PETCO: where the pets go

First, I nearly broke the sound barrier on the way from Vegas to San Diego. I left early Saturday morning after dropping Steve off at the airport and I didn’t hit a lick of traffic. I know there are mothers and small children out there reading this blog so for their sake I won’t tell you how fast I was going. But for all my boys out there, I made it in under 5 hours!! Super duper! Neato!

I’ve done the Grand Canyon and some national parks out west before so I’ve seen the landscapes…but they still impress me. It’s just nothing like what you find back east. I clocked some straightaways at over 10 miles! That just made me think of the course we used to run for high school track and how long it seemed…and now here it was, laid out directly in front of me. Plus all the mountain ranges and how they dwarf anything I had known as a “mountain” (i.e. the white mountains in New Hampshire). It’s all pretty cool.

Second, San Diego is INCREDIBLE! If you’re looking for a travel buddy, I really want to go back. While we’re at it, I’d also go on a trip back to Denver or Las Vegas. Keep me in mind! So I stayed near the “gaslamp district”… any of you San Diego-ites (San Diego-ins? San Diego-uns? …San Diegans!) might know what or where that is. It’s right by the water and they have street after street of nice restaurants, wine bars, pubs and attractions. I wanted to try them all and even ended up extending my stay in the city by a night. The weather was always perfect and the people were really friendly and wanted to know all about my trip. I need to get myself to a convention back there or something.

Third, I must apologize in advance for the length of this post and to those of you who haven’t seen the movie Anchorman with Will Ferrell. I’m mildly obsessed and I’ve been looking forward to writing this San Diego post for quite some time. If you have seen the movie, great! If you haven’t, go rent it and make sure to watch it more than once because I absolutely hated it the first time I saw it.

With that in mind, the following is based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed…

Game Notes:

I’m going to put something out there. If you like it you can keep it, if you don’t you can send it right back. Petco Park was absolutely breathtaking, I mean, that thing was good. I’m having a hard time believing anywhere else will top it. I did not give the park an “A+” because I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to hand out that grade. If I do decide to use that grade I reserve the right to return to this post and in my sole discretion change Petco’s grade to an “A+”.

Where do I start? To give you a bit of an insider’s look at these posts, I’ve taken roughly a page of notes per park and about 50-75 pictures. I then narrow down the pictures and try to touch on most of the notes in each post. Well, for Petco Park I filled two pages completely and took about 150 pictures! To give you perspective and maybe help hammer home a previous point, Dodger stadium started to spill onto the back of the first page and Angels stadium barely came through with 2/3 of one page…there just wasn’t that much to grab my attention.

Before we do anything else I think you should look at this picture. Obviously I wasn’t going to fit all of the cool things into one picture but this one does the best job. I may refer back to it a few times.


I found the right field gate and immediately upon entering the park I knew this place would be different. There were horses, a live band, people spread out eating picnic food on a grassy knoll and a man on fire! OK, no horses or burning people but this is a tremendous idea by the Padres. They charge people $5.00 and families can go sit together with their kids to eat (yes, they allow food in) and watch a game. Also, there is a full size little league field right next to the knoll for kids to get all the energy out of their system prior to first pitch. Here is their view.


Behind the grassy knoll are condos and office buildings that provide tenants/employees with great views of the game. There had to be a half dozen buildings (all fairly tall) that had great views of the stadium. What better way to spend a Thursday afternoon procrastinating then by watching a live baseball game? In front of the grassy knoll are bleachers with grass floors and a sandbox! No, I don’t have a family yet but when I do we’re coming back here. Everything you need is within a 200 ft. radius and to top it off they have a kids menu with exceptionally priced ballpark fare.























I HAVEN'T GOT 100 FT. INTO THE STADIUM AND ALREADY I'M WORKED UP! (lower your voice, Matt…)

Next…it had a theme! San Diego is pretty much the most south-westerly city in the country. When you walk into Petco, you know that. The entire stadium has a desert feel to it yet still welcomes you with open arms. The concession areas were filled with unique (if overpriced) food and drinks and for the most part had an open air element to them. Even the plain walls were dressed up with Padres paraphernalia or flowers or brightly colored trees.
























As I walked around the park I kept stumbling across more and more cool things. Take this picture for instance. There are two things to note. First, how great is this idea?! They had one of these scoreboards under every section on the lower level. Second, notice off to the right the HDTV that complemented every one of these scoreboards. I mean, by the beard of Zeus, I haven’t seen anything like that yet!

Another aspect of Petco Park that immediately grabbed my attention was how many unique viewing areas there were. If you look at the stadium view picture up top you can see a brick warehouse in left field, the private viewing party deck on top of that, the seats with flowers (similar to where Monster Seats at Fenway would be) in left center, the grassy knoll, bleachers and sandbox in right center as well as some of the condos that surrounded the park. Below, looking in the other direction you can see the awesome seats that stick out under the press box, some of a tower that sticks up above the stadium on each of the baselines and another view of the warehouse seats.

