October 17, 1989. The third game of the A’s vs Giants World Series. Amaury Pi-González and Evelio Areas Mendoza, at Candlestick Park, San Francisco minutes before the 6.9 Loma Prieta Earthquake shook the Bay Area and postponed it for 10 days. KNTA 1430AM Radio, Santa Clara.  (Photo APG Sports)

Memories of Oakland – The Athletics Last World Series Title

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi-González

Some things in life are truly unpredictable, like an earthquake during a World Series. And that was the story in 1989. The first and only time in history.

That year the Oakland A’s won 99 games and their division by seven games over the Kansas City Royals. The San Francisco Giants also won their division with 92 wins by three games over the San Diego Padres. In October they both had a date for the 1989 World Series.

Game One: October 14 at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Dave Stewart threw a gem as he pitched a complete game blanking the Giants on 5 hits as the A’s won 5-0 in front of 49,385 fans. In 1989 Stew ended with a 21-9 record, a 3.32 ERA during his penultimate season of 4 years in a row of 20-plus wins.

Game 2 is back at the Coliseum. A’s won 5 to 1 and took a two games lead. Mike Moore “took his time” and dominated the Giants lineup for seven innings and the bullpen did its usual job the rest of the way. That year Moore ended with 19-11 and a 2.62 earned run average pitching 241 2/3 innings

Game Three: October 17 it was a very warm day with temperatures between 80 and 90 degrees around the Bay Area. A temperature of 81 was registered in downtown San Francisco, hours before the first pitch of the game, a very muggy day. What people call here in California “Earthquake Weather”. I left earlier than usual from Fremont, to Candlestick Park, about a 40 mile drive. Since it was the World Series between the two bay area teams, I knew there was going to be traffic and there was. An hour plus drive time.

As I arrived at Candlestick, I first went to check the A’s Spanish broadcast booth. It was an auxiliary booth just a few feet away under the roof of the stadium. My broadcast partner was Evelio Areas Mendoza, who lived near San Francisco. Our engineer Erwin Higueros was working our broadcast.

After checking our booth, I went down to the field to conduct “The Tony LaRussa Show”, a short three minute pregame show and then returned to my booth. In 1989 we needed broadcast lines, and a couple of telephones in case we went off the air, which little I knew at that time, were going to be the case a few minutes after 5 PM.

The hectic moment was about to happen. Our pregame show was usually 15 minutes, but because these were World Series games, we got 30 minutes of pregame air time. The General Manager at KNTA 1430AM in Santa Clara was Gene Hogan, one of the real good guys running radio stations those years, he loved sports. We played the Tony La Russa pregame segment, which this time was a little longer than the usual three minutes on regular season games.

I remember Evelio Medoza and yours truly were talking about the difference between A’s and Giants fans and other topics, like the history of both teams since their arrival in the Bay Area, and regular baseball stuff. At that same time, when we were on the air that little auxiliary booth shook like somebody had pushed us up to the roof, I honestly thought I was “buying the farm” we kept talking but we have lost the broadcast lines.

We were lucky the telephone line was still “alive” so we chatted for a few minutes and sent it back to the studios via the telephone. I was surprised the radio station never went off the air, although some others in the bay area did lose their signal.

The earthquake happened at 5:04 PM take or give a minute or so, and before the game was scheduled to start at 5:35 our time, 8:35 PM east coast time. Later as I went down to the regular press box, I watched KPIX CH 5 on a monitor as Ana Chávez, Anchor, was showing a video of the Bay Bridge, the tremors caused a portion of the Bay Bridge to collapse onto the lower deck, also ragging fires of various homes in the Marina District in San Francisco. It was a 6.9 Earthquake, called Loma Prieta Earthquake, and also acquired the name The World Series Earthquake.

A couple of hours later when it was quiet, I drove out of Candlestick Park parking lot, but the Bay Bridge was closed as well as other bridges and I had to drive all the way down south on Hwy 101, around the bay. I was taking Erwin back to his place in Oakland and later Evelio in San Francisco.

At a service station maybe a quarter mile from Candlestick Park, José Canseco wearing his A’s uniform at a gas station filling gasoline in his car. I also stopped to check on my mom. She was fine, however scared and shaken like many others. However there were others in the Bay Area were not that lucky.

That was one of the longest days of my life. I got home before midnight. The Fall Classic was postponed for 10 days, they played again on October 27, and the Athletics won the last two games and took the trophy via sweep. A’s #1 pitcher Dave Stewart won the MVP.

Because the game was at 5:00 PM, it has been attributed to saving lots of lives. Everybody was either home, watching the game, or left earlier to get to “The Stick” on time, for the game.

I recommend “Goodbye Oakland” a great book by Andy Dolich and Dave Newhouse. A fascinating tour of Oakland sports history and a look toward the future of professional sports in the East Bay. Oakland is a sports city like no other.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the lead play by play voice for the Oakland A’s Spanish radio network on 1010 KIQI San Francisco and 990 KATD Pittsburgh and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com