20 Years Ago: The ’89 quake
Today is the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. For most persons who don’t (or didn’t) live in the bay area (or south in Santa Cruz), its known as the earthquake that stopped the world series. If you were not in the aforementioned areas, if you were watching the game at 5:04pm PST on ABC with Al Michaels, this is what you saw:
After moving to SF, its been interesting to ask the ‘locals’ what they were doing when the quake happened. My memory is turning on the TV, expecting to see the first inning but (having missed the opening of the telecast and the actual quake) instead the first images I saw were the players on the field, trying to find their families.
This photo gallery from the SF Chronicle has a lot of damage photos, but also of the baseball players in Candlestick park — check out Jose Canseco’s wife’s outfit. My favorite is this one of Joe DiMaggio, not at the game but waiting with the rest of the families from the Marina District who could not return to their homes for a number of days.
I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the baseball playoff broadcasts lately, but hopefully they touch on this significant event in memory. Its odd that how, for me, this event has shifted from a strictly baseball memory to more personal. Tonight I’m heading to dinner with family that are in town in the same area that DiMaggio’s picture was taken.
NOTE: Notice the terrible call at second on the video?