And on top of these there were so many more clubs, pavilions, decks, etc. to make fans feel special and give them a unique vantage of the game. I thought the Giants had done a lot with a “typical” stadium…but I did NOT see this coming; the Padres blew them out of the water.

How about the food? I can only say “well done, sir.” The drinks were overpriced, but that has been a bit of a theme, no?

Remember how I cut myself off from generic hot dogs or fake gimmicks like the “coliseum dog”? Well, the Padres offered a Diego Dog. It’s made with bits of real Padre, so you know it’s good. Get this…spicy sausage on a French bread roll with “secret sauce”, cabbage and salsa, then I added my own jalapeños. Tremendous! I’ve never had anything like it, especially at a baseball game. Definitely got an A.


When I sat down to enjoy my purchase I knew I wasn’t in the right section and, apparently, so did the ushers. I prepared to put my charm face on and tell the guy I was kind of a big deal. That my apartment spells of rich mahogany and that I’m friends with Riley Ohlson, who comes over on occasion…but I didn’t need to! I sat in the lower bowl on the third baseline in the middle of a section. An usher immediately came over to me and asked to see my ticket. I told him that wasn’t my section and he replied with “oh, that’s OK sir, can I just ask you to move to the end of the row?”!!!!!!! What the hell?! I wasn’t even mad, that’s amazing! We needed the Atlanta Nazis to take a break from their pledge drive to kick some ass, am I right? Of course I heeded his request and moved down the row. Then another usher came down and asked not to see my ticket but why the first usher had moved me there! She didn’t care that it wasn’t my section either, she was just curious as to why he had put me on “her half”. We all shared a chuckle (myself, the second usher and the two girls in front of me who had bought the $5.00 GA seats) and I went back to eating my Diego Dog. Way to stay classy and keep the fans happy San Diego!

After that I walked around a bit more and found out it was “adoption Sunday.” I hadn’t quite put together that “Petco Park” is the namesake of the PETCO pet store. Well, it is and they had a few “pound puppies” at the park waiting to be adopted. A great idea, compelling and rich.

I suppose I should wrap up the notes section and get to the high and low points…but I’m tellin ya, there weren’t too many low points.

High Points:

-I attended this game on Mother’s Day – happy mother’s day, mom! Love you :-)

-The whole park was clean and felt like new. The bathrooms were spotless, there was no trash in the concession areas and all the ushers were friendly and seamed to genuinely enjoy their job. What can I say? I like the way it’s put together.

-Kevin Kouzmanoff at the plate aaaaannnnnd, WHAMMY! He got a hit but was booed by the fans?? No wait, they’re not saying boo, they’re saying “KooooooooZ”, just like Kevin Yooookilis!

-I walked to the game but the parking garage directly next to the stadium only charged $10 to park and was half empty. Wow!

-Unlike the two LA games, fans were in their seats for the first pitch. It wasn’t a sellout but the number of fans did not dramatically increase over the first 3 innings. Also, everyone was really into the game. Fans again SANG take me out to the ballgame during the 7th inning stretch and they were right there with every pitch. At the end of the game people knew to stand up with 2 outs and 2 strikes without being prompted by the scoreboard. That was nice to see. Also, the place went bonkers during God Bless America for the Marines that had come to the game; loudest cheers all day actually.

-Every stadium has an area where you put your own condiments on your hot dog or hamburger or whatever. Well, Petco Park is the first one to include jalapenos standard. Also, 60% of the time, the regular hot dogs came on a sesame seed bun, every time.

-I noticed some people in the upper deck trying to get the wave started. It took them TWO (2) tries and the thing goes all the way around the park! I’m not the biggest fan of the wave and don’t participate all the time but that was damn impressive.

-The Diego Dog was delicious but boy was it filling!

-I got to catch up with old friends Cla Meredith and Bryan Corey who both pitched in the game

-Luke Carlin was called up and got his first major league hit during the game. Don’t you know the nice San Diegans gave him a standing “O”?

-Tony Gwynn shirts were everywhere. I know he’s an all around good guy but he retired years ago. It was nice to see he’s still remembered so fondly. They even gave him a statue.

-I’ve been to 10 parks now and the tickets at each of them have been the same, roughly, except for the background logo of each team. It may seem like a given at this point but even the Padres ticket was larger, on different paper and just cooler overall than any other ticket. It’s like they paid attention to every single little detail!

-I’ve seen this practice at other stadiums and sports but I’ve never seen one of these signs. It’s annoying to have to wait when returning to your seats but it’s 10 times more shitty to have someone returning to their seats with a full count and a runner on third, you know??

-This next high point goes to me. I learned a thing or two about “due diligence” from all of my mentors over the last few years. Well, I stumbled upon this place right outside the stadium.


