APRIL 18: THE DAY MONTANA SAID GOODBYE TO FOOTBALL
This column originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on April 19, 1995
SAN FRANCISCO » When at long last Joe said it was so, when the word “retirement” finally came from the horse’s mouth Tuesday, the adoring mob at Justin Herman Plaza booed and then took up a chant that rattled the windows of the Financial District.
“One more year! One more year!”
You couldn’t blame them for wishing, or even for thinking that their wish might somehow come true. After all, how many times had this man thrown us a curve, beaten the odds, cheated the clock? This would only be once more.
But Tuesday marked Joe Montana’s final comeback. He came back to the Bay Area and he said goodbye, to football and to his fans.
“I know, I know,” Joe said, raising a hand when the crowd began to boo, “it was hard for me, too.”
This goodbye was not as hard as it could have been, not as hard as it would have been had the past four years gone anything like the 10 before it. But these last four years — two spent watching Joe on the 49ers’ sideline and two spent watching him play for another team — had prepared us for this day. The recent weeks of speculation, frankly, made Montana’s retirement announcement
an anticlimax of the highest order.
It was a three-hour, madefor-media extravaganza that began with a noon news conference at the Hyatt Regency, then moved outdoors to the public plaza, then reconvened at the hotel for a question-andanswer session.
For all of the happy faces that were put on this event
— it was billed as a “celebration”
— this was, in reality, a sad day. Only two men, Eddie DeBartolo Jr. and John Madden, seemed willing to concede that.
DeBartolo, the 49ers’ owner, wore a somber expression most of the afternoon and fought back tears while he told about a gift sent him by Joe and his wife, Jennifer: a recording of a song entitled “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.”
Madden revealed his emotions in a different way, his inimitable, bombastic way. Gesturing this way and that, booming into the microphone, you half- expected him to pull out the telestrator and begin diagraming. But he was real, so real.
Stepping to the podium, Madden turned in Joe’s direction and said, “So you’re really gonna do it, huh?”
Madden continued: “When people talk about the greatest quarterbacks, they always use disclaimers. I’ll say it without any disclaimers: This guy is the greatest quarterback ever.”
That is an argument for the ages, an argument that includes Otto Graham, Johnny Unitas, Terry Bradshaw and other names to come. But however long it rages, Montana’s name always will be part of the debate.
It wasn’t just that he won, it was how he won — dramatically and coolly. Moreover, it was how he came back to play, let alone win, after back surgery in 1986 and elbow surgery in 1991 were thought to have finished him. Seeing him Tuesday — trim, tanned and resplendent in a cobalt blue suit — there wasn’t a doubt he could continue playing.
Which is reason enough to worry about him in his new life.
Montana stressed that it was his decision, not Jennifer’s. It had nothing to do with her desires, or the Chiefs’ falling fortunes, or his current physical condition. At 38, it was just time.
He seemed remarkably at peace with his decision, and realistic about its ramifications.
“I knew this day would come somewhere along the line,” he told reporters, “but it was very difficult to admit it to myself. . . . And the most difficult time is yet to come.” For us, too. Montana would have preferred to have done things another way Tuesday, to have not done this at all. But his wife and his agent, Peter Johnson, convinced him that this was the way to go out —with a ceremony, two news conferences, free lunch for the media, bunting, balloons and speeches.
“I’m usually one to take the quiet road, but those people out there,” he said, referring to his fans, “were the ones that enabled me to get here. This gave me an opportunity — although I could never give back entirely what they gave me — just a little bit of thanks.”
For Johnson, there was another point to all the pomp and ceremony: launching Joe’s next career, whatever it may be.
Montana was considerably vague about his future plans, but they definitely include endorsement work. This is a man with the marketability and staying power of an Arnold Palmer or a Joe DiMaggio, Johnson said, and Tuesday was proof.
They packed Justin Herman Plaza, some 25,000 faces of all ages and all colors, men in business suits, elderly women with beehive hairdos, children who couldn’t have been out of diapers when Joe performed his last miracle for the 49ers. They stood on the rooftops, hanged from the balconies, stuck their heads out of their office windows for a man who played football.
Two years ago, in probably his last news conference while wearing a 49ers uniform, Montana was asked what he thought he meant to the Bay Area.
“Me?” he replied, pausing because he’d never considered the question in his own mind. “I was entertainment.”
That he was.
Also on this date …
2012 » The A’s Bartolo Colon threw 38 consecutive strikes, the most since MLB began collecting pitch date in 1988, while beating the Angels. Colon threw nothing but strikes from the second pitch in the fifth inning to the second one in the eighth inning.
1998 » Oakland Raiders select Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson with the fourth overall pick in the NFL Draft. The Raiders also drafted Washington State defensive tackle Leon Bender in the second round (31st overall). Tragically, Bender died a month later after suffering a seizure.
1967 » The San Francisco Warriors, led by Rick Barry’s 55 points, beat the 76ers in Game 3 in the first NBA Finals game ever played at the Oakland Coliseum. The victory pulled the Warriors within 2-1 in the best-of-7 series they’d ultimately lose.
1958 » In the Dodgers’ first home game in Los Angeles, a National League single-game attendance record of 78,682 watched the San Francisco Giants suffer a 6-5 loss.