Dear Readers,
The Super Bowl game on February 1st in Tampa, Florida between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers held little interest for me. Guess I was spoiled by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s, when the football team was replete with Italian Connections and Super Bowls rings.
As a sort of once-upon-a-time football fairy tale with Italian American good guys, the glory days of the S.F. 49ers bears 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 up against the longer-established National Football Leagues. 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 the team got peanuts. They played in Kezar, the stadium in Gold 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 face mask.
This was still 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 in the amount. In 1957, Tony Morabito died of a 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, when the 49ers played Dallas – and lost. The ascendancy took a long time. It got a lift in 1977 when the De Bartolo 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 “The Genius” (Mr. Walsh), Joe Montana, Eddie Dee and Carmen Policy – names for the ages, built a juggernaut.
And multi Super Bowl champions. The son of Edward De Bartolo Sr., one of the world’s richest shopping center developers, Eddie De Bartolo Jr., owned homes in Atherton, California, and on 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.
De Bartolo 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. I t 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, De Bartolo Jr. was manipulated by the entourage surrounding him. Ed De Bartolo Jr. was born on November 6, 1946, in Youngstown, Ohio, the oldest of two children to Edward J. De Bartolo Sr. and the former Marie Montani.
Youngstown was the same town his father had been born in nearly 40 years earlier. The elder De Bartolo 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, De Bartolo Sr. worked long days, parlaying a small paving company started by his step-father into a billion-dollar real estate empire.
The younger De Bartolo 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 has raised three daughters. Over the years, he advanced in the family company – finally becoming the chairman of the De Bartolo Realty Corp., a $1.5 billion firm with vast shopping center holdings.
When his father was still alive, De Bartolo Jr. would meet with him for coffee at 6 a.m. on most days to discuss family business. The elder De Bartolo was a quiet, almost shy man who shunned the limelight, but he was a powerful presence and a tough negotiator. In contrast, the younger De Bartolo was somewhat more open and casual.
Early on, in the first years he owned the team, his father’s influence was still a factor. The younger De Bartolo fired 49ers coach Joe Thomas, a choice unpopular with the fans. The Thomas hire was apparently the senior De Bartolo’s. Thomas was from Ohio and was a family friend. But two years later, the younger De Bartolo fired him and hired Bill Walsh, his first major move as owner.
Walsh, who led the team to three Super Bowl victories, said of De Bartolo Jr.: “He is a good man. He has empathy and interest in others.” The Edward J. De Bartolo Corp. (now run by Denise De Bartolo York) is the original family company.
Founded by De Bartolo Sr. in 1948 with a single 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 De Bartolo family also holds an interest in the Simon De Bartolo Group.
In 1998, the De Bartolo 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 were the Mall of Americans in Minneapolis and Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
In December 1997, Edward J. De Bartolo 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 obtaining a riverboat casino license.
De Bartolo’s 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 17th, coach Steve Mariucci “left” the 49ers organization over “philosophical differences” with owner John York.
In November, Eddie De Bartolo 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. The fans, naturally, cheered De Bartolo, even chanted briefly “Ed-die, Ed-die!” Sure he had a little trouble with the law down in Louisiana, and did the equivalent of losing his team in a card game, but he was the big brother figure for that 49ers dynasty.
And Eddie was the first owner who really stepped up, and treated players with class. When John York and Eddie De Bartolo were introduced quickly, back to back, there were scattered boos for York, then quickly the cheers for Eddie. Nobody can simplify life like a sports 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. In 2009 fans can only dare to optimistically dream that the 49ers will make it to the Super Bowl next year.
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.
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