Petco Park – page 2

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The Essentials

So Petco looks good … but how well does it treat the baseball fans flocking to it? Let’s take a look at the things that really matter to the ticket buyers: the prices; the seats; the souvenirs; diversions for the kids and, very importantly, the food!

First, is Petco Park an expensive place to take your family to a ballgame? Well, yes. Compared to the new parks in other non-large-market cities like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Milwaukee, the ticket prices in San Diego strike me as being higher. Let’s compare the 2004 prices in these four cities. This chart provides the prices for field boxes (the ones not right along the backstop that law firms and corporations gobble up, but still in the infield) and for reserved seats behind home in the upper deck:

Want to see a game at Petco but need to spend a little less? Here are some ideas. First, bleacher seats are $8, and are about as close to the field as at any park. In fact, there’s a see-through fence in right field, and you sit right behind it (starting at the level of the field itself) to watch the action. This area is also ideal if you have younger kids, since there is a massive sand box right behind the fence — meaning you can watch the game through the fence and keep an eye on your youngsters happily building sand castles at the same time. Second, general admission tickets are only $5, and you can bring a blanket and sit out on the grass in the Park at the Park, or you can take up residence at one of the wonderful vantage points around the park to stand and watch the game. Third, the Padres’ website presents fans with the opportunity to buy single-game seats from season-ticket holders who won’t be attending a certain game through the Padres Ticket Marketplace. You have nothing to lose by giving it a shot, and it doesn’t cost anything to poke around and see what’s available.

Standing room tip

If you have a general admission ticket, try this: go all the way to the back of the main souvenir shop on the ground floor of the Western Metal Supply Co. building. You’ll find ramps that lead you to a wonderful area behind the see-through fence in left field. It’s a great vantage point!

There are three seating decks at Petco, and as is the case at most of the newer baseball-only parks, almost all of the seats have a great view of the field and make you feel close to the action. No other park, though, can match Petco in one regard: the upper decks are incredibly close to the action. In an engineering feat that should delight San Diego’s fans, the superstructure that supports the upper decks provides cantilevering that is 56 feet long, which pushes these decks out much closer to the field. Engineering News Record calls it the “biggest deck cantilever in major league ball.” Without a doubt, the proximity of the middle and upper decks to the field adds significantly to the intimacy of the park.

You might want to shy away from the left-field lower boxes ($20), though. They are great for snagging batting-practice home runs, but once the game starts, you’ll miss not being able to see any of the main scoreboard or video screens. Some of these seats can see TVs, but not all of them. A nice plus is that all of the non-bleacher seats at Petco have cup holders.

While tickets are pretty pricey, I found parking to be somewhat less expensive than at other Major League parks, where $15-20 to park within a couple of blocks of the stadium is not uncommon (before going to a game at Fenway, just remember to open a home-equity loan before leaving your house, because you’ll need it when it’s time to park your car). In San Diego there is a parking garage on the east side of the park where they charge $12, and four-to-five blocks away there are lots that charge $8. You can also consider taking the city’s famous trolley system, especially if you are staying at a hotel near one of the trolley lines. I did this, and while it wasn’t ultra-fast, it was pretty economical. Note that if you’re coming to San Diego from the north or east, you can park for free at the Padres’ old home, Qualcomm Stadium, and then take a $2.25 ride on the trolley to the new ballpark.

In taking the trolley home or to your hotel after a night game, security could be a concern, especially since it seemed to me that there are a lot of homeless and pan-handlers in downtown San Diego. Here is my experience: in and around the main transfer station just to the southeast of the park, there were security personnel and policemen every three feet, or so it seemed. However, once you arrived at your desired station and left the train, there were no security personnel in sight, and it was a little scary.

The Hall of Fame Bar and Grill retains the rustic charm of the Western Metal Supply Company building and even offers a patio that looks down onto the field. On the right, “the Beach” is a kid’s dream — an almost endless sandbox!

Souvenir stands are scattered throughout the stadium, with the main shop — billed as the largest in the Majors — located on the bottom level of the Western Metal Supply Company building in left field. The 7,000-square-foot store itself is beautiful, especially since much of the rustic feel of the 1909 building was retained. The price of the merchandise, though, was definitely 2004 — or (way) beyond. I never expect to find bargains, or even reasonably priced merchandise, at Big League stores, but the pricetags here establish new boundaries. Short-sleeve T-shirts were routinely $26 and $28. Even the lapel pin I purchased (I collect them) was $10, and I don’t think I’d ever seen them cost more than $8 elsewhere.

