Park #7

August 12, 2005: San Diego, California
Oh my, San Diego’s PETCO Park is sweet. For those of you who don’t know, San Diego is German for whale’s…….well, you’ve either seen Anchorman, or you are stupid. The park is only two years old and it is just phenomenal. Now in order to get to the stadium, which is downtown, most people take the trolley, which is a rail train that takes you to about one block away from the stadium. And as you get off the trolley, you see that downtown San Diego is just covered with modern looking condos and hotels. Apparently some of these condos are selling for over a million dollars, its crazy. So, as you are passing all these fancy condos, you turn the corner, and the stadium is right there, smack dab in the middle of everything downtown. And this stadium just completely goes with the whole décor that downtown has. The stadium’s foundation is these giant sand colored limestone blocks that makes the stadium fit in with everything around it. I was shocked at how awesome it looked. As you go around the exterior of the stadium, there are these giant steel fences which are kind of an eyesore; I mean, I know their purpose is to keep people out, but they are not inconspicuous at all, and frankly look pretty stupid.
As you get into the stadium, the fun doesn’t stop. The first thing I saw was the speed pitch machine, you know, that thing that measures how fast you throw the ball. Well, get this, they also had a batting cage where you could hit off real major league pitchers. This is a stroke of genius. You get into the cage, and they show a video of Roger Clemens (or a few others to pick from) throwing the ball to the plate, and the exact point where his hand is when he releases the ball has a small hole in it on the screen. So, the ball comes out of that hole. It was insane.
PETCO park has some very interesting seating choices as well. If you go out into center field, there is a giant open area for people who buy standing room only seats. This area is huge, they have a sand pit for kids to play in, a place to watch the game, and a mini baseball diamond so you can play catch and run around. It was huge. The sandpit goes right up against the home run fence in right center. So, as you are watching the game, you see these kids playing the sand right past the home run area, this is totally a lawsuit waiting to happen. I can just see it now “8 children beaned by home run balls in PETCO”. Behind the sand pit of doom, there is an area where you can watch the game, which is pretty much a bunch of benches to watch the game from. You had a pretty good view from these seats, and for the standing room only price, they were really worth it.
I knew that we were in for a good game from the outset because of who sang the national anthem. Get ready Ivan! It was the rock star who no one has heard about since 1994: John Popper, from Blues Traveler. He didn’t actually sing the national anthem, but played it on a harmonica, and it was pretty good. Also, that guy lost a ton of weight. I mean, he used to be huge, and now he looked like a regular guy, I was impressed.
The game itself got off to a quick start. In the first inning, Jake Peavy gave up a 3-run homer to Pat Burrell on a pitch that Oldy von Oldstein could have put into the seats. Then in the bottom of the first, the Padres got one run. So at the end of the first inning the score was 3-1, and I thought it was gonna be a high-scoring game. No way, the final was 3-2. Jake Peavy settled down and I think got 10 Ks in 7 innings, and I think he threw 120 pitches, which is unheard of in today’s day and age. Jon Lieber, for the Phillies, (who I hate) was solid as well. There was also a plethora of ex-Indians: Dave Roberts, Brian Giles, Kenny Lofton, I felt like I was taken back to Jacobs Field, circa 1997. I was convinced Chad Ogea was gonna come out and pitch in relief.
As for the food. When I saw the hot dog at the park, I thought it was nothing special, just a regular hot dog. But I was wrong, not only was the hot dog very moist and juicy, but the bun has sesame seeds on it, which added some extra goodness, AND the fixins bar for the hot dog had jalepenos on it. So after adding enough jalepenos to give even a Mexican heartburn, I had the hot dog, it was pretty good. Not the best, but I was definitely surprised. I looked around my section to see if there were any stadium foods unique to San Diego, but I really didn’t see any. Oh well.
I was at the game with my buddy Navin who lives out here, and our seat neighbors were very interesting. First of all, the 10-year old in front of us with his parents was a genuine piece of crap. The kid would yell to every player on the Phillies “YOU SUCK” at the top of his lungs every time the player would get up. It was funny at first, but it got really old, and his parents were too drunk to really care. This kid was so annoying. And after all his yelling, he turns around to his parents at the end of the game and says “I want some sugar, cause this game is not very sweet.” I wanted to punch the kid right in the spinal cord, I mean, come on.
The people behind us were MUCH better. It was these five cute girls who all were visiting from Kansas City. They were probably a few years younger than me, and from the minute they sat down, Navin and I felt special. They didn’t join the game til the 5th inning, but you could already tell they had been partying for awhile. They were given us high-5s and cheering about Cleveland (cause I told them I was from Cleveland) and all that good stuff. So Navin and I were talking to them about what they were doing after the game, and seeing if they wanted to go drinking with us, and we were working it. But it wasn’t meant to be, around the 8th inning, they started to lose steam. Two of them had passed out, two of the others were taking care of the passed out ones, and the 5th one spent an entire inning drunk dialing her boyfriend and kept saying how much she missed him. So, that plan went up in smoke. Oh well.
All in all, it was a very impressive stadium that really fit well with its location. You could really tell that the community defines the stadium, not an attempt at the other way around. After much deliberation and a long conference with my panel of judges (which consists of Colonel Sanders, Dave Chappelle, and Joey Budafuco) I have decided to give PETCO park an A-. I still think the name of the stadium is idiotic, but it is a pretty bad ass place.