Dear Readers,
Football Teams’ playoffs are a sure sign that Super Bowl Sunday is near. The 45th annual Super Bowl Game, XLV, will be played at Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The first annual Super Bowl Sunday game was played in 1967, between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers, who won 35-10.
Super Bowl Sunday numero xLV will be played February 6th, 2011. We still have the San Francisco 49ers but no Eddie DeBartolo Jr., no Carmen Policy, no Joe Montana, no coach Steve Mariucci and no 49ers team in the Super Bowl and no “abbondanza” of Italian Americans to illuminate the 49ers organization.
In hope that happy memories will bring a small measure of comfort to 49ers fans who did suffer this 2-14 season, I will rerun my 49ers in happier times column:
Without the San Francisco 49ers in the game, the Super Bowl holds little interest for me. Guess I was spoiled by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980’s, when the football team was replete with Italian Connections and Super Bowl rings. As a sort of once-upon-a-time football fairytale with Italian American good guys, the glory days of the S.F. 49ers bear retelling.
In 1930, the team was founded on a $25,000 shoestring supplied by Tony Morabito, a football- crazed lumberman and builder, and two partners, Al Sorrel and Ernie Turre. With the 25 G’s, they got a slot in the brand new All American Conference which was running against the longer- established National Football League.
The team was named the 49ers because San Francisco was born in the Gold Rush, and the shirts had to be red and the pants gold.
Morabito played it smart. For head coach, he gave a record $25,000 a year to the “Silver Fox” coach of Santa Clara, Buck Shaw. For a whopping $10,000 a season, he got the Dazzling Stanford All American, Frankie Albert.
Only a few joined at big bucks: most of them got peanuts. They played in Kezar, the stadium in Golden Gate Park. The office staff consisted of one man - Lou Spadia, a native of San Francisco with all the old qualities of loyalty, honesty and industriousness. In 1946, there were only 32 on the squad. Most of the same guys played offense and defense. They wore leather helmets with no facemask.
This was the heyday of small- town San Francisco. The Baseball Seals were “as good, if not better than the big league teams” and Seals Stadium was “The Yankee Stadium of the West”. The players lived in town and were neighbors. Manager Lefty O’Doul could have walked into the mayor’s office, “but why should I take a demotion?” The early 49ers all lived here too.
In 1947, Joe “the Jet” Perry became the first black player. Later, he became the first 49er inducted in the Hall of Fame. Each season, Joe Perry would sign a blank contract and let Tony Morabito fill the amount.
In 1957, Tony Morabito died of heart attack during a game against the Bears. He was only 48. In 1964, his brother, Vic Morabito, the team President, also died of a heart attack at age 48. The faithful Lou Spadia then became president. The closest the team came to going to the Super Bowl under his regime was in 1970, then the 49ers played Dallas – and lost.
The ascendancy took long time. It got a lift in 1977 when the DeBartolo family of Youngstown, Ohio, - only the second owners – bought the team for $17 million. The Niners had never won anything except the hearts of the city. The rest of the story is big money, big salaries, “class” organization, the arrival of Joe Montana, Eddie Dee and Carmen Policy – names for the ages who built a juggernaut. And multi Super Bowl champions.
The son of Edward DeBartolo Sr., one of the world’s richest shopping center developers, Eddie DeBartolo Jr. owned homes in Atherton, California, and the Whitefish River in Montana. He had racetracks, office buildings, and hotels. And he owned one of America’s top football teams, the San Francisco 49ers. DeBartolo paid $17 million for the team in 1977, a move that seemed to set him free for the first time from his father’s shadow. It was his money, he said, not his father’s.
Since his father – a man of legendary business skills - died (1994), De- Bartolo Jr. floundered, friends said. The father was no longer there to huddle with his son. “While his dad was alive, he protected him and got him out of jams,” recalled one friend, “without his father, DeBartolo Jr. was manipulated by the entourage surrounding him”.
