49er Fans Do Some Serious Celebrating

Jubilant fans took to the San Francisco streets after the 49ers’ Super Bowl victory over the Miami Dolphins Sunday night, creating traffic jams, setting bonfires and smashing liquor bottles.

Police cruisers were struck by bottles, a Municipal Railway bus was stopped by a screaming mob and people uncorked champagne bottles outside taverns.

A police spokesman said there were only about a half-dozen arrests and only a few minor injuries. He said the Police Department learned a lesson from San Francisco’s Super Bowl victory three years ago and had so many officers on the street this time it was “overkill” and serious trouble was kept to a minimum.

Bonfires were started on fashionable Union Street in the city’s Cow Hollow district, but they were quickly doused by firemen.

“It was a fantastic turnout,” novelist Niven Busch said outside the Bus Stop bar on Union Street. “The city feels it is welded to the team. . . . They’re celebrating with that in mind.”

Motorists honked their horns as they became locked in traffic tieups. Some obviously drunken 49er supporters danced atop cars.

Firecrackers were thrown from the Fox Plaza high-rise on Market Street downtown. Several blocks to the east, near the Ferry Building on San Francisco Bay, police called for the horse patrols to keep people from stopping vehicles.

In the Fillmore district, fans climbed atop a Municipal Railway bus and pulled its trolley from the wires.

One man appeared outside a Mission District bar and began breaking up the sidewalk with a sledgehammer.

In the Castro District at the bottom of Twin Peaks, smoke bombs were thrown onto the streets as screaming fans charged out of the saloons. Police managed to keep traffic moving.

“Don’t do anything to embarrass the 49ers,” Policeman Steve Zimmerman told a milling crowd on Geary Boulevard.

It was a sad night in the bars of Miami, and nobody was more bitter than George Temel.

“It was Marino who screwed it up. It was his fault,” said Temel at Monty Trainer’s Bar.

Temel, 22, saw better days ahead, however.

“Marino is a young guy,” he said. “It looked like he felt the pressure. But they’re still a good team. They’ll be back.”

Some oddsmakers were too good for their own good. The over-and-under number for the Super Bowl was 54, which turned out to be just the number of points that the 49ers and Dolphins scored (38-16).

When the teams hit the over-and-under number exactly, all bets are off, according to spokespersons for two Las Vegas casinos. It’s a push, in casino parlance, and the money bet is refunded. And the casinos lose the “vigorish,” their profit margin.

However, if the over-and-under was bet on a parlay card, where ties lose, the casino wins both ways.

Bill Walsh said after the game: “We proved we’re without question the best team in football--and that’s counting the universities.”

Move over, Brigham Young.

Not everyone on the scene got caught up in the Super Bowl euphoria.

In fact, Stanford student John Schlaefer still wonders why the school had to put up with Olympic soccer games last summer.

“First the Olympics and now this,” said Schlaefer, a senior electrical engineering major from Lincoln, N.H. “It’s tacky. Harvard wouldn’t do this.”

Conversely, law student Rick Bress from Pittsburgh said: “This is preppy place. There are a lot of blond kids here with big, white teeth. This is a perfect place for the Super Bowl.”

The National Football League had a long list of items barred from Stanford Stadium, including signs, cans and umbrellas.

One carefully lettered sign survived and was posted on the gate of the fence that surrounds the stadium complex. It said simply: “Rugby Practice starts Wednesday.”

Said San Francisco assistant coach Paul Hackett, explaining Joe Montana’s success on short passes: “When Joe wasn’t able to find his primary receiver, he was able to go to his second, third and sometimes even fourth guy. That’s when our running backs come into play.

“We talked all week about completions, completions, completions. It didn’t matter who--just get the ball into somebody’s hands and give him a chance to get upfield.

“Miami doesn’t give up the big play so you take what you can get. Their inside linebackers don’t have great speed so if we gave our running backs room to accelerate, we had a chance to get some really big yardage.”

Said Sherman Lewis, coach of the 49er running backs: “We didn’t do anything different than we normally do. We take what we’re given by the defense. But we knew their linebackers play off the ball and generally bite on the play-action pass. So you can get things underneath against them. That’s where our running backs operate.

“But the key was Joe. He’s the trigger. Without him we’re a good offense. With him we’re a great offense. He knows where our backs are and when to get them the ball.”

Yes, Gypsy Boots was there. The zany 74-year-old health freak showed up with a stuffed dummy dressed like Dan Marino, propped up in a director’s chair. Gypsy also had hundreds of multicolored pins, and invited anyone who passed by to “make your point, stick it to Marino.”

Hundreds did.