It’s a Record Rice Harvest, 44-14 : Pro football: Receiver scores three touchdowns to set NFL record of 127 as 49ers outclass Raiders in ‘Super Bowl Preview.’

A game that promised to be an imitation Super Bowl succeeded splendidly Monday night.

One team broke records, staged dances, threw parties.

The other team kicked dirt and banged tables.

It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t close, and those certainly could not have been the touted Raiders who were whipped by the San Francisco 49ers, 44-14.

Could they have been?

While the 49ers today are celebrating Jerry Rice’s new home atop the NFL career touchdown list--he scored three for a record 127--the Raiders will spend the week watching homemade horror movies.

“I’m shocked,” defensive tackle Nolan Harrison said. “We lost, we lost terrible. I’m not going to sugar-coat it for you. We lost terrible .”

Jeff Hostetler, a quarterback who overthrew some receivers while watching others drop passes, echoed Harrison’s comments but with a West Virginia accent: “We got a bad, bad butt whipping. Hopefully, this will bring a lot of people back to reality.”

If nothing else, it will send them to the El Segundo lost-and-found. Questions:

--Where is their patented bomb? Jeff Hostetler’s 17 completions averaged only 9.8 yards.

--Where is their pass rush? Working against an offensive line that lost its starting right side in the first half, they had only two sacks while allowing quarterback Steve Young to become the game’s leading rusher with 51 yards in five carries.

--Where is their running game? OK, dumb question.

--Where was their fire, particularly in the first 13 minutes, when the 49ers scored twice while outgaining them, 140 yards to 25?

“For some odd reason, when the game started, their intensity was much greater than ours,” Raider tackle Gerald Perry said. “That’s not hard to do when you’re the home team . . . but we never got to the peak that those guys were on.”

It didn’t help that the Raiders lost fullback Napoleon McCallum, who is in the hospital after dislocating his right knee on a terrifying collision with linebacker Ken Norton Jr in the third quarter.

McCallum, who scored the Raiders’ second touchdown on a one-yard run in the second quarter, apparently caught his left foot in the wet grass, causing his right leg to buckle under him. At the worst, he could be sidelined for the season.

Some thought that McCallum’s injury, which caused a lengthy delay with 7:57 to play in the third quarter, might have sunk the Raiders’ spirits.

After all, they only trailed, 23-14, at the time, but afterward were outscored, 21-0, while gaining only 56 yards.

“Show some sensitivity, will you?” Perry said when asked about the effect of the injury on team morale. “We’re talking about a man getting hurt.”

Good point. Even if the Raiders had been inspired by the injury, apparently nothing could have been done to stop a 49er offense intent on allowing Rice to break Jim Brown’s 29-year-old record.

Rice, who beat Albert Lewis to score on a 69-yard touchdown pass on the fourth offensive play of the 49er season, added his final two scores in the fourth quarter--on a 23-yard reverse and a 38-yard pass play, making a leaping catch over Lewis with 4:05 to play.

“I thought I would be coming out,” Rice said. “I was on the phone with my receivers coach (Larry Kirksey), and he was bawling me out for a couple of things I had done wrong.

“I said, ‘So I’m out, right?’ He said, ‘No, we’re going to give it one more shot.’ ”

Said Lewis: “We kept making mistakes. They are obviously a lot sharper than we are.”

By Rice’s final score, the Raiders indeed seemed to be willing participants in history.

On the drive that eventually clinched the victory, an 80-yard march that began late in the third quarter, the Raiders were guilty of three offsides penalties.

Young connected with Brent Jones on an eight-yard touchdown pass with 14:55 to play. The extra point gave the 49ers a 30-14 lead.

During the remainder of the game, the Raiders lost an interception and a fumble while never advancing past the 49ers’ 41-yard line.

By the time the 49ers waltzed off the field, they had outgained the Raiders, 448 yards to 181, while outrushing them, 156-34.

“I know, because I’ve been in that offense . . . when the 49ers get it going, it’s like a machine,” Raider tight end Jamie Williams said.

Before 68,032, a record crowd for a 49er game at Candlestick Park thanks to some added seats, the 49ers took a 14-0 lead in the first 13 minutes on two of Young’s four touchdown passes, to Rice and Jones.

The Raiders fought back to make the score 14-7 on a seven-yard pass from Hostetler to Tim Brown early in the second quarter.

The 49ers took advantage of a 40-yard kick return by Dexter Carter to score again five minutes later on Ricky Watters’ one-yard run. When rookie Doug Brien missed the conversion attempt, the 49ers’ lead was 20-7.

The Raiders rebounded on McCallum’s run, but then hurt themselves in the last 40 seconds of the half.

During that time, they failed to call a timeout and allowed the 49ers to kill 32 seconds and set up a 33-yard field goal by Brien with three seconds remaining.

Considering that Raider kick returners Rocket Ismail and Harvey Williams had combined to average 30.6 yards in their previous three returns, Raider fans were left to wonder what would have happened if the offense had been given such great field position with time to work.

“We had 23 points at halftime and I remember thinking, ‘That’s a good defense we’re playing,’ ” Young said. “I bet nobody scores 30 points on them all year. I’m surprised we scored that many on them.”

He wasn’t the only one.