By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
SAN FRANCISCO — They were the originals, the first major sports team in Northern California, created here, staying here, at times bumbling, at other times triumphant but at all times special.
The 49ers, who open another season Sunday, their 64th, are as much a regional treasure as a football team, as finally John York and son Jed figured out.
It never really mattered who owned them — the Morabitos, the DeBartolos, the Yorks. In effect, the 49ers belonged to the town, to the area, to the people.
The Giants came later. The Raiders came later. The Warriors came later. The A’s came later. The Sharks came much later. The Bay Area is chock-a-block with big-time pro franchises these days.
But from 1946 until the Giants arrived in 1958, there was just one franchise: the Niners.
Just one major pro team crossing the country in propeller planes.
Just one pro team playing the Cleveland Browns or Los Angeles Dons, and when the old All-America Football Conference merged into the NFL in 1950, the Los Angeles Rams and New York Giants.
Major League Baseball was a weekly television show. We sent Bill Russell and K.C. Jones to the NBA, but we didn’t see them in person for another five years. The 49ers were our link to the rest of America.
The sports world is different than it was 50 years ago. Now it’s all about sales and commercialization, about getting out a message, about persuading people to show up at the stadium or to watch telecasts.
So the Niners, the marketing department in particular, have leased that billboard along the Bayshore Freeway, at the entrance road to Candlestick, with huge photo of Mike Singletary with the words “I want winners.” As if that’s a unique concept.
Frankie Albert wanted winners. Jack Christiansen wanted winners. Dick Nolan wanted winners. But not until Bill Walsh became coach was the wish fulfilled and did the frustration end.
You had to be here on that Sunday in January 1982 when the Niners, the losers, at last became winners. When the silence was over. When The City blew its top.
By then the Raiders had won two championships, the A’s three championships, the Warriors an NBA title. And yet there was nothing like the day the Niners escaped their penance.
The group that labeled itself “The Faithful,” the fans who never believed it could happen, were as much dumbfounded as ecstatic. Finally, out of the wilderness.
Singletary is a football man. He’s also a Chicago man. He’s a three yards and a cloud of Walter Payton man. That’s never been San Francisco football.
The Niners, from Frankie Albert back in ’46, have thrown the ball. They did have Hugh McElhenny and Joe Perry, both of whom could run like mad. Yet the team’s fame, or infamy, was on the arms of Y.A. Tittle, John Brodie and eventually Joe Montana and Steve Young.
Get the ball to R.C. Owens, to Gene Washington, to Dwight Clark, to Jerry Rice.
Now the Niners, after six straight losing seasons, more than anything need to get wins, no matter who gets the ball.
History. It’s great, but a new generation of fans would trade it all for a place in the playoffs.
Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.
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