Ed DeBartolo Jr. was born on Nov. 6, 1946, in Youngstown, Ohio, the oldest of two children to Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. and the former Marie Montani. Youngstown was the same town his father had been born in nearly 40 years earlier. The elder DeBartolo grew up in a poor, immigrant ghetto on the edge of downtown, the son of a mill worker. Until he died at the age of 85 in 1994, DeBartolo Sr. worked long days, parlaying a small paving company started by his step-father into a billion-dollar real estate empire.
The younger DeBartolo attended Catholic schools in Youngstown, then majored in business administration at Notre Dame. He went to work immediately in his father’s business.
In 1968 he married his high school sweetheart, Cynthia “Candy” Papalia, with whom he raised three daughters. Over the years, he advanced in the family company – finally becoming chairman of the DeBartolo Realty Corp., a $1.5 billion firm with vast shopping center holdings. When his father was still alive, DeBartolo Jr. would meet at 6.00 a.m. most days to discuss the family business.
The elder DeBartolo was a quiet, almost shy man who shunned the limelight, but he was a powerful presence and a tough negotiator. In contrast, the younger DeBartolo was some what more open and casual. Early on, in the first years he owned the team, his father’s influence was still a factor.
The younger DeBartolo fired 49ers coach Monte Clark and installed Joe Thomas, a choice unpopular with the fans. The Thomas hire was apparently the senior DeBartolo’s. Thomas was from Ohio and was a family friend. But two years later, the younger DeBartolo fired Thomas and hired Bill Walsh, his first major move as owner. Walsh, who led the team to three Super Bowl victories, said of DeBartolo Jr.: “He is a good man. He has empathy and interest in others”.
The Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. (now run by Denise DeBartolo York) is the original family company. Founded by DeBartolo Sr. in 1948 with a sin- gle Ohio shopping center, it is now a major real estate development and management company that owns, along with the 49ers, a regional mall, offices and hotels around the United States.
The Corporation also owns three horse-racing tracks – Thistledown in Cleveland, Louisiana Downs near Shreveport, and Remington Park in Oklahoma City. The DeBartolo family also holds an interest in the Simon DeBartolo Group.
In 1998, the DeBartolo empire merged with the Simon Property Group to form the largest real estate concern in North America (200 retail properties in 33 states, mainly the Midwest, Southwest and Florida.) Among its properties are the Mall of the Americans in Minneapolis and Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
In December 1997 Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., owner of the five- time Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers, abruptly resigned from the team and other business interests while on the verge of being indicted in Louisiana for his role in obtain- ing a riverboat casino license.
DeBartolo sister, Denise York took over as CEO of the team, and highly regarded 49ers president, Carmen Policy became responsible for the day-to-day operations of the franchise, as he had since 1991, but he is no longer with the 49ers.
In 2003, on January 17 , Coach Steven Mariucci “left” the 49ers organization over “philosophical differences” with owner John York. In November, Eddie DeBartolo Jr. flew in from his home in Florida to be part of the celebration and retirement ceremonies at Candlestick Park honoring Ronnie Lott as they retired Lott’s No. 42 jersey at half time, thereby officially ending any hope Lott might come out of retirement and lead one more Super Bowl charge.
So strong is Lott’s magnetism that Eddie DeBartolo Jr. came back to be part of the celebra- tion. The fans, naturally, cheered DeBartolo, even chanted briefly “Ed-die, Ed-die!” Sure he had a little trouble with the law down in Lousiana, did the equivalent of losing his team in a card game, but he was the big brother figure for that 49ers dynasty.
He was the first owner who really stepped up, treated players with class. In some ways, it was Eddie’s night, too. When John York and Eddie D. were introduced quickly, back to back, there were scattered boos for York then quickly cheers for Eddie. Nobody can simplify life like a sport fan can. To many 49ers fans, Eddie’s the guy who built the team, and York is the guy whose wife took it and hasn’t returned it to Eddie-like glory. Hopefully the Yorks and their son Jed York, 29, who was named team president only two years ago will find the right GM and head coach this time. And 2011 fans can dare to optimistically dream that the 49ers will make it to the Super Bowl next year!
