In the wake of the Palo Alto side's triumph in the 1900 Big Game, a Bulletin scribe claimed the contest would be "talked about as long as the walls of Stanford stand." But that didn't happen. Posterity can be fickle. The results of that bygone football game are known by precious few. The existence of San Francisco's direst calamity is recalled by fewer still.
As a long-time resident of the City, I only know key historic moments: Gold Rush, 06 Quake, WW2, Summer of Love, Milk-Moscone asassinations--but this forgotten tale was riveting (not to mention gruesome). It proves the layered history of SF is almost endless, and not forgotten
@JamesDRobinson Sorry for my naivete, is shade a 52 book, love earth 2 , keep hearing about shade from podcast. Advertising works.
@JamesDRobinson thanks youra gem. Off to give a comic book shop a chance to sell me it and inevetibly buy several other comics I don't need.
"But there is one last detail, and it's the worst of all: The broken, burning, shrieking victims were, in large part, not men. They were children."Joe, I need help here, how many men is a child's life worth, can we trade? 2.45 men for every child? While we're at it let's make every man's vote only count for 2/3rds a person since his life is not worth the same as women or children.
@joe.eskenazi Egalitarian has a point Joe, and it's a little rude to just shrug it off and make an insult.Why is the detail of shrieking death pangs coming from children and not grown men the worst detail of all? What if it were men? Does this story even get told again? What if it were men, and they were leaving orphans at home. That's pretty sad, isn't it?
@JorgeChurano @joe.eskenazi If we have to explain it to you, you wouldn't understand. Children are innocent, and never got to see their potential realized, and left behind horrified mothers, fathers, and siblings who would be forever changed.
Great (if horrifying) story! Often the phrases 'of-the-century' or 'of-all-time' were and are bandied about by the news media and yet time and time again they are superseded by current events that push them into the shadows of the past.
An addendum I'd like to contribute:In 2003 a gentleman who is a member of "Old Blue" the hardest of the hard core Cal fans was taking my Haight Ashbury walking tour, which includes a stop and story about the Haight Grounds baseball stadium (on Waller between Stanyan and Shrader), site of the first few Big Games.My iteration included the story of Herbert Hoover and the missing football and the guy corrected me. He told me the Berkeley players were 'so drunk they could barely stand up' so they stole and hid the football, forcing Stanford to send someone on horseback downtown to buy a new one.Berkeley lost the game 14-10, which may or may not have been a result of their hung-over team.
Fortunately, that sort of thing doesn't happen in college athletics any more because we've evolved. Right?
@BackStoryRadio @sfweekly One of my very first radio stories was about this! Based off John Marr's story in the zine Murder Can Be Fun.
@romanmars @SFWeekly That's awesome! Is the link online? Looking and wondering whether gone internet illiterate for not finding...
@BackStoryRadio @SFWeekly Nah, it was before you were required by law to post everything online.
@romanmars @SFWeekly I am always happy to be reminded that there was indeed such a time and we didn't just dream it.
@burritojustice Thanks! I am speculating, but "Recreation Park" may have been the go-to term for ballparks of the era
@EskSF Very likely. Also, Rec Grounds had only closed 14 years before… Check out this, 1895 plans for Bayview baseball: http://t.co/2JNpFEXu
@burritojustice It was gone by 1905. The 1899 Sanborn insurance map refers to it as "Base Ball Grounds." Papers called it Recreation Park
@EskSF I need to do a baseball / sporting grounds summary post, if only to keep track. Too many damn (Recreation|Central)+(Grounds|Parks).
@EskSF I'm guessing it wasn't around long enough for it to really have gotten an official name. (Great article, btw, nicely done.)
@EskSF Ahh, got it: http://t.co/zaae9Uw2 (I was looking at the 1906 Sanborns, by which time it was built over!) http://t.co/NWehFF4P
That has got to be the saddest story I ever read. Those poor boys. Oh, my heart breaks.
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