Sandra Eisert received the Atrium Award for Graphic Design while working at the "San Jose Mercury News". At the "San Jose Mercury News" Eisert helped cover the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The staff won the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting next year, citing "detailed coverage of the October 17, 1989, Bay Area earthquake and its aftermath." In 1990, Eisert was one of three judges who selected entries in a national exhibition of Women in Photojournalism that was taken on a national tour by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), a professional society of still and video photojournalists. In 1991, Eisert received
Major League Baseball on ABC 3 of the 1989 World Series (initially scheduled for October 17) was delayed by ten days due to the Loma Prieta earthquake. The earthquake struck at approximately 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time. At the moment the quake struck, ABC's color commentator Tim McCarver was narrating taped highlights of the previous Series game. Viewers saw the video signal begin to break up, heard McCarver repeat a sentence as the shaking distracted him, and heard McCarver's colleague Al Michaels exclaim, "I'll tell you what, we're having an earth—." At that moment, the feed from Candlestick Park was lost. The network put up a