Everything was ready. October 17, 1989. Game 3. Candlestick Park was vibrating, but not from the fans.
At 5:04 PM, right as Al Michaels and Tim McCarver were prepping the ABC broadcast, the earth actually moved. It wasn't just a tremor. It was the Loma Prieta earthquake. 6.9 magnitude. It’s funny how memory works because most people remember the screen flickering to static, but the reality for the 62,000 people inside the stadium was a deep, guttural roar that sounded like a jet engine was parked in the dugout.
When the World Series Earthquake Paralyzed Baseball
The "Bay Bridge Series" was already a massive deal. You had the Oakland Athletics against the San Francisco Giants. A cross-town rivalry. Pure adrenaline. Then the ground snapped. The Cypress Street Viaduct collapsed. A section of the Bay Bridge fell. People died. In the middle of all that, a baseball game suddenly felt incredibly stupid, yet that very game is likely why the death toll wasn't in the thousands.
Traffic. That’s the secret.
Normally, at 5:04 PM on a Tuesday, the I-880 would have been packed with commuters. Because of the World Series earthquake, thousands of people had left work early to get to a TV or were already sitting in Candlestick. The stadium, built on bedrock, held up surprisingly well, though some light standards swayed like toothpicks. If that game hadn't been happening, the mortality rate from the structural failures in Oakland and San Francisco would have been exponentially higher. It’s a grim irony that a sporting event served as a shield for the city’s population.
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The Myth of the "Candlestick Save"
You’ll hear some folks say the stadium was "undamaged." That’s not quite right.
Engineers later found significant cracking in the concrete. Pieces of the upper deck actually fell. Fay Vincent, the Commissioner at the time, had only been on the job for about a month. Talk about a trial by fire. He had to decide—do we play? Do we cancel?
The Goodyear Blimp, which was supposed to be capturing overhead shots of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, suddenly became the only aerial eye for emergency services. It pivoted from sports broadcasting to disaster relief in seconds. That's a level of "pivoting" you don't see in modern corporate slide decks. It was life and death.
Ten Days of Silence and a Strange Restart
The series didn't resume for ten days. Ten. In the modern era of 24/7 news cycles and "the show must go on" mentality, it’s hard to imagine a championship just... stopping. But the Bay Area was broken. Power was out. Gas lines were leaking. The death toll eventually hit 63.
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When they finally decided to play Game 3 on October 27, the vibe was weird. Kinda somber, kinda defiant.
The A’s ended up sweeping the Giants. They won 13-7 in that delayed Game 3. But honestly? Nobody in San Francisco really cared about the score. The World Series earthquake had shifted the focus from batting averages to seismic retrofitting. The "Bash Brothers" era in Oakland is legendary, sure, but that 1989 ring is forever attached to the smell of smoke and the sight of fractured asphalt.
Why Loma Prieta Changed Sports Broadcasting Forever
Before 1989, sports were an island. You went to the game to escape the world. When the Loma Prieta quake hit, the island sank.
- Live feeds became news feeds. Al Michaels earned an Emmy nomination for his news reporting that night, not his sports commentary.
- Safety protocols were rewritten. Every major stadium built after 1989—from Oracle Park to Chase Center—exists under the shadow of what happened at Candlestick.
- The "Event" mindset shifted. We realized that gathering 60,000 people in one spot creates a massive logistical liability during a natural disaster.
What We Often Forget About the Aftermath
We focus on the stadium, but the Marina District was a nightmare. Soil liquefaction turned the ground into quicksand. Houses literally sank. People were trapped in their basements while the World Series trophy sat in a box somewhere.
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There's a famous story about a guy who was trapped in the rubble of the I-880 for days. His name was Buck Helm. He became a symbol of Bay Area resilience. While the A's were celebrating their sweep, the real "win" was just pulling people out of the concrete. It puts a 95-mph fastball in perspective.
The 1989 World Series earthquake remains the only time a major championship in the U.S. was interrupted by a massive natural disaster in real-time on national television. It wasn't like a hurricane where you see it coming on the radar for a week. It was there. One second, McCarver is talking about lineups; the next, the audio cuts and the world breaks.
The A's Dominance vs. The Disaster
People forget how good that Oakland team was. Rickey Henderson. Dave Stewart. Dennis Eckersley. They were a juggernaut. They outscored the Giants 32-14 across the four games. But the "earthquake" tag has almost diminished their athletic achievement. Ask a casual fan who won in '89, and they might struggle. Ask them what happened during the game, and they'll say, "The earthquake."
It’s a strange legacy. To be the best team in baseball and have your crowning moment synonymous with a tragedy.
Actionable Insights for History and Sports Buffs
If you're looking into this era or visiting these sites, here is how to actually engage with this history:
- Visit the Loma Prieta Epicenter: It's in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park near Santa Cruz. It’s a haunting, quiet hike that looks nothing like a baseball diamond.
- Watch the "30 for 30" Documentary: The Day the Series Stopped is the definitive deep dive. It uses raw footage that wasn't aired at the time.
- Check the USGS Real-Time Maps: If you live in a seismic zone, use the lessons of 1989. The "Big One" isn't a myth. The Bay Area is still sitting on the Hayward and San Andreas faults.
- Understand Liquefaction: If you're buying property in San Francisco or Oakland, look at the soil maps. The areas that suffered most in the World Series earthquake were built on "fill" land. History repeats itself where the ground is soft.
The 1989 series wasn't just a sweep. It was a reminder that we play our games on a very thin, very fragile crust. The Giants and A's haven't met in the World Series since. Maybe the earth just couldn't handle that much local tension twice.