Initially I was going to write a big thing about how they’re ripping off Cold Stone Creamery and how the similarities were too apparent and blah blah. Well, after I did a little research it turns out that Marble Slab was founded in Houston in 1983 while Cold Stone was discovered by the Germans in 1904. No, just kidding, it was born five years later in Tempe in 1988! Good thing I covered all of my bases on that one, eh? That way I can get it right when I say “Hey Cold Stone, you look like a blueberry!”

-This post is really getting long so I’m going to skip down to the low points. The bottom line though, when it comes to Petco Park is that I love, bleachers…I love, ushers…I love, Diego Dog (Matt, do you really love the Diego Dog or are you just saying that because you want one right now?) I LOVE DIEGO DOG!

Low Points:

-This section is not going to be easy to write, let’s see…

-They didn’t offer spicy mustard (though the jalapeños kind of made up for that).

-It was so damn hot that milk would have made for a poor choice.

-The drinking water in their fountains didn’t taste the best (I’m really grasping at straws here…).

-The aforementioned drink prices were a bit high but hot dogs were only $4.00. Not outrageous. Plus, the Diego Dog was Diegoliscious!

-I didn’t really like “Mrs. Padre” or whatever her name was. They should just stick with the friar and be done with it.

-The scoreboard again had to get the fans involved a little too much for my liking. They were into the game enough though.

-There were no commercials, nor was there any mercy.

-AND THAT’S IT!

Thanks for stopping by…

Overall Grade: A

Game Stats:

Teams: Padres vs. Rockies
Final Score: 6-1 Padres
WP: Chris Young
LP: Greg Reynolds
Time: 2:53
Announced Attendance: 28,624
Ticket Price: $14.00
Parking Price: N/A

Trip Stats:

Home team record: 6-4
Best Anthem: Tropicana Field
Miles Driven: 3280
States Visited: 7
Beds slept in: 13
Next Stop: Arizona Diamondbacks
Favorite Park: Petco Park (Padres)

Stadium Grades:
Marlins: D
Rays: B
Braves: B-
Rockies: B+
Mariners: B
Giants: A-
Athletics: C
Angels: B-
Dodgers: B+
Padres: A

Area 51

I’m temporarily going to go against the “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” creed and report on the Las Vegas 51’s game I made it to. The 51’s are the AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Steve and I took some time out from Sin City and met up with Liam and Shana for about 6-7 innings of what turned out to be a 12 inning game!

Game Notes:

We took a cab ride from the strip to Cashman Stadium which is right near Downtown Las Vegas and all of the older casinos. The funny part was when we walked up to get tickets and there were about 100 people in line. The line moved quickly enough but everyone killed time by drinking the beers they were holding in their hands, out in the open, in public. That was something I didn’t quite get used to in Vegas…the fact that you can walk down the street with an open container. Wild stuff.

Anyways, Steve and I had each just won some money (I won on the Sox and Celts and he won on the Red Wings) so we happily shelled out $8.00 for a game ticket and then found our way to the dollar beer station! Yes, that was a huge selling point for Liam to get us to come out. The food prices though, were not much better than the majors. I think the chicken fingers and fries basket ran us $6.00?

The stadium itself is small and cozy. It definitely feels like a minor league park. The outfield walls are littered with advertisements but the mountain backdrop certainly paints a pretty picture. I didn’t pay too much attention to the game but it was still nice to get out and see the stadium.

I took two shitty cell phone pictures:

Of the infield

And the outfield

High Points:

-Dollar Beer Night!

-John “WAYBACK!” Wasdin picked up the save for the Memphis Redbirds

Low Points:

-We didn’t stay until the 12th inning to see Wasdin get his save

-The cabbie on the ride back from Downtown to the Strip had an open bud light in his center console – oops, that’s not baseball! I guess what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas…

Overall Grade: N/A

Game Stats:

Teams: 51’s vs. Redbirds
Final Score: 4-3 Redbirds
WP: Not Sure
LP: Who Cares
S: John “WAYBACK!” Wasdin
Time: 3:19
Announced Attendance: 6,420
Ticket Price: $8.00
Parking Price: N/A

Trip Stats:

Home team record: N/A
Best Anthem: Tropicana Field
Miles Driven: Not Sure
States Visited: N/A
Beds slept in: N/A
Next Stop: San Diego Padres
Favorite Park: AT&T Park (Giants)

Stadium Grades:
Marlins: D
Rays: B
Braves: B-
Rockies: B+
Mariners: B
Giants: A-
Athletics: C
Angels: B-
Dodgers: B+

Hollywood Hills

***Editor’s Note: Just so we’re all clear, I’m not very good at this internet programming thing so I can’t really fix it but I want to make sure everyone is aware that if you cannot see some details in any of these pictures I’ve been posting you can click on it and it becomes mega-ultra huge in your browser. I’m not sure exactly how to get that right but at least you can see what I’m talking about!***

