1960s Raiders-49ers Pre-Season Games Were the Real Deal
There was obvious satisfaction for the Las Vegas Raiders and their fans after they downed the Jacksonville Jaguars, 27-11, on Thursday night in Coach Josh McDaniels’ debut in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game.
However, it was soon forgotten and it was time to move on since it was only a preseason game.
But there was a time in the history of the Silver and Black that preseason games against a certain opponent were among the most important of the year for rabid members of Raider Nation.
It started in 1967 when the upstart American Football League, in business for only seven years, and the established National Football League, which was 47 years old, reached an agreement on the Pro Football Merger that would take full effect in 1970.
Until the leagues would merge into one for the regular season, teams in the opposite leagues could play preseason games against each other.
What that meant was that the Raiders would play their cross-bay rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, for the first time in what would become known as “The Battle of the Bay,” and it wasn’t only the fans on opposite sides who were up for this.
The teams couldn’t decide which one would host the first meeting between the two teams, so a coin flip was held on June 16, 1967, at Treasure Island Naval Base, roughly halfway across San Francisco Bay via the Bay Bridge, which connected the two cities.
Captains Jim Otto of the Raiders and Clark Miller of the 49ers represented their teams and there was definite tension in the air.
“If we had played the game that day, I would have kicked (Miller’s) butt,” Otto, the Raiders’ future Hall of Fame center said. “I was ready to go to war. I didn’t like the 49ers. They tried to make us feel inferior.”
Otto and other Raiders felt the 49ers looked down on them when players from both teams made personal appearances at the same events around the Bay Area.
Navy Capt. Douglas Hugh drew Miller’s name out of a hat, giving him the right to call the coin flip. Miller called “heads,” but the coin came up “tails,” and so the first Raiders-49ers game would be played at the Oakland Coliseum on Sept. 3.
“There’s never been a Bay Area game that had more importance,” former General Manager Scotty Stirling of the Raiders, said. “That was an emotional time. I hated the 49ers. It went back to the old San Francisco (rivalry) thing. Feelings were high.”
Said Al LoCasale, Executive Assistant to Raiders Managing General Partner Al Davis: “Lou Spadia (49ers owner at the time) almost died when he lost (the coin flip).”
The headline across the top of the Oakland Tribune sports page the next day read: “Raiders to Play 49ers Here Sept. 3.” Below that was a headline that said: “Nicklaus’ 67 Takes Open Lead.”
The Raiders-49ers game would revive the bitter sports rivalry Oakland and San Francisco had for decades when the Oakland Oaks and San Francisco Seals baseball teams battled for decades in the Pacific Coast League, not to mention the fact that residents of “little old Oakland” always felt they were “big-leagued” by San Franciscans.
The Oakland Coliseum was filled with 53,254 fans or about 35,000 more the Raiders had drawn for a preseason game in their first two seasons in the stadium, but Raider Nation left disappointed when the 49ers held on for a 13-10 victory after the Silver and Black committed three turnovers in the second half.
Star running back Clem Daniels of the Raiders was headed for what would have been a go-ahead touchdown in the final minutes when he fumbled about one foot from the goal line, and the 49ers recovered.
The Raiders got the ball back at the 21-yard-line a few plays later on another fumble, but quarterback George Blanda, who had thrown an interception earlier in the half, fumbled the ball back and the 49ers held on to win behind quarterback John Brodie, an Oakland native who had played at Stanford.
The Raiders got their revenge a year later when the Battle of the Bay was played at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco on Sept. 1. Quarterback Daryle Lamonica threw two touchdown passes and the Silver and Black claimed a 26-19 victory.
Hundreds of fans who made the trip from Oakland in a convoy of buses celebrated on the way home and into the wee hours at bars and nightclubs in the Eastbay.
From then through 2011, the Raiders and 49ers regularly held joint practices in addition to playing the annual Battle of the Bay, but that year when the 49ers beat the Raiders, 17–3, at Candlestick Park, one Raiders fan was beaten in a restroom and another man wearing a shirt that read, “F--- the Niners,” was shot multiple times in the stomach and was fortunate to survive.
“(Raiders vs. 49ers) was big,” said Hall of Fame tackle Art Shell, who also had two stints as head coach of the Raiders. “It was bigger for the fans than it was for us but, believe me, it was big for the players, too. It was big for us because, in the off-season we would play basketball against them, too. So you had to have a little bit of bragging rights.”
The Battle of the Bay was canceled after those incidents in 2011, and the Raiders and 49ers did not play a preseason game again until Aug. 29, 2011, when San Francisco claimed a 34-10 victory at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara last Aug. 29 to take a 21-19 edge in preseason games.
In 14 regular season games, the Raider and 49ers have both won seven, with the 49ers winning, 34-3, in 2018 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, after the Raiders won the last game the teams played at the Oakland Coliseum, 24-13, in 2014.
There was little connection from that meeting to those early preseason battles in the “The Battle of the Bay,” which were anything but exhibitions.
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