With ticket and merchandise prices this high, you might expect the cost of concessions to be high, too. Well, you’d be right. Again, I don’t think expensive food at ballparks shocks anyone any more, but I think these prices push the limits of being reasonable. A bag of peanuts is $4.50, and all burgers — including meatless “veggie burgers” (I had one. It was meatless and fairly tasteless) — are $5.50. One of the lightest-weight (non-kiddie) hot dogs I’ve encountered anywhere was $3.50. I was thrilled to find a root beer float at a stand, but the cost of $5.00 and its fairly small size dampened my enthusiasm.

Ballpark delicacy

In my book, Joe Mock’s Ballpark Guide, I raved about the fish tacos at the Padres’ old park, Qualcomm Stadium. Well, thankfully, those delicacies are on the menu at the La Comida food stands at Petco Park.

However, the quality and variety of the food, for the most part, are simply outstanding. Sportservice holds both the concession and souvenir contracts at Petco, and while they charge an arm and a leg, their quality is very good. You will find not only the standard ballpark fare, but also deli sandwiches, grilled specialties, Mexican food and an old favorite, Rubio’s Fish Tacos (see sidebar). A BBQ stand will also operate behind the batter’s eye area in center field, but it hadn’t opened yet during my early-season visit to Petco.

There are several sit-down eating areas at the park (in addition to the lavish ones that are only for club-seat holders), my favorite being the Hall of Fame Bar and Grill on the top floor of the Western Metal Supply Company building. Get there early for a table out on the patio where you can see the field.

Petco Park is also more kid-friendly than most parks. In addition to the area called “The Beach” (the enormous sandbox between the bleachers and the right-field fence), there is also an extensive playground on the far end of the Park at the Park where parents can keep an eye on the game by watching the huge video screen on the back of the batter’s eye. Underneath the stands near the right-field foul pole is an area called the Kids Zone with video games and pitching and hitting machines. It looks like more attractions will be added here as time goes by.

In addition to the handy video board for those out on the grass, there are a number of other high-tech video screens and scoreboards. The main information center is above and behind the left-field upper boxes. The main black-and-white message board at the top provides more than the normal amount of data, including the batting team’s line-up. Below that is an enormous “Friar Vision” high-resolution screen for replays, photos of the players and commercials. The out-of-town scores are displayed on the scoreboard built into the right-field fence close to the foul pole, and the auxiliary scoreboard on the left-field fence also includes the pitch count and speed of pitch. Oh, and those bright, colorful “ribbon” video screens that have become so popular at hockey arenas are located on the facing of the upper decks down the first-base and third-base lines. They look especially good during the National Anthem.

Sliding into Home — In conclusion

In moving from Qualcomm Stadium, a football field that has hosted the Super Bowl, to Petco Park, the Padres saw the seating capacity drop by more than 20,000. This is by no means a bad thing, especially in this “less is more” era in which we live, as fewer seats can often mean increased demand. The key factor in the decreased seating capacity, though, is that it makes the Padres’ new ballpark what it should be: intimate. As intimate as Fenway, Wrigley or PNC Park? No, but more intimate than perhaps the other 26 parks currently in the Majors.

This intimacy is one facet of the “special” nature of this park, and this is very important to me. Baseball is at its best when its venue specifically accommodates the National Pastime. That’s one reason multi-use “doughnut” stadiums lost their luster long before the buildings themselves became obsolete. Make no mistake about it: Petco Park gets an “A” for making sure the setting and the facility are perfectly suited for baseball. In fact, the fans of San Diego should feel enormously proud of their new ballpark, as it is near the top of the heap of all of the new facilities in the Majors.

Frankly, other than charging less for the seats, food and souvenirs, I’m not sure how Petco could be improved upon. That’s why it was named BASEBALLPARKS.COM’s Best New Ballpark for 2004! The plaque to the right was presented to Padres’ president Dick Freeman in a pre-game ceremony on September 6th.