Steve and I made sure to leave plenty of time to get to the game because of the infamous LA traffic. We actually got there wicked early and were lead across acres of parking lot to go get tickets. I mean, this thing was BIG. I had heard a rumor that if one purchases a ticket in the upper deck at Dodger Stadium, one cannot view any of the park from any point other than that deck. Well, turns out to be true! You can enter at any gate with your section or higher (i.e. field level can enter via levels 1-4 but upper deck can only enter on level 4). I asked the ticket sales person about this and she informed me that they would not be able to keep tabs on people moving lower who had not paid for those seats. Fine, it makes complete sense and here we go again with the “running a business” thing but I had an immediate flashback to my Atlanta experience. Anyway, we decided to jump up in price a bit to get down to the 2nd deck from the field so we’d have access to 3 areas of the stadium.

We were still incredibly early so we went for a drive to kill time. We headed down Sunset “boolevahd” where I was able to snap a photo with a fantastically small HOLLYWOOD sign WAY in the distance. We also took a spin up in the Hollywood Hills. That was actually rather incredible. We were winding this way and that on the streets and some of the views that these people have are just sick. We were trying to guess how much some of these palaces would cost and no number seemed out of the question. Side note: the streets up there are so windy and narrow that I feared for my life around nearly every bend.

After enough time was killed we went back to the expanse of land that is the parking lots at Chavez Ravine and tailgated while we watched the Celts game. So what if we only had a bottle each and the blackberry was on “auto refresh” with score updates? We had a damn good time!

Eventually we met up with Vinny and headed into the game. Vinny is a Mets fan and was wearing the colors; more on that later.

Game Notes:

Dodgers Stadium is a bit older and out of the way and I really wasn’t expecting too much but the overall experience kind of surprised me, in a good way. Instead of sticking with the eyesore that is exposed concrete, the concession area is completely decked out with banners, pennants, logos, and posters with pictures of past and present player/manager types. Of course, this guy was featured prominently:

Immediately upon entering the Stadium the class separation becomes apparent. However, before we get to that…check out the colors here. I know the Dodgers go with the blue and white so they’d need to add more colors but is this the scheme they really want to go with? Seems a bit odd…maybe “chalk it up to the 70’s” and move on? OK, let’s do that.

Anyway, it was clear they were the Bourgeoisie, we were the proletariat (and who said I couldn’t get to use my Sociology degree?! Oh, right, that was me…). They lived out their champagne wishes and caviar dreams in first class luxury while we were stuck with “3 hots and a cot” down in steerage…or in this case, the upper deck.

“Matt, calm down, these people were 20 feet below you at a baseball game and they probably didn’t even pay for their tickets, I’m sure they knew a guy.”

“But these seats look so cool!”

My favorite part was the guards that were stationed outside all of these field boxes. Even if some of us commoners managed to wrangle our way down a level, weren’t none of us folk getting anywhere near them fancy seats! And while we’re on this point, check out the exotic vendors these people get to throw their money at:

After I cooled down a bit we checked out the rest of the stadium. I immediately started to get worked up again, this time about beer prices. Then I realized they served almost exclusively 24oz. portions (for $10…not bad). Dodger stadium has an extreme lack of public transportation access so it seemed a bit odd they’d want to serve that much alcohol…oh well, not my call. The rest of the concessions repeated themselves over and over again. Panda Express, Carl’s Jr. and the California Pizza Kitchen were around every corner. Definitely the most fast food joints I’ve seen at a stadium to this point. Of course they had standard ballpark fare as well and tried to get me on a “Dodger Dog” but after my “Coliseum Dog” in Oakland I was a more savvy consumer and found out that this time it would have been a regular hot dog again. No dice, buddy!

We had tickets right by the Mets’ bullpen, which Vinny was down with, so we didn’t move around too much until the later innings. Interesting to note the ushers had no problems with us taking the stairs UP.

High Points:

-I haven’t mentioned a national anthem in a while because the girl in Tampa really “blew it out da box, dawg” but the woman at Dodger Stadium was a very close second. She seemed like the type that came out to LA with big recording contract dreams but is still stuck in “the second deck” so to speak. Not quite “bourgeois,” if you will.

-Andruw Jones getting booed during pregame introductions, his first at bat and at every subsequent mention of his name. The Dodgers just agreed to give this guy $30M for the next two years. We’re a month into the season. He’s batting somewhere south of .200 and the fans are livid. Wow.

-The concessions not only had spicy mustard (I’m such a sucker), they also showed the Celts/Cavs game which we crowded around for the last 2 minutes.

-OK, I’m gullible. They got $12.00 for it but it was 24oz. and it lit up!

