On October 17 , 1989 , Vincent sat in a field box behind the left dugout at San Francisco 's Candlestick Park . At 5:04 p.m. , just prior to Game 3 of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics , the 6.9 Mw Loma Prieta earthquake hit with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX ( '' Violent '' ) . At approximately 5:35 p.m. , after coming to the conclusion that the power could n't be restored before sunset , Vincent ordered the game to be postponed . According to Vincent , he had already made the decision to postpone Game 3 without telling anybody first . As a result , the umpires filed a form of protest of Vincent 's decision . However , the game had to be postponed due to trouble with gas lines as well as the power issue . The World Series ultimately resumed after a 10-day postponement ( and some initial conflict between Vincent and San Francisco mayor Art Agnos , who felt that the World Series ought to have been delayed much longer ) on October 27 , 1989 . While presenting the World Series Trophy to the Athletics , who wound up winning the World Series in a four-game sweep , Vincent summed up the 1989 World Series as a '' " Remarkable World Series in many respects . " '' In February 1990 , owners announced that spring training would not be starting as scheduled . This occurred after MLBPA Executive Director Donald Fehr became afraid that the owners would institute a salary cap . Fehr believed that a salary cap could possibly restrict the number of choices free agents could make and a pay-for-performance scale would eliminate multiyear contracts . The lockout , which was the seventh work stoppage in baseball since 1972 , lasted 32 games and wiped out all of spring training
Loma Prieta earthquake
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
Fay Vincent