SAN DIEGO HOST SUPER BOWL XXII : Super Bowl Verdict: San Diego a Winner : City Scores High With Visitors as Game Host

Super Bowl XXII, San Diego’s contribution to the annual midwinter celebration of American exuberance, was judged a success Sunday, with the hosts proving as friendly and accommodating as the Denver Bronco defense.

The newly expanded and refurbished San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium was stuffed with a record 73,302 fans--ranging from civic and Fortune 500 swells snug in their luxurious skyboxes to youthful football devotees in war paint and orange cowboy hats happily cheering in the bleachers.

The game that took four years to arrange quickly turned into a first-half rout, as the Washington Redskins thumped the Broncos, 42-10.

For those involved with bringing San Diego its first Super Bowl, the day held a significance larger than the final score of the game. Was San Diego doing well enough to get into the “loop” of Super Bowl host cities along with Miami, New Orleans and Pasadena?

In the moments after the game was over and the TV lights dimmed, the initial answer was yes.

“San Diego showed the sporting community, both nationally and internationally, that it can put on a first-class show,” said Mayor Maureen O’Connor. “The pregame planning, the presentation at the game, and the hospitality of the people were all tops.”

Steve Leighton, a researcher for CIC Research, a San Diego think tank hired by the San Diego Task Force, said his preliminary data suggests that Super Bowl XXII may have boosted San Diego into the big time. The task force was the official host for the weeklong bash.

Visitors Rate the City

Leighton was assigned to prowl the stadium and its environs to see how San Diego measured up to the previous XXI bowls.

“I personally talked to about 100 people, and those who have been to two or more Super Bowls are ranking San Diego as equal to or better than New Orleans, which had been the most popular site so far,” Leighton said.

“People have been rating San Diego high on hospitality and climate,” he said. “The only complaint about San Diego is that its night life doesn’t compare to the French Quarter.”

Unlike the hapless Broncos, the San Diego Police Department was pleased with its pregame preparations.

“I am very, very happy and pleased,” said Police Cmdr. Jim Kennedy, in charge of security at the game. “Things went very well. I’m very proud of my officers and the city overall. I think we’re going to be able to get the Super Bowl back, hopefully in 1992 (the next available game).”

A feared massive traffic jam leading to the Mission Valley sports emporium did not materialize. There were no major incidents, although police made 61 arrests for grand theft, marijuana, gambling, scalping, and pickpocketing, among other offenses.

“We’ve had almost that many for a normal Chargers game,” said police spokesman Rick Carlson. “It was a relatively peaceful deal.”

Five persons were ejected from the game for drinking or fighting. About $28,000 in illicit scalping money was impounded.

There were only half a dozen injuries reported all day. One of the most serious occurred on the opening kickoff, when Washington’s Ricky Sanders was forced out of bounds and crashed into a referee and a crowd of photographers.

Associated Press photographer Susan Ragan was taken from the field with a broken leg. Times photographer Don Bartletti suffered a cut on his head but remained on the job. In order to get credentials from the NFL, all photographers had been required to sign a waiver holding the NFL harmless for any injuries.

Airport Set for Crush

As soon as the game ended, Lindbergh Field braced for the busiest 24-hour period in its history. An estimated 80,000 people were expected to depart San Diego in private planes, commercial jets and charters--compared to 30,000 on a non-super day.

At the stadium, a possible confrontation between ticket scalpers and buyers shortly before kickoff was avoided when officers on horseback ordered the crowd to disperse.

“Eat it, eat it, eat it,” a group of frustrated ticket buyers had yelled at the scalpers, telling them to take a loss on the tickets rather than demand prices far above the $100 face value.

The police presence in and around the stadium was unprecedented for a San Diego sporting event: 100 plainclothes officers, 100 traffic officers, and 230 reservist and regular uniformed officers. They were assisted by 35 California Highway Patrol officers, and officers from Chula Vista, Escondido and La Mesa.

