Funny, the actual game will be played in Santa Clara, but who’s to quibble the details? Personally I’d have preferred the 49ers get Super Bowl IL. I mean really. The 49th Super Bowl? 49er? The ILlin’ Super Bowl? The marketing possibilities are endless. But the 50th pageant is a pretty big deal, and a quite the reward for young Jed and his tireless bribing, uh, efforts at getting the stadium built in Santa Clara. Eddie tried before him, and was successful til he went down in a cloud of his own hubris and pride. Dr. John washed his hands of the existing deal and pissed away all the good feelings around the team, and then some. This brought about the 2nd Dark Ages of 49er football.

Now, however, the future looks bright. Granted, the yuppies and look-at-me’s will show up in droves at the shiny new park, but that hooraw usually dies down and the real fans return to the action in short order. That being said, the prices will likely become astronomical although there are supposed guarantees to keep some ticket process low. This remains to be seen, but really, as historic and iconic the Stick has become, it is a shit hole. Our shit hole, but a shit hole nonetheless. The field is under sea level, and usually smells like low tide. The facilities are aged and cramped (but worlds better than Kezar), and the façade is crumbling like an ancient Greek ruim. Yes, the epic games, the Catch, Owens Owens Owens, Alex Smith’s enduring lone payoff win, Steve Young’s epic run vs the Vikes, John Taylor’s 2 punt returns for TDs on that epic Monday night game vs Washington, the recent power-failure game vs Pittsburgh, Brodie’s farewell, Rice’s farewell, Joe’s farewell. The memories are too countless to even try to catalog. Most of which I saw. I wasn’t at the Catch game, but I was at hundreds more.

The memories live on, but the Stick? Burn baby burn. Back to the mud for ya…