The Naming of a Stadium

On this date in 1959, baseball’s San Francisco Giant’s renamed their baseball field “Candlestick Park.” Candlestick Park derived its name from nineteenth century locals who thought the burning of nearby abandoned ships and their flaming masts in the bay resembled lighted candlesticks at night. Situated on Candlestick Point on the western shore of the San Francisco Bay, the stadium site was the cheapest plot of land available in the city that was suitable for a sports stadium.

Before the state-of-the art stadium was built, the site was a 170 acre landfill the Navy had plans for at the close of WWII. It was abandoned by the Navy after the war, abandoned by the Giants for the new AT&T Field, and will soon be abandoned by the NFL 49’ers in 2012. The location being abandoned is one of the most scenic and beautiful in all the country. It attracts families for picnic, strolls on the beach, days in the sand and wind surfing. What the site cannot attract is corporate dollars, corporate sponsors and the big money teams desire in order to compete.

There is a lesson in this for all of us: San Francisco has lost its Candlestick due to the desire for the state-of-the-art stadium, the money for corporate sponsors, the luxury boxes the elites require and the need to literally “keep up with the Joneses” (the ones down in Dallas with the Cowboys). What was once a place of beauty, family fun and community reclamation is now an enterprise for corporate greed and big money. The stadium no longer serves the people—the people serve the stadium and its owners.

In the book of Revelation Jesus warned us to watch out for greed and the selling out of the church to big money and corporate greed. Speaking to the church he said, “You say, ‘I am rich—I have acquired wealth and am in need of nothing’, but you do not recognize that you are wretched, poor, pitiful, blind and naked.” (Revelation 3: 17) The temptation for stadiums and churches is to bask in the brilliance of big, new, shiny state-of-the-art facilities and never realize something significant might have been lost to get us there. Jesus’ counsel to churches was this, “Remember your first love and the height from which you’ve fallen; change direction and get back to the things you did at first.”(Revelation 2: 5).

What have we lost in our pursuit of big money? And what’s at stake if we lose our first love? Simply put, Jesus says, “If you do not change I will come and take your candlestick away!”(Revelation 2:5)

In 1967 , the White Sox were first given permission to use a semi-DH in training camp with home club permission (use of pinch hitter twice in same game). This was the beginning of what some religious folks call, “The slippery slope” and what others might call a “Progressive improvement.” The answer lies in the eyes of the beholder.