Candlestick Park

About half of the field at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, soaked by weeks of rain and torn up by last week's playoff game, will be resodded for Sunday's NFC championship game between the 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys. Under the supervision of NFL turf consultant George Toma, groundskeepers on Monday peeled off the top layer of chewed-up turf in preparation for resodding, which will begin today.

A small prediction: Come 1995, the San Francisco Giants, in last place, attendance under a million and still in Candlestick Park, will be looking for a place to go. Anyplace, because San Francisco doesn't want them. One thing Peter O'Malley and his fellow owners forgot was that San Francisco is no longer the city of Lefty O'Doul, Slip Madigan and Joe DiMaggio. The City ain't the City anymore. So let them go to Keokuk or Ashtabula or wherever, and the few baseball fans who remain in the Bay Area can cross the bridge and visit picturesque Oakland.

Eric Davis sat in front of his locker before Friday's game, staring into his coffee like every other player stares into their coffee before braving the field at Candlestick Park. But then he looked up and displayed something as unusual here as a pair of shorts. He smiled. "Are you kidding me?" Davis said. "I love this place." He then explained himself by hitting a second-inning home run,helping the Dodgers beat the Giants, 5-3, before 27,429 at Candlestick Park.

First baseman Will Clark of the San Francisco Giants stops in occasionally for lunch on game days at Perry's on Union Street. That's one piece of business that could head south if San Francisco's baseball team finds its way to San Jose. "This stupid city, which I love, is so narrow-minded to have let the Giants possibly get away," Perry Butler, the restaurant's owner, said Wednesday after San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer and Giant owner Bob Lurie announced a deal to send the team to the South Bay.

Brett Butler laughs at the irony. It's either that or cry. The Dodgers' leader will take the field at Candlestick Park tonight with a chance to add a string of exclamation points to his most valuable player-type season. His team is tied for first place with the Atlanta Braves with three games remaining. After leading the National League West for 133 of 177 days, the Dodgers are suddenly the underdogs because they must face the Giants while the Braves play host to the lowly Houston Astros.

The San Francisco Giants had a 13-game winning streak at Candlestick Park, the last three over the Dodgers, but the Atlanta Braves weren't impressed. Charlie Leibrandt outpitched Bud Black and Brian Hunter's two-run single in the fourth inning gave the Braves a 2-1 victory over the Giants Monday night. Leibrandt (10-11) gave up five hits, walked two and struck out five in seven innings, reversing a 1-0 setback to Black last Wednesday in Atlanta.

Al Davis ought to count his blessings that he didn't trade the heart and soul of his football team, Marcus Allen. . . . Without Allen, the Raiders never would have marched into the AFC championship game. . . . He has produced week after week, giving nothing less than his best, which is considerable. . . . After Bo Jackson went down early in the third quarter Sunday, old reliable merely got stronger, kept spirits up and finished with 140 yards rushing in the 20-10 victory over Cincinnati. . . .

Having blown 5-1 and 4-1 leads while losing twice to the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds flew to the West Coast Tuesday night unaware that the Dodgers had wasted a 7-0 lead in a 10-8 loss to the Houston Astros. Red Manager Lou Piniella said he found the news as much of an eye-opener as his room-service coffee Wednesday morning, but beyond that he didn't have a reaction. "We've got to go in and beat them ourselves," Piniella said of the Dodgers and a three-game series that begins in Los Angeles Friday night.

The San Francisco Giants have submitted plans to build a $125-million open-air baseball park in Santa Clara that would seat 45,000-50,000 fans and open in 1994. The proposal submitted by letter Wednesday to City Manager Jennifer Sparacino envisions a ballpark on 120 acres of city-owned land in the northern part of the city. It estimated $40 million in publicly financed improvments would be needed.