"On Sunday, Jan., 14, 1985, Tony Bennett spent the day in San Francisco while our 49ers "hosted" Super Bowl XIX in Palo Alto. Even then, the NFL had washed its hands of Candlestick Park, our popular blue-collar home, by staging the Super Bowl at a second-rate college stadium. The people, parties and money were still in San Francisco, but the actual game and TV show, if you were rich enough to attend, was an hour away, squirreled inside the maze of Leland Stanford Junior University."
"Tony "I-Left-My-Heart-in-San-Francisco" Bennett never left San Francisco that Sunday either. His famous song popped up during commercial breaks with shots of cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge. But the artist formerly known as Anthony Benedetto had no role at the game. But I did. I was in charge of driving three drunk vacuum cleaner salesmen to their hospitality tent in a Palo Alto parking lot."
"Early that morning (5 a.m., thank you!) my phone rang with my auto mechanic shouting. "I'm two drivers short and I need help!" That week Walt had scored four limousines at auction - "gonna make some easy money!" - and bragged about the contracts he was bidding on. I grabbed a decent sport coat and rushed to Walt's "garage" on Market Street - a cinder block shack at the end of Guerrero Street tucked in the back of a narrow alley stuffed with broken cars and no room for the four used limousines double-parked and warming up on Market Street."
On January 14, 1985 the San Francisco 49ers played Super Bowl XIX at Stanford while San Francisco hosted the surrounding parties and publicity. The NFL bypassed Candlestick Park and staged the game at a college stadium an hour away on Stanford's campus. Tony Bennett remained in San Francisco and his song accompanied television commercial breaks featuring city imagery. Early that morning a mechanic named Walt recruited drivers after acquiring limousines at auction. A driver transported three intoxicated vacuum cleaner salesmen to a hospitality tent in a Palo Alto parking lot, departing from a cramped cinder-block garage with a raccoon kept for security.
Read at Mission Local
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