BAY AREA QUAKE : Bay Area Gets Back Into the Ball Game : World Series: A spirit of resilience is celebrated at Candlestick Park.

Its wounds bandaged and its victims longing for some levity, the Bay Area stepped back into the box for the long-delayed third game of the World Series on Friday and turned aside the awful memories of the past 10 days to play rollicking tribute to its own resilience.

Tens of thousands of people crowded into Candlestick Park’s parking lot hours before the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics took the field, setting off a din of celebration that spoke of the tensions built up since Oct. 17, when a 7.1-magnitude earthquake tore through the Bay Area 30 minutes before the first scheduled start of Game 3.

As the game festivities began, fans took their revelry inside the stadium, dropping off donations of food and clothing at relief stands set up to aid the quake’s victims. They applauded everything--the team announcements, the color guard, the earthquake heroes who threw out 12 ceremonial first balls, even the announcer’s warning to stay calm in the event of an aftershock.

But at 5:04 p.m., the minute in which the earthquake hit on a similarly hopeful day 10 long and tragic days ago, the stadium stood silent. Fans wept. Players stood near the base lines, caps in hand, in tribute to the victims and the ever-altered psyche of the Bay Area itself.

Then, led by entertainers, the crowd of 62,000 broke into “San Francisco,” the title song from the 1936 movie--tellingly, a film about the city’s devastating 1906 quake. Fans, their eyes welling, held hands. At the song’s conclusion, some shoved their fists skyward in triumph.

“I think this represents the recovery of San Francisco and the area,” Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent said. “It’s a wonderful feeling.”

The mayors of the two cities hosting the series beamed.

“The city is back, just like the World Series,” San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos said.

“We’re well on the way to recovery,” Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson said. “The people are together. We’re coming along.”

The enthusiasm held up throughout the game, despite the 13-7 loss by the hometown Giants. More fans than usual, however, left the park early.

There was, on this Friday more than on any day since the quake, the dissonance of good luck and bad, of mirthful fun and tragedy. As fans poured into Candlestick Park, jackhammers and bulldozers pawed at remaining wreckage, and authorities announced that the death toll had risen to 64. Two people remained missing.

Traffic jammed up on the area’s roadways, still hobbled by the destruction of the Nimitz Freeway, the damage to the Bay Bridge and the closures of several threatened freeways. An airlift into shattered Watsonville brought food and badly needed supplies.

Inside the stadium, there were concessions to reality: Candlestick’s public address system was hooked to an emergency generator to allow it to operate if the power were cut off by an aftershock. Stadium ushers were issued a new tool--flashlights.

On the back of a flyer handed to each World Series fan was a statement.

“Tonight we honor the resilience and indomitable spirit of our community to rise again,” the statement said. “Let us all join together, not only in prayers for the loved ones lost, but in tribute to the survivors and selfless volunteers whose lives are changed forever.”

Authorities on Friday said the list of the lost included one more person--an 88-year-old San Mateo resident who suffered a heart attack shortly after the quake. In addition to the dead and injured, more than 13,000 remain displaced, their homes damaged or destroyed. Tens of thousands have registered for disaster aid with state, federal and local officials.

As attention turned to Candlestick, the stadium swelled with a mix of enthusiasm and muted concern. The early arrivals were responding to the pleas of transportation and public safety officials who worried about series gridlock. Quickly, they set about turning the parking lot into a mass celebration.

Tailgate parties merged one into another. Barbecues spewed out smoke and the flavors of cooking hamburgers and hot dogs. Fans arrived in an array of headgear, most of it keyed to the colors of the teams--yellow and green for the A’s, orange and black for the Giants.

They let loose with a vengeance, playing catch with friends, setting off ear-splitting noisemakers, totting horns and trumpets, ringing bells. Two Oakland fans, their faces painted yellow and green, even memorialized the quake. John Dover and Michael Meischeid carried through the parking lot a sheet-sized sign: “Shake Rattle and Roll at the ‘Stick. See Fielders Fall! Batters Buckle and Giants Topple.”