Wait…here it is in the dark:

-A graphic about Luis Castillo was shown on the scoreboard in an early inning. It said something to the effect of “During 2003, 2004 and 2005 Castillo hit….” Well, later in the game that same stat was put on the board but this time it read “From 2003 – 2005 Castillo hit…” Way to go scoreboard guys! Someone was paying attention.

-We moved up to the very top deck for the 9th inning and when the Mets started to mount a comeback Vinny started a “let’s go Mets” chant! We were loud and banging on the seats so of course we immediately drew the ire of the LA fans. They were not pleased with us and told me I was wearing the wrong hat but I’d say that was a high point :)

Low Points:

-When Steve and I showed up really early we were actually trying to find out which gate to go in for the game and the stadium was completely open. We walked right into the concession area and I’m pretty sure we could have hid in the bathroom until game time if we had wanted. The security was pretty lax overall I’d say. (low point because we wasted money on tickets!)

-Remember the bullpen oasis in Colorado? Dodger Stadium tried to make their own and it didn’t come out nearly as well. Also, doesn’t the pitcher’s arm look cool?

-I’ve mentioned the shuffle game that happens at pretty much every stadium. A ball is hidden under a hat and they are mixed up and the fans need to choose which hat it’s under with their cheers. This was the easiest freakin’ hat shuffle I’ve ever seen! The hats went so slow yet everyone was patting themselves on the back when they chose correctly. That was just kind of weird.

-After my great bathroom discovery in Oakland the Dodgers go and pull the same trick. So much for that idea…I’ll spare you the visual this time.

-The LA fans again lived up to their “show up late, leave early” reputation. The 3rd-7th innings were crowded though!

-They spelled Dippin’ Dots wrong!

-Not really a low point again but the outfield looked like a minor league stadium. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Here’s the full thing:

Overall Grade: B+

Game Stats:

Teams: Dodgers vs. Mets
Final Score: 5-4 Dodgers
WP: Hong-Chih Kuo
LP: Nelson Figueroa
S: Takashi Saito
Time: 3:21
Announced Attendance: 43,927
Ticket Price: $30.00
Parking Price: $15.00

Trip Stats:

Home team record: 5-4
Best Anthem: Tropicana Field
Miles Driven: 2660
States Visited: 6
Beds slept in: 10
Next Stop: San Diego Padres
Favorite Park: AT&T Park (Giants)

Stadium Grades:
Marlins: D
Rays: B
Braves: B-
Rockies: B+
Mariners: B
Giants: A-
Athletics: C
Angels: B-
Dodgers: B+

California Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Orange County Los Angeles

Karen and I have had our first fight. When I was leaving San Francisco to drive down to LA I knew I wanted to take the highway that runs along the coast because everyone says it’s so gorgeous. Well, Karen did not think this was the best way for me to head south because of the much quicker freeway that cuts down the middle of the state. She was rather indignant when she would announce “recalculating” after I’d miss yet another turn off. This was my one chance to see the California coast though and I wasn’t going to miss it for some machine. Eventually Karen got so angry with me that she shut herself off! And I don’t mean emotionally, I mean literally, just turned off. I knew she probably needed some time for herself so I waited until the afternoon when I was much closer to LA before I turned her on again. Things are better now but that first fight is always a bit rough, you know?

The coast road was all I was told it would be. I can put up some pictures in that “miscellaneous adventures” post I promise I’ll get to. I picked up Steve at LAX and we were off to his aunt and uncle’s house for a few days to see the Angels and Dodgers games.

Game Notes:

I went to the Angels game early with Steve and his uncle Harry (and we met up with the rest of the fam later at the game because they have season tickets (by the way, buy 2 get 2 on those tickets…wow!)). It was a day game that started at 12:45 and I’ve been trying to get to the stadiums early to check them out. We were trying to find a little food for brunch and quickly found our options to be limited. We were forced to go to the Hooters near the park. Such a shame. We all ordered wings; I went with the 3-mile island (2nd hottest) and in retrospect should have got the 911 (hottest). The waitresses were nice though, all 27 of them.

OK OK, on to baseball. The stadium and its grounds reminded me a bit of LA generally, just a lot of sprawl. The surrounding parking lots were massive and it took a while to walk to the stadium. The entrance is pretty cool though.


As you approach the gate you walk onto a full size baseball field with red and green bricks laid out to mirror the grass and dirt of the field. At every position there is a section of the bricks with the names of the opening day starter for the last 40+ years. Here’s 3rd base:



We went to the game on McDonald’s Family Sunday. Ironically there was not a McDonald’s anywhere at the park. That also meant the place was filled with kids and families. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of little leaguers wearing their uniforms as they got to walk in a parade around the warning track. To go along with that theme, Angels Stadium was another that was very kid/family oriented (most likely due to the whole Disney affiliation thing). They had games and activities just like a lot of the other recent parks but I’ll spare you all the visual this time!

