Posted on 12/22/2013 4:47:24 PM PST by nickcarraway
Monday night will be an emotional one for the San Francisco 49ers and their fans, as the team's matchup with the Atlanta Falcons will be the last regular-season game at Candlestick Park.
For Tony Gonzalez, who will be on hand with the visiting Atlanta Falcons, it will also mark his final visit to the site where he experienced what he calls the "strangest thing that ever happened to him."
On a conference call with Bay Area reporters, Gonzalez recalled how during a game between his then-team, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the 49ers at Candlestick Park he was pushed out of bounds and into a photographer. The photographer, Gonzalez says, was knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital. They ran some tests on the photographer and determined he was going to be OK.
Here's where the story gets interesting.
“Then, a couple days later -- three, four days later -- they come talk to me," Gonzalez said. "‘Hey, you know what happened to that guy? It turns out, they did a brain scan to make sure he was OK, and they found a tumor in his brain. They never would’ve found this tumor if you hadn't hit him.'
"It's just like a miracle that it turned out this way. If he hadn't known (about the tumor), that thing would've kept growing and some bad stuff would’ve happened down the line."
The photographer, Mickey Pfleger, wrote about the experience in a 2001 essay on Sportsshooter.com:
"I was supposed to be knocked out by Tony Gonzalez at the football game. I was supposed to go into a seizure while I was unconscious, so that Dr. Klint of the 49ers would tell the paramedics to tell the emergency room doctors to do a CT brain scan on me. I was supposed to be taken to San Francisco General Hospital and land in the hands of Dr. Martin Holland, an incredibly talented neurosurgeon.
"I was never supposed to get hurt from the "hit" by Tony Gonzalez. I couldn't find any bruises on my body the day after being hit full force by Tony, a 249-pound tight end in full football pads. I didn't even have a headache the next day, even though I suffered a concussion and seizure and was unconscious for two minutes."
Pfleger, a freelance photographer with Sports Illustrated and Time, underwent surgery to remove the tumor in May 2001. He lived nearly another decade after the collision and passed away in December 2010 at age 61.
"It's just strange how the universe works," Gonzalez said. "I believe in a higher power. Some people out there don’t. But I definitely think something was at work there -- a late hit, first of all, and then running into this guy and being able to find that tumor in him."
Cool!
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I am a professional sports photographer. I recall when that happened, and it was an amazing thing. Having gotten run over by a number of linebackers, you are always afraid of hurting some prime draft pick with broken glass. You never think about how you could get hurt.
Getting run over is not usually a gift from God.
One of the classiest and talented players in the NFL.
There's a very small chance yet one more game could be played there. Niners are the fifth seed right now. If they win out, they could host the sixth seed for the NFC championship, if the sixth seed could get there. That looks to be the Saints right now.
Highly unlikely... But (in my best Berman voice) that's why they play the game...
Fate takes a hand.
Clearly, Someone Celestial was looking out for Pfleger...
I met a little girl who was hit in the head by a baseball at a game. Physicians discovered a genetic disease - too late to change its course for her but in time to treat her little sister who was also affected.
Strange world.
Extremely durable too.
Same kind of thing happened to Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester. He was slightly injured in a car accident which lead to x-rays revealing cancer.
How likely was it that the Cardinals would beat the Seahawks today? While it’s very unlikely, the 49ers could still win the NFC West. Go Niners.
Nice to see Seattle lose, though. They CAN be beaten at home.
And, yeah, go Niners!
Clinching a wild card would be great - winning the division would be better. Go Niners.
The new stadium, is it Sodomite Stadium? Phallic Arena? Poofter Field?
We can do this all day...
Levis Stadium. It’s in Santa Clara, 40 miles or so from SF itself.
Can Levis change the name a bit if they have a new product?
Could it become Levis Butt-Hugger Jeans Stadium or something?
SF is an increasingly Chinese and Mexican city - more new immigrant than old decadence of late.
It’s still a lefty hell-hole, where 800sq/ft houses sell for upwards of $1mil, and the homeless have more rights to the sidewalk than you do, no matter how pretty it is.
But it isn't 1978 anymore - the city has changed in many ways demographically.
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