Candlestick Memories

I subscribe to ESPN magazine and a buddy renewed my USA Today Sports Weekly, but because of my work schedule I am not always able to read the issue when it arrives. Sometimes I get to it many, many moons later.

I just got to the January 4, 2007 issue of USA Today Sports Weekly and there was a section of Deaths-2006 passages.

Jack Snow, Curt Gowdy, Kirby Puckett... I remembered. But Steve Howe, the troubled lefty who came up from the Dodger organization and Johnny Callison, the former Philadelphia Phillie, I missed. He played for 16 seasons and was responsible for ending the 1964 All-Star game with a home run.

A Candlestick memory of mine concerned #6 of the Philiadelphia Phillies, Johnny Callison.
In my first game ever at Candlestick Park, sitting in the upper deck between home and third I saw Callison, as a Phillie, hit one off the top of the left centerfield fence and run for a triple. Back then the fence had a yellow line on the top of it and there were bleachers in right field..The stadium would not be enclosed for several years.

As a youngster there was always this emphasis to root for the home team, but occasionally someone on the other team would do something remarkable and you just had to accept the fact that not all of the good players were on the "home" team.