The game itself was pretty good. The Angels jumped on Steve Trachsel early and everyone loves offense - side note, how does this guy still have a job? It seems like every year he catches on with someone and he’s given ANOTHER shot. He’s horrible! (http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/trachst01.shtml) We were able to move around the upper deck pretty easily without getting hassled by the ushers. The food and drink prices were fairly reasonable ($6.50 for a 21oz beer and $3.00 for a hot dog) and the concession areas were all very clean and “new” feeling.

I know I have a lot of people reading this who are Angels fans and I don’t want to step on any toes but I have to say there was nothing about the stadium that really grabbed my attention and drew me in. I didn’t have any big problems with anything but there also was no signature “thing” to make the park memorable compared to anywhere else.

While we’re at it…

High Points:

-This was really funny. Erica pointed it out to me after the game. For those of you that don’t buy fitted hats you may not be in on the joke but for those that have, share a chuckle with me.

-For some reason I really liked the bleachers in right field. They’re pretty big and reminded me a little of Fenway. It seems a bit odd that this would be a high point but I just liked them, so there.

-This was pretty cool. They had about 6-7 current Angels players with their little league photos and stats from when they were just starting out. I haven’t seen that anywhere else and I thought it was a good idea.

-Everyone had their rally monkeys ready to go. Turns out they weren’t necessary but it was certainly a pervasive feature of the park. Erica had hers ready just in case.

Low Points:

-One of the first things you see when you walk up is a big "No Scalping" sign…you can’t resell your tickets at ANY price! How about if your friend has to bail and you just want to unload the ticket for $10? Nope.

-I know this happens at a lot of parks but the scoreboard was leading most of the cheers in Anaheim

-The anthem itself was OK but a.) they shot off fireworks that I really was not prepared for and b.) the stupid Orioles fans in attendance all shouted their signature “OHHH” when it’s time for “O say, can you see…” I got so sick of that when I’d go to Sox/Orioles games in Maryland. Not the Angels fault but still a low point of the day for me.

-It’s an LA thing and it happened at the Dodgers game too but let’s just say the stadium was MUCH more crowded for innings 3-7 than for the others.

-Mr. Scoreboard operator was having a bit of an off day. Note the stats large in the center and on the lower right…supposed to be the same guy.

Overall Grade: B-

Game Stats:

Teams: Angels vs. Orioles
Final Score: 6-5 Angels
WP: Joe Saunders
LP: Steve Trachsel
S: Francisco Rodriguez
Time: 2:53
Announced Attendance: 39,273
Ticket Price: $12.00
Parking Price: N/A (drove to the game but parked at a nearby bar for free)

Trip Stats:

Home team record: 4-4
Best Anthem: Tropicana Field
Miles Driven: 2660
States Visited: 6
Beds slept in: 10
Next Stop: Los Angeles Dodgers
Favorite Park: AT&T Park (Giants)

Stadium Grades:
Marlins: D
Rays: B
Braves: B-
Rockies: B+
Mariners: B
Giants: A-
Athletics: C
Angels: B-

Oakland Athletics

A boring stadium gets a boring title.

As Dave said, this may just be one that I check the box and move on. I rode the trolley cars up and down the hills of San Fran before the game and it was more exciting than McAfee Coliseum. I hopped on the subway over to Oakland and it was actually really nice but hindsight says I probably should have taken the Golden Gate Bridge over to the game. I ended up getting a bunch of pictures from afar but never driving over it. Oh well.

Game Notes:



On the way in I saw two signs that made me regret my scheduling choice. First, EVERY Wednesday the A’s have a promotion where patrons are only charged $2 for tickets in certain sections and everyone can buy $1 hot dogs!! After Tampa I said I wouldn’t see that again, and even though I didn’t…it exists! Also, I went to a Friday night game but on the following Sunday they were giving away retro jerseys to the first 10,000 fans! That’s a heck of a promotion if you ask me.

The Athletics share the Coliseum with the Oakland Raiders and, much like the Marlins, it is definitely a football stadium. The entire place is very hollow, echo-y, windy and unfriendly. I found myself repeating over and over again “well, they did what they could.” I took a lap around the upper deck first and came upon a crazy usher who took my picture and told me her life story at the same time.

She works both A’s games and Raiders games. She likes the football much more because it’s crowded and she works in a “pretty rowdy” section in the upper deck. I won’t recount the rest of our ten minute conversation because it bored me to tears. She did point out the all-you-can eat section for $30 though. I’ve been seeing more and more of those, maybe I’ll have to try one for a game. Thoughts??

Continuing on my loop I made this happy discovery:

Round 1, game 6 was playing on TVs throughout the park! I’ll give them points for that one. The unfortunate part was that they cut it off in the 3rd quarter when the baseball game was about to start.

