Farewell to Candlestick Park, the worst stadium in sports

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I hate my park ....

In San Francisco ....

OK, so that's NOT what Tony Bennett sang.

But very few do wax rhapsodic about Candlestick Park, that condemned property by the Bay. It will be host to one last scheduled sporting event this Monday night (a 49ers vs. Atlanta Falcons football game) ... and then, in 2014, boom goes the dynamite. It's going to be blown to bits.

Goodbye and good riddance. Camelot, it's not.

A sampling of zingers from baseball greats about this pretty city's stadium throughout the years:

-- "I'd quit if I had to play here" -- Roger Maris

-- "If I was traded to the Giants, I'd quit baseball" -- Rocky Colavito

-- "A toilet with the lid up" -- Whitey Herzog

-- "We're lucky, we can leave, but the Giants have to stay here" -- Lew Burdette

-- "Candlestick was an abomination. It was a tough park to play in when it was cold, and it was always cold" -- Keith Hernandez

-- "We used to feel sorry for the fans, not for ourselves. At least we were moving around on the field" -- Willie McCovey

-- "In New York, they would have kept it full for more impact. At Candlestick, they had to drink half of it to keep warm" -- Steve Garvey (after a Giants fan threw a half-full bottle of gin at him)

-- "I bet I lost 200 home runs in that place" -- Willie Mays

-- "Dynamite" -- Jack Clark (asked what could improve the park)

And from a couple of former 49ers:

-- "Our home field was one of the worst places you would want to play" -- Joe Montana (a few months ago)

-- "It was a dump, but it was our dump" -- Dwight Clark (a few days ago)

Yep, those tributes keep pouring in.

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