Surprisingly, a horseshoer might have contributed to the confirmation that, should the 49ers defeat the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII, they would hold a championship parade in San Francisco on February 14.
Just after noon on Monday, a guy identifying himself as “Steve in Hayward” called into KNBR-AM’s “Papa and Lund” midday radio program to talk about the 49ers’ victory over the Detroit Lions in the NFC title game on Sunday.
Steve’s call was interrupted by some loud banging sounds. When the 49ers’ play-by-play radio broadcaster Greg Papa and show presenters John Lund asked Steve what the sound was, he replied that he was a horseshoer.
Steve talked to Papa about his horseshoeing after they had talked about his feelings after the Lions game. After that, Steve declared, “I’ll be up with the horses if the parade comes up, and I shoe for the San Francisco Police Department.”
Father retorted, “Valentine’s Day.” I’ll see you later. We’ll cross paths throughout the city. After thanking the caller, Lund and Papa teased him about the mid-call horseshoeing, calling him “Mister Ed” in a reference to the talking horse CBS show from the 1960s.
The 49ers’ and San Francisco’s biggest acknowledgement of the planning for a possible title parade comes from Papa’s seemingly insignificant remark.
It also fits with the 2020 plans that former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown disclosed to the San Francisco Chronicle, stating that the Niners would have celebrated in the city rather than Santa Clara. (Hearst owns both SFGATE and The Chronicle, but they have different newsrooms.)
When SFGATE spoke with Brown over the phone on Monday, he stated he was not officially involved in the plans back in 2020 and that he is not participating now. However, he made it apparent where he thought the march should take place.
“San Francisco is the only city where a parade can take place,” Brown told SFGATE. “I am aware of that fact.”
SFGATE inquired about the plans for the march on Monday, contacting both the 49ers and the city of San Francisco.
The team remained silent, and Parisa Safarzadeh, a spokesperson for Mayor London Breed, stated that while the city “can’t give you a comment yet,” plans and conversations are “underway.” Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor said that her city is still prepared to host the parade, but that it would “depend on where Jed York wants the parade to be and where he’s going to pay for it,” as SFGATE previously reported.
The fact that no one in the public is willing to consider the prospect of a championship parade until the championship is won may be a symptom of superstition.
But in order to organize such a large spectacle with such little notice, the city selected to host the procession—whether it be Santa Clara or San Francisco—must know far in advance of the actual Super Bowl.
Since most sports teams that use a city name for their location play their home games in that same city, most of them don’t have to answer the question, “Where will the parade be?”
The NFL’s greatest distance between a team’s home stadium and its hometown is 38.3 miles, which separates Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium from San Francisco, the home of the 49ers.