Police worked with strips of black tape over their badges in tribute to San Diego officer Jerry Hartless, who died Sunday morning after being shot three weeks ago while chasing a possible drug suspect.

As the crowd streamed toward the turnstiles, the pickpocket detail was particularly busy. Police reported pinching both local and out-of-town pickpockets, including a trio of experienced New York City pickpockets, who had “earned” their air fare in the Big Apple by reaching into other people’s pockets.

The three were arrested while executing the traditional “bump and pick” on an elderly couple.

The Mission Valley sky was filled with blimps and banner-towing planes and helicopters that either carried police officers or shuttled fans to the game. The banners carried religious messages and advertisements for soft drinks, computers and a new movie starring Carl Weathers.

One banner told the world, “San Diegans Say No to Fay,” a reference to New Zealander Michael Fay and his attempt to pirate the America’s Cup away from San Diego.

Parking Lot Party Time

The parking lot din was a mix of aircraft motors, Redskin and Bronco chants, and music blaring from more than 20 corporate hospitality tents--known appropriately as chalets.

One of the biggest parking lot parties was a tent sponsored by the National Football League and the MTV cable television channel, where rock ‘n’ roller Chuck Berry entertained an estimated 3,000 guests, including comedian Joe Piscopo and actor Charlie Sheen.

At 2:25 p.m., an hour before kickoff, a man called a television station and warned that he had placed a bomb in the stadium, then abruptly hung up. The police ordnance detail, which had swept the stadium in the morning, did a quick inspection and found nothing.

Police estimated that 90,000 persons--including ticket-holders, vendors, stadium employees and media personnel--jammed into the stadium under a gentle breeze, light clouds and temperatures in the low 60s.

Of 8,000 parking spaces, an estimated 1,000 were empty, thanks in part to a successful campaign to have fans take buses. The H.G. Fenton Material Co., a concrete, rock and sand firm with a yard adjacent to the stadium, had helped ease the crunch by opening up its property as an impromptu parking lot.

The game capped a week of hoopla and pre-arranged hilarity--much of it with the sophistication of a supermarket grand opening and the emotional resonance of the latest sitcom pilot. The week was sodden with show biz, with the entertainment leaning heavily on warhorses Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Liza Minnelli, Chubby Checker and Herb Alpert.

As Alpert played the national anthem on the trumpet, the Navy’s precision flying team, the Blue Angels, made a low-level pass over the stadium in tight formation.

The super game seemed to bring out two distinctly San Diegan traits: A particular sensitivity to how the locale is perceived by outsiders, and a love-hate relationship with the megabuck tourism industry.

On Best Behavior

“This shows our community is much bigger than we realized,” Supervisor Brian Bilbray, a member of the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force, said after the game. “We absorbed the visitors much better than we thought we would. We got the benefits but not the negatives, except for the airport.”

O’Connor declared: “What we showed was that San Diegans know how to cooperate when it counts.”

Restaurants, hotels and motels had been warned by their trade associations to eschew gouging. Television personalities beseeched the public to be on their best behavior. And O’Connor had told visitors to have a great time and then go home.

The weeklong event was expected to reap a $141-million bonanza for local business.

With much of San Diego either at the game, or watching it on television, Sunday proved a good day to partake of two local attractions: Sea World and the Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course. The San Diego Zoo, where the Chinese pandas are spending their last week, was packed, but elsewhere attendance was down sharply.

Sea World attendance was half of what it was on a similar Sunday last year. And a golfer could walk directly to the first tee at Torrey Pines anytime after 11:30 a.m., an unheard-of occurrence at a course where a three-hour wait is common.

“We had had a long couple of days, with all the tournaments and out-of-town golfers,” assistant golf pro Annelise Pettersen said. “It was perfect. Everybody who wanted to play golf came out early and then left to either get to the game or a television set.”

Contributing to the story were Times staff writers Armando Acuna, Andrea Estepa, Tom Gorman, Ralph Frammolino, Raymond L. Sanchez, Richard L. Serrano, Curtis L. Taylor and Jenifer Warren.