It turns out Seattle wasn’t so special with the garlic fries. Both San Fran and Oakland offered the same thing, maybe it’s a west coast thing? They also did what they could with the food they offered. Something I hadn’t seen offered at a baseball game was a baked potato! You could get it made 6 ways to Sunday…or maybe just 4 different combos. I went with the broccoli and cheddar. They didn’t specify the “cheddar” was “wiz”

I was able to move around pretty freely before and during the game. The ushers didn’t seem to mind that much and there weren’t enough of them to keep tabs on the entire crowd.

High Points:

-For as empty as the park was, the best part had to be the fans and the buzz they created throughout the entire game. In both left field and right field there were some super fans that were dressed to the hilt, waved flags, beat drums, blew horns and went ballistic for much of the game. Aside from that, the rest of the crowd was actually really engaged in the game. People SANG “take me out to the ball game” during the 7th inning stretch instead of the usual muddling through of the half hum/half mumble version. That was refreshing and reminded me of Fenway when I was growing up.

-Also, and almost inexplicably, the fans at McAfee Coliseum were passionately into the “pog race” between one of the innings.

Initially I was furious that this race was being completed by “pogs” which were just red white and blue discs. At all the other stadiums, a graphically enhanced version of this race was completed by cartoon speedboats, zany characters or condiment bottles. I soon realized I had been suckered in and that the graphical representation of the racing piece mattered absolutely zero. The outcome was still predetermined and it could have been 3 dining room chairs, a knife fork and spoon or 3 blind mice and it wouldn’t have mattered. After that I felt better. I’m sure Chip is nodding his head in approval right now.

***DISCLAIMER: Apologies in advance to those who are easily offended. Please realize you are reading this blog of your own free will and the purveyor of its contents cannot be held responsible for any emotional damage hereby caused. If you have any reservations about continuing on please exit your browser window now or skip down to the “Low Points” section of the post***

This was friggin funny

The last time I saw a urinal trough was in Europe and before that, Fenway. It brought back childhood memories of Fenway Park and I knew immediately that it MUST be included in the “High Points” section of this blog :-)

Low Points:

-I know teams don’t control weather…but it was FREEZING and far too windy for my liking.

-The cheese wiz on the baked potato helped nobody out that evening. Also, I was totally swindled on my hot dog purchase. I’ve scaled back and decided only to get a dog or sausage or whathaveyou (and everythingandstuff!) if it has ties to the team or park (i.e. a “Rockies Dog”). So at the A’s game I got the “Coliseum Dog” for five bucks. It’s just a larger freaking hot dog! WTF? Not cool, Oaktown.

-I was planning on moving around during the game (and did so) but I had to make an early exit from my first section I settled into because of all the kids. I guess some entire area little league program had tickets to that night’s game. There were three sections COMPLETELY filled and then there were maybe 50-60 people in the rest of the sections of the park. I was actually booted from seats twice because so many people were filling in. I got outta there in a hurry.

-The mascot, “Stompy the Elephant”, just rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t like his antics.

-Again, not completely the A’s fault, but I couldn’t get change on the subway if I wanted to buy a $4.00 ticket. All I had were $10/$20 bills so I had to buy something before I left the park. I bought an $8 shot glass and I’m not happy with it.

-Not a low point, but here’s the full stadium:

Overall Grade: C

Game Stats:

Teams: Athletics vs. Rangers
Final Score: 4-3 Rangers
WP: Vicente Padilla
LP: Joe Blanton
S: C.J. Wilson
Time: 2:41
Announced Attendance: 15,408
Ticket Price: $9.00

Parking Price: N/A

Trip Stats:

Home team record: 3-4
Best Anthem: Tropicana Field
Miles Driven: 2205
States Visited: 6
Beds slept in: 8
Next Stop: California Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Orange County Los Angeles
Favorite Park: AT&T Park (Giants)

Welcome to the Rock!!

1.) Apologies to all for falling behind. Internet access hasn’t been as readily available as anticipated.

2.) This post will contain no further references to the movie “The Rock”, nor will it discuss the island of Alcatraz.

3.) I did get to visit the island and though it may not seem like it, on my tour I’ve done other non-baseball-related activities too but haven’t put them in a post yet. As I’ve fallen 3 games behind I promise I will get to a “miscellaneous adventures” posting or two but it’ll probably have to wait a bit.

4.) The drive from Seattle to northern California was gorgeous. It actually reminded me a lot of rt. 88 in upstate NY with the tree covered mountains and concrete pavement. The vast stretches of farmland were a nice touch as well.

5.) I stopped in wine country (Napa Valley specifically) on my way to San Francisco. I visited 5 wineries and took a ride on the Napa Valley Wine Train where they served various wines with a gourmet lunch and we got a private tasting at Grgich Hills winery. Further details about those and other stories are going to have to wait for the “miscellaneous adventures” post.