By 3:15 p.m., more than two hours before game time, at least half of the crowd had arrived, police estimated. And their parties continued on the inside as well. But over their chaotic pleasure, stadium flags flew at half-staff.

The range of emotion ran the gamut, from misery over the quake and added depression over the Giants’ pounding loss to the sheer and incomparable relish of having made it through the past difficult days.

Chris Borden of Los Gatos, leaving the stadium in the seventh inning, said he felt privileged to attend--but the quake, he said, had left him numb. “My excitement level just wasn’t there,” he said.

But for David Bailey, a San Jose industrial designer and die-hard Giants fan since 1962, simply being at the game was “like a dream come true.”

And he saw no reason not to return, even though his seats were on the upper level.

“Life’s a gamble,” he shrugged.

His wife, Diane, picnicking with her husband near their car, was openly worried.

“With everything going on and all the media hype, you can’t help feeling nervous,” she said. “I would have liked to go tomorrow instead to see how everyone comes through today, to see if it’s safe.

“Being way up there, I feel a little helpless.”

When the stadium shook 10 days ago, Kelly Mathews, with six weeks to go before delivering her second child, started having false labor pains.

“I was just terrified,” she said. But Friday, clad in a Giants’ T-shirt, she was purely upbeat.

“All we’ve listened to is doom and destruction,” she said. “We need something to ease the tension.”

But not all of those who lived through the first jolt at Candlestick could stomach a return, and some surfaced with wry protection. Attorney Steve Wurzburg showed up at his upper-deck seat wearing a bright orange hard hat. A metal bolt struck his head during the quake, and he was taking no chances Friday.

“I really don’t want to think about it, to tell you the truth,” he said.

Nearby sat three workers from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory who had bought their tickets after the quake from a man in a Livermore bar. The seller did not mention that during the quake the concrete under his seats had crumbled away. But despite that--and the $100 ticket price--Amelia Regacho was glad she had come.

“That’s what we have got to do,” she said. “Go on with our lives.”

No large aftershocks were felt during play, but a small scare arose when a bank of lights overlooking the upper deck suddenly shut down. Garrulous fans pulled flashlights and candles from their pockets and, grinning, aimed their lights toward the field.

But there was no way to forget the events of the last 10 days, not even amid the beer-enthused crowds. Every fan entering the stadium was handed an envelope addressed to Northern California Earthquake Relief Fund. And relief agencies set up bins to accept donated materials.

At each of the four entrances, the Food Bank--which distributes food to scores of agencies--set up barrels and bins enough to hold more than 3,000 pounds of food. Donors poured in, dropping off canned tuna and milk, baby food, peanut butter and--this being San Francisco--Champagne, designer water and macadamia nut soup.

The Salvation Army collected blankets and clothing--five blankets alone from Peter and Joan Robinson, who traveled from the East Bay in search of tickets and brought donations for good measure.

“I think they will help some people,” Peter Robinson said.

During the quake-caused delay, construction crews shored up Candlestick Park, repairing the concrete covers of three of the 91 steel A-frames that support the stands. Engineers said none of the A-frames were damaged. Two concrete staircases were also rebuilt.

The spirit that infused the stadium also surfaced across the Bay Area. Despite their teams’ competition, celebrants in San Francisco were linked in emotion to their counterparts in Oakland and everywhere else near the bay.

When the Candlestick fans rose for their moment of silence, quiet fell too at Ricky’s Sports Lounge in San Leandro. No sound came from the six giant-screen television sets and 40 regular sets, all tuned to the game. The patrons bowed their heads.

“It made me think of all the people who lost their lives and homes,” said Anne Coffin of Castro Valley, an A’s fan. “My heart went out to them.” But fans across the bay were also plenty willing to try to forget, if only briefly. At an Oakland restaurant called The Grotto, whose walls are sheathed in yellowed photos of the 1970s A’s championship teams, Rick Markovich had heard the difference.

