Game 1 {{Linescore| Prior to Game 1, a tribute to late Commissioner
Bart Giamatti was held; Giamatti's son
Marcus threw out the first pitch, and the
Whiffenpoofs from
Yale University (Giamatti's alma mater) sang the national anthem.
Dave Stewart, the Athletics' ace, took on Giants pitcher
Scott Garrelts in Game 1 of the Bay Bridge series. Oakland took the lead in the bottom of the second when
Dave Henderson walked, advanced to second on a
Terry Steinbach single, and scored on another single by
Tony Phillips that moved Steinbach up to third.
Walt Weiss then sent a soft ground ball toward first, but Giants first baseman (and
NLCS MVP)
Will Clark threw the ball low and to the right of catcher
Terry Kennedy. Steinbach knocked the ball out of Kennedy's mitt, scoring the second run of the inning. Kennedy was charged with an error, and Phillips advanced to second.
Rickey Henderson then drove in Phillips on a single to right field; the second inning ended with Oakland leading 3–0. On
KGO-TV's feed, the telop graphic was replaced with a
station identification slide, recycled from the network's
1986-87 "Together" campaign, with "Please Stand By" text on top of the
Circle 7 logo, because of the station lost power for almost 15 minutes upon the start of the earthquake. Michaels, McCarver, and third man in the booth
Jim Palmer grabbed for whatever they could to brace themselves and grabbed on to one another's legs, leaving all three men with thigh bruises. When the audio was restored, first to be heard was the sound of the fans cheering, and then Michaels began talking over a screen bumper, jokingly saying that the earthquake was the "greatest opening in the history of television, bar none!" By contrast, the broadcasting team in the
CBS Radio booth next door, consisting of
Jack Buck,
Johnny Bench, and
John Rooney, was off the air when the earthquake started because their show was in a pretaped segment being played from New York. Bench ran to a spot underneath a steel grate, to which Buck later quipped, "If he moved that fast when he played, he'd never hit into a double play. I never saw anyone move that fast in my life."
ESPN reporters were at the stadium, but were not on air when it hit, and the channel was instead airing a
bodybuilder contest at the time. Their equipment van was the only one with a generator, and their reporters went live at 5:22 p.m. with news coverage by
Chris Berman and
Bob Ley. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, ABC aired a rerun of
Roseanne (and later
The Wonder Years) before
Ted Koppel began anchoring news coverage from Washington at 5:21 p.m., As for the Series itself,
Fay Vincent decided to postpone Game 3 initially for five days, resulting in the longest delay in World Series history. Vincent told no one before doing so, resulting in an umpire protest, although the original reason for the postponement was loss of power in the stadium, concern about possible structural damage, and the danger of possible aftershocks. It was postponed for another five days (until October 27) because of delays in restoring transmission links. Then San Francisco mayor
Art Agnos wanted to wait a month before resuming it, with Vincent responding to Agnos by telling him that he might move it elsewhere if the delay would be that long. With that, Vincent quickly had several other National and American League parks put on standby, including
Wrigley Field and
Comiskey Park in
Chicago, the
Kingdome in
Seattle, the
Astrodome in
Houston, or
Yankee Stadium and
Shea Stadium in
New York City. (Moving the game to the opponents' stadium was not an option, because the Oakland A's were also based in the
SF Bay area. Also, it was noted in the news media that there were
three major league stadiums in
southern California.) Players for the
Oakland Athletics returned home, but had to travel via
State Route 237 in
San Jose, adding an extra 90 minutes due to the collapse of the
Bay Bridge and the
I-880 Cypress Street Viaduct along with the closures of the
San Mateo–Hayward and
Dumbarton Bridges. Not long after returning,
Jose Canseco (still in full uniform) and his wife Esther were spotted filling up their car at a self-service gas station. As noted in his later book
Juiced, Canseco noted that someone wrote an article portraying him as chauvinistic forcing his wife to pump the gas, but that in reality, she told him to let her do it because if people saw him in his full uniform, it would cause a scene. The earthquake would affect the National Anthem performances for the games at
Candlestick Park as well.
Stevie Wonder, who was slated to play the National Anthem on his harmonica at Game 3 on October 17, pulled out days following the earthquake, and in his place
Larry Gatlin and the
Gatlin Brothers, who had been slated to perform at Game 4 on October 18, would sing the National Anthem when Game 3 was finally played on October 27.
Game 3 {{Linescore| During the ten-day delay, Candlestick Park was inspected, and found to have only minor damage. This was quickly repaired, and the stadium was deemed safe to use. At the start of Game 3, emergency responders who had aided during the earthquake, including police officers and firefighters, were honored and threw out the ceremonial first pitch. The starters were the Game 1 starters, Stewart and Garrelts. The ten-day delay due to the earthquake allowed both staff aces to start. Dave Henderson just missed hitting three home runs for the A's as his first inning shot bounced off the top of the wall for a double. Giants catcher
Bill Bathe became the fifth
National League player in World Series history to hit a home run in his very first at-bat. When Game 3 was originally scheduled for October 17, the scheduled starting pitchers were
Bob Welch for the A's and
Don Robinson for the Giants. Meanwhile,
Ken Oberkfell was slated to start at third base for the Giants, with
Matt Williams moving over to shortstop instead of the benched
José Uribe. Also,
Pat Sheridan was slated to take over for
Candy Maldonado in right field for the Giants. Maldonado told
ESPN that he was in the clubhouse getting ready when the earthquake hit. The first person he saw in the midst of all of this was his teammate, Robinson, who told Maldonado that he sensed that an earthquake was occurring. For Oakland,
Ron Hassey was slated to be the starting catcher for Game 3 in place of
Terry Steinbach, as Hassey was at the time Welch's
personal catcher. This game set a record for most combined HRs hit in a World Series game (7) as well as tying a record for most HRs hit by a single team (5) in a World Series game (the
New York Yankees won Game 4 of the
1928 World Series against the
St. Louis Cardinals, which like this series, would end in a sweep). This record for combined HRs in a World Series game would endure until
Game 2 in 2017, in which the
Astros and
Dodgers combined for 8 HRs.
Composite box 1989 World Series
(4–0): Oakland Athletics (A.L.) beat
San Francisco Giants (N.L.). ==Radio and television coverage==