Candlestick Park is a professional sports stadium and currently hosts the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League. The park opened on April 12, 1960 when the Major League Baseball San Francisco Giants played host to the St Louis Cardinals. The stadium has hosted 3 professional sports franchises in it's tenure, including the 49ers, Giants, and now crosstown neighbors the Oakland Raidershttp://football.ballparks.com/NFL/SanFrancisco49ers/index.htm.

Originally the park would only seat 42,269 people, however over the years there have been several major renovations which have increased not only seating capacity but also earthquake readiness. The park undergoes annual renovations every spring, with the latest renovation phase planning to increase capacity to 71,000http://football.ballparks.com/NFL/SanFrancisco49ers/index.htm.

The park at night is considered to be the best-lighted stadium in the United States. It is lit by nine 140 to 240 foot towers, which provide more than 350 foot-candles of light on the field surface. In 1994 a new Sony video display board was installed as wellhttp://football.ballparks.com/NFL/SanFrancisco49ers/index.htm.

Tailgating is especially prevalent at Candlestick Park. Surrounded by several large parking lots and upwards of 8,000 parking spots, the 49er Fans show up several hours before game time and are widely known for a very unique take on tailgating. It is not uncommon to find Lobster, Crab, Clam Chowder, and many other local delicacies being served along side San Francisco sour dough bread and fine wineshttp://www.parks.sfgov.org/site/recpark_index.asp?id=18977.

In 1989, Candlestick became entrenched in the memories of Giants and A's fans everywhere. On October 17th at 5:04 California time, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake shook the whole of the Bay Area. Collapsing freeways and causing structural damages throughout the entire area. The double-decker Bay Bridge had the side of one section fall completely down onto the section below, making it impossible to crosshttp://earthquakes.suite101.com/article.cfm/1989_san_francisco_earthquake.

When the quake hit there were thousands of people in the stands at Candlestick park for a baseball game. However this was no ordinary baseball game, it was game 3 of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. Players were warming up on the field and coaches were being interviewed. ABC was in the middle of broadcasting highlights of previous games when the quake hit, and the transmission was interrupted immediately. Players on the field described seeing the stands rolling like a giant wave, and the lighting fixtures rocked back and forth 15-20 feet for several minutes. Nobody at the park was hurt, and because the game had yet to start and only half the crowd had actually entered the park, there was very little strain on the structure and damage was minimal. For the first time in baseball history a World Series game had to be postponed due to a natural disasterhttp://espn.go.com/sportsnation/post/_/id/4533997/world-series-earthquake-memories.