“Today for the first time I noticed people started talking about the series again,” he said. “A lot of people quit reading the sports page since the quake, but now for the first time I picked up the sports page again.”

Seconded Brian Baker, head waiter at El Caballo, a sports bar next door:

“People need something to focus on besides all the shaking that’s been going on. Everybody is sick of watching all the death and destruction on TV. People are ready for some fun.”

At the Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, which was damaged in the quake, the game blared from private rooms of the 1,100 elderly patients.

“This world is not going to stop on account of that quake,” vowed Harold Mulvin, 77.

“It’s better to think about baseball than an earthquake,” added Tony Rosinski, 73.

Before the game took attention entirely away, the Bay Area spent Friday continuing its rough recovery. Traffic, which had been running with unexpected smoothness all week as commuters heeded warnings to shift work hours and use mass transit, clogged roads and bridges near Candlestick Park as game time approached.

“It’s like a parking lot out there,” a California Highway Patrol dispatcher in San Francisco said shortly after 4 p.m.

Officials at the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, meanwhile, said their patronage continues to run well above pre-quake totals, with about 300,000 people expected to take the subway by midnight.

Getting in on the series hype, BART spokesman Michael Healy also announced that if the series goes to a sixth game at the Oakland Coliseum, the Giants have agreed to travel to Oakland on BART. Actually, the team will journey in a special express train from Daly City.

At a news conference in Oakland, where the majority of the 64 victims died, the Chamber of Commerce and Mayor Wilson announced the creation of an Employment Response Task Force, an association of 12 local, state and federal agencies that will deal with people rendered unemployed by the quake

“Most of these people need help right now,” Chamber of Commerce President Don Barber said. “We want to make sure they don’t fall between the cracks.”

No estimates were available on the number unemployed because of the quake, but officials said that in Oakland most of the businesses closed were small retail operations with fewer than 10 employees.

Across the Bay Area, demolitions continued of homes and businesses declared unsafe and of a 1 1/4-mile stretch of Interstate 880 that collapsed in Oakland, claiming 39 people at last count. An evacuated Victorian home in Oakland collapsed, damaging four cars and briefly trapping a woman inside one of them. Hospital officials there said two heralded survivors of the Nimitz collapse, 57-year-old ship’s clerk Buck Helm and 6-year-old Julio Berumen, were recovering from their injuries.

But coroner’s officials corrected an initial report that rescuers were forced the night of the quake to cut through the body of Julio’s mother to reach the trapped child. Actually, coroner’s officials said Friday, rescuers had to cut through the body of a family friend, Yolanda Orozco, who was a passenger in the car.

The body of Julio’s mother also had to be cut free from the wreckage, but that took place a day after Julio’s rescue, officials said. Julio and his 8-year-old sister, who also survived in the car, are both expected to recover.

Helm, rescued after four days in the rubble of the Nimitz, remained in serious condition in Oakland’s Highland General Hospital. But his kidney function has returned to normal, and he was conscious most of the time, spokeswoman Pat Pino said.

To the south, an immense airlift continued to bring needed supplies into Watsonville, which was partially cut off from entry by road.

Nearly 200 Northern California pilots began their effort last weekend and by Friday had delivered more than 328,000 pounds of food, clothing, tents, blankets and diapers in their private planes.

The spontaneous airlift was launched from Reid-Hillview Airport near San Jose, the decommissioned Hamilton Air Force Base in Marin County and Buchanan Field at Concord in Contra Costa County. The Buchanan Field pilots plan to take to the air again today and Sunday.

The outpouring of help from the pilots prompted the Federal Aviation Administrationto set up a temporary control tower at Watsonville Airport, which usually has none. “I was between the (Nimitz Freeway) and the Bay Bridge when the earthquake hit,” said Charles J. Gallagher, who organized the Marin pilots. “Afterward, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t focus on work. I heard psychologists talking about ‘survivor guilt.’ That was me.

“Part of that is just feeling so helpless: Why did it happen to them and not to me? So doing this airlift was a way I could help, and helping others helped me.”

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