The Santa Clara 49ers? Boo!

By Os Davis  |   Friday, June 22, 2007  |  Comments( 40 )

San Francisco 49ers
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I don't know about y'all in California, but I smell a curse coming on...

In the peak of summer, left to our own vices and with little news outside the police blotter, football fans' minds fill with speculation about the future. Thanks to the dead space between minicamps and training camps, Patricia Mahan may have been the key player in 49erland this week.

Mahan is the mayor of Santa Clara, Calif., the would-be new home to the San Francisco 49ers. Her Honor got more headlines than any lady politico outside of Mrs. Soprano this week simply by hosting a couple of NFL executives in her town on Tuesday.

To drive her point regarding the feasibility of relocating the 49ers but still keeping the fan base (no doubt seeking to allay memories of Al Davis' half-baked move to L.A. in the '80s), Mayor Mahan actually walked the interested parties from team headquarters/practice facility to a proposed site adjacent to the Great America theme park, showing that infrastructural changes in this regard need not be made.

On their part, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and related interests touted Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a site on the bay which is currently propped up as a federal "Superfund" site and has, um, certain issues with toxic pollution. (Yeesh.) This can be cleared up by 2012, assured Newsom.

Most press accounts have Santa Clara as a favorite (the oft-quoted quote from one of the NFL officials proclaimed the site "beautiful") to replace dilapidated Monster Park (a.k.a. 3Com Park, a.k.a. Candlestick Park) as home.

Of course, before anything is finalized, environmental impact studies must be undertaken and some $160 million must be found from the NFL and/or the generous taxpayers of Santa Clara to break ground on the $854 million stadium. Surely, this is never a problem; the 49ers are destined to move. (Isn't it nice to move in the realm of the multi-billionaire?)

Niners fan should be concerned.

History says that Candlestick Park and San Francisco proper have been home to one of the two or three most successful football franchises of the modern NFL. And 2007 could very well see both Barry Bonds' 756th career home run and a return to greatness for the footballers. Is this the way to close up shop?

But superstition and its dreaded descendant - a curse - is surely raising its slimy head.

Imagine Bonds' round-tripper greeted by boos. Imagine the 49ers making consecutive Super Bowl appearances, led by league MVP Frank Gore. Imagine Alex Smith joining Joe Montana and Steve Young.

And then imagine that shot of the wrecking ball tearing down Candlestick Park, where Ronnie Lott and Jerry Rice once roamed.

Old fuddy-duddy, curmudgeonly, mindful-of-history buggers like myself say that sports curses are karmic payback for forgetting history. The Niners will be playing the 2012 season somewhere else; this much is certain. I, for one, will be rooting against those new-fangled Niners in full grumpy old man throat.

The Santa Clara 49ers? Come on...

RealFootball365.com: Where we contemplate moving the franchise to Las Vegas all year 'round...Make sure to checkout our new "News & Fantasy" section on the upper right-hand side of the homepage.
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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