Bay Area Quake : QUAKE DIARY : World Series Credited With a ‘Save’ for the Weary Bay Area

Perhaps never has so much ridden on baseball.

A battered, bloodied and shaken region needed its spirits lifted. It needed to get on with life.

It needed to play.

“Play Ball!”

“It’s not just a celebration of our national pastime,” said San Francisco stockbroker Phil Schaefer. “It’s a celebration of putting our lives back together.”

The Bay Area tensed as the clock went past 5:04 p.m. Friday. What if . . . Then, at 5:05, it took a breath.

It was time to move from the past to the future.

“The resumption of the World Series is the sign of the end of the mourning period,” said San Francisco pollster Mervin Field.

Sure, die-hard San Francisco fans rooted for the Giants to even things up quickly. Ha. And Oakland eagerly awaited the sweet moment of upstaging its more celebrated and snooty cross-bay rival. Ah-ha.

But, in truth, perhaps never has so little ridden on the outcome of the series.

“There is no way--after all we’ve been through together--that any of us can be losers,” said Pleasanton realtor Connie Hughart. “We all win.”

Of course, old-fashioned baseball suspense never had much of a chance with this four-game, two-week series.

In the end Saturday night, San Francisco fans were left to quietly cheer only that their team survived to play.

In Oakland, they were sassy. They had a reason, besides fear and falling concrete, to take to the streets.

Television in the Bay Area flashed disaster telephone numbers on the screen during the series, a reminder that the emergency continues here.

But there was evidence, too, that the World Series was salve, just as everyone hoped.

For a few minutes, Barbara Puff was able to set down the want ads and enjoy herself. It was about time. She recently rented an apartment in the Marina District of San Francisco. And she is among the thousands now looking for someplace else to move, someplace with hot water and heat.

“My agent called me today and said, ‘Quick, I’ve got one.’ But someone beat us there. She was signing the lease as we drove up,” Puff said.

For all that was expected of baseball this weekend, some local fans, in what had been a baseball-crazed region, said the game had changed in perspective.

“All of a sudden, sports was just sports,” said Paul Ambrosino, a San Francisco-based political consultant.

Which is OK with some survivors here. They’ve had plenty of other heart-stopping action.

“You know,” said real estate executive Linda Zacharin, “excitement is not all its cracked up to be, day after day.”

The Bay Area, of course, is sprawling enough to produce a lot of stories about this historic attempt by men with bat, glove and ball to give the hometown fans a reason to cheer. Los Angeles Times correspondents who have been covering the earthquake found themselves at all variety of places this World Series Friday and Saturday. And here are some of their stories:

Tracy Wilkinson covered the death struggle on the Nimitz Freeway.

She had witnessed an entire West Oakland neighborhood visited not just by disaster, but by an invading army of rescue workers, police and press. For the World Series, she watched as the neighborhood was returned to those who live there. Finally.

At the bar called the Cozy Den, a block and a half from the notorious freeway, 15 customers enjoyed the simple pleasures of being back together, released from the tempest. These were friends who knew each other’s names and habits. The series was on television. B. B. King was on the jukebox. Dominoes clicked on the play table. And that’s the way they damn well wanted it.

Keith Davis, a mail carrier, leaned over a video game. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched baseball on television. “Well, the earthquake’s over. Things are kinda getting back to normal.”

Reporter Charisse Jones saw the World Series resume through the eyes of patients at Laguna Honda Hospital. This is the nation’s largest skilled nursing home. It also sustained millions of dollars in damage from the quake.

Baseball was a welcome diversion. But it was not so much a diversion from the earthquake as from monotony.

The quake had come and gone. The hospital will never go away.

Mary Franklin, 81, has lived there 15 years. Her wheelchair was festooned with pictures of World Series players. Of the earthquake? She spoke with equanimity: “Nothing you can do about it . . . people die every day.’

And then Mary spoke of the future. “ Forget about the quake. I want Christmas so I can get a gift.”

Louis Sahagun reported the day-and-night misery of the displaced. He, like some of those he covered, was not drawn to baseball this weekend.

He made the rounds of the Marina District and the shelters.

People there were trying desperately to will themselves back to normalcy. There, they talked about surviving, not so much about winning.

A beauty shop was open. But no customers. A restaurant owner sat with arms folded at his doorstep, surveying utility repair trucks parked end-to-end as far as could be seen. When would gas service be restored? When could the restaurant start cooking? When would customers come?

At the grocery store named Marina Super, vegetables and fruit filled the sidewalk display stands as usual. But they were thick with dust from the backhoes and bulldozers.

“It’s all right, people are going to wash them anyway,” shrugged a market clerk.

Dan Morain was at the federal courthouse here when the quake struck. When the series resumed, he went to Candlestick and collected the stories.

There was the one about Steve Wurzburg, a Los Gatos attorney, wearing an orange helmet to the game. He had good reason. He had been in the stands when the quake hit and was knocked silly by a falling steel bolt.

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

Up in Section 53, the occupant of seat 24 in the top row had not returned when the series resumed. No wonder. It’s the seat farthest from home plate. Worse, a fresh cement patch covered the gap where the stress joint tore open right between the fan’s feet that Tuesday at 5:04 p.m.

Steve Marinucci, of Newark could not sit through Game 3. No wonder. He is a Giants fan. And there’s only so much a Giants fan can endure. “We’re depressed,” he said.

Victor F. Zonana is a San Francisco-based Times correspondent who endured every one of those 15 seconds and the long days since.

For the World Series, he found contrasts in a city that was asking a lot of baseball.

At the famous San Francisco sports bar Lefty O’Doul’s, purchasing agent Dennis Ehrenberg spoke with as much hope as conviction: “We’re all trying to get back into the swing of things. Maybe the series will do it.”

John Brotzman, a graphic designer, thought so, too. But he switched off the series before the first of the delayed games was over. He took a walk instead, up to Tank Hill. There, you could see the spectacular topography of San Francisco spread beneath your feet and watch the last rays of sun disappear over the Golden Gate.

“This is what San Francisco is all about,” Brotzman said, satisfied.

Earthquake country can be beautiful country.