a place that was to be.

But here’s a strange thing: When the first jolts rattled us, most of the out-of-town journalists seemed to think it was kind of fun.

Like…

“Wow, a California earthquake!”

Like going on a pretty cool roller-coaster ride.

On the other hand, ALL the local writers and broadcasters (and me, a writer ironically back in California for the Series), knew in an instant that this was no fun.

That it was catastrophic, in fact.

We’d lived there, and felt “fun” quakes.

This was a different deal, entirely.

In a few minutes after the shaking stopped, people had radios on, and were learning about horrible fires in the Marina District, the Cypress buckling and plunging the top level into the lower, the collapse of a section of the Bay Bridge.

FOUR OF us had been assigned out there by The Star, and somehow we found each other — divvying up assignments until we could hear from our bosses.

My first job (for which I was thrilled) was to get out of the stadium and interview people escaping.

Was there panic?

Were roads open?

And so on.

I made it south on I-480, courtesy of a nice couple who gave me a ride, found some old neighbors who let me use their phone to dictate a story…

Then ultimately was fetched up by my sis and her husband.

The rest I’ll leave to your imagination, except to say that during an unusually hot October week, I spent days up close as rescuers tried to save the last couple of people still breathing in the wreckage of the Cypress Freeway.

It smelled like death.

And the fried chicken that some kind strangers brought us from time to time.

It’s still in my nose.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball, once per month during the offseason.