Candlestick Park

The Baffle That Didn't Work

Architect John Bolles designed a bowl-shaped concrete baffle into the upper tier of Candlestick Park to deflect the wind coming off San Francisco Bay. It never worked. The park opened on April 12, 1960, at Candlestick Point in the Bayview Heights area — the first modern baseball stadium, and the first built entirely of reinforced concrete. The concrete held. The wind held too.

Home runs were scarce in the park's first season — the Giants themselves cleared its fences just 46 times — and the club moved the fences in for 1961. Willie Mays spent 12 years there, from 1960 to 1971, and claimed the wind cost him 100 home runs. The numbers are more stubborn than the claim: he hit 202 at Candlestick and 194 on the road. The wind took some and gave others back, and neither side could settle the argument.

During a Mets batting practice, a gust lifted the batting cage and dropped it 60 feet away, onto the pitcher's mound. Fans called the place "North Pole," "Cave of the Winds," and "Windlestick."

Enclosing the Wind

After the 1970 season, the park was enclosed with outfield grandstands to make room for the 49ers, who arrived in 1971. AstroTurf went down the same year and stayed through 1978, when natural grass was restored. The hope behind the enclosure was that the new stands would break the wind. Instead it swirled from all directions and remained as strong and as cold as before. The building grew, and the problem grew with it.

The park hosted the All-Star Game in 1961 and again in 1984. The Giants played their final game there on September 30, 1999, against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The sky was clear and the temperature was 82 degrees.

Reporting: Wikipedia, Structurae. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.