6.) I drove into San Fran with rush hour traffic and that sucked but I was trying to make it to a 12:45 Giants game so I didn’t really have another choice. I was able to check into my (wicked swank!) hotel a bit early and headed down to the water and Candlestick Park...wait, I mean Pac Bell…wait, I mean AT&T Park…

Game Notes:


San Francisco has a pretty robust public transportation system. I could walk to the park from my hotel but there were both trains and busses that were letting people off right at the stadium. The first thing I noticed was a big statue of Willie Mays.


This kid was either rude or oblivious…or a little of column A and a little of column B. I was clearly snapping a photo of the statue when he walked over from directly behind me and parked himself there with his paper. He didn’t leave for a solid minute or two so I had to move on. Thanks a lot.

I took a spin around the outside of the park and headed over to the famed McCovey Cove. I took some pictures but they’re kind of boring because the cove wasn’t filled with kayaks and dingy boats waiting for a Bonds home run. On the outside of the park there were all kinds of signs commemorating the Giants’ 50 years in San Francisco…same as the Dodgers in LA…good for them.

The funniest thing at AT&T Park was this sign.


Shoulda said: “Patrons of AT&T Park (hereinafter the “Stadium”) shall watch out for any and all objects, articles and projectiles, which objects, articles and projectiles may or may not be flying, traveling or moving forward or backward at a rate of speed which may or may not be considered high. Objects, articles and projectiles shall include but not be limited to baseballs and bats, the origin of which shall be the Stadium.” …or something like that.

That would have cleared things up.

I headed inside and immediately stumbled upon the second funniest thing at AT&T.


Really?

REALLY??

Yeesh.

Almost everything else about the park was really cool. After Atlanta, Colorado and Seattle I was getting a little worried that I was going to see the same thing over and over and over again. The field dimensions, in terms of the seats, were extremely similar and the layouts of the concession areas were starting to blur together. AT&T changed that. You CAN use the area around the park to your benefit (as the Rockies did with the surrounding mountains). The walkway by the bay and the backdrop behind the outfield is gorgeous. You CAN have a park that functions like many other of the new parks, yet feels unique at the same time. The concession areas were extra large and unique booths could be found around the entire park and on multiple levels in the outfield. The food offerings were the most interesting I’ve seen to this point with chowder and other seafood, coffee, tacos/burritos, brauts and many other options to go along with the typical ballpark fare.

Most of the parks I’ve seen have dedicated little kid areas. Maybe I’ll eventually stop including pictures of these things but not until I’m over the phenomenon. Maybe it’s just because Fenway doesn’t have them but I’m still fascinated.

I wish I could have done something like this, but alas…


Again, no short jokes please.

High Points:

-It really is a pretty stadium.

-AT&T Park is the first park to offer Guldens’ spicy mustard. Everywhere else has plain boring yellow. VERY high point for this guy.

-This is sort of a ‘tweener but the park had some expensive drinks ($10.00 Jack and Coke, $7.75 16oz. beer) but the food was relatively cheap ($4.00 hot dog).

-They had various stations for kids to play video games. Note the score.


-It wasn’t the Giants’ doing but I had glorious weather for this game. Perfect temperature with a little breeze and hardly a cloud in the sky. I hope that doesn’t skew the final grade!

-Not quite monster seats but these were in right field above the scoreboard. I really liked them because of the relative privacy, easy access, clear view and how close they are to the action. I didn’t pay for tickets but I sat in these seats for a half inning.



-Ushers were MUCH nicer here than Atlanta (not hard) and most other places. There were just enough fans to make it a good game (i.e. they cheered on their team loudly, even when NOT prompted by a video board!), but there were still enough empty seats to move about freely. To go along with this point, there were a LOT of people keeping score. San Fran fans seemed to know their baseball.

-Most concessions have either the radio broadcast or TVs showing the game while fans wait in line. The Giants have HDTVs for their fans! Hoo-raay HD!

-I had a braut (I think it’s the same as a sausage?) with kraut, onions, mustard and BBQ sauce! It was different and it was good.

-I thought the cashier mischarged me but when I ordered a beer up in the top level and she said $5.25! It was only 12oz. but relative to the other prices around the park that seemed like a good deal.

Low Points:

-The drink prices really were a bit high I think.

-I walked up to a beer stand with two elderly vendors working it. I asked them if they knew how many ounces were in the beers they were selling and I was met with a flat “no” and a stare. That wasn’t too “fan-friendly” if you ask me. It’s written on the bottom of the cup fercryinoutloud!

-The jerk with the paper in front of the Willie Mays statue.

-All the corporations who keep buying stadiums and changing their names. I was just getting used to Pac Bell when they go and change it to AT&T. I know there were other names too…just can’t think of them off the top of my head.

-I know California has earthquakes but did we really need a solid 5 minute video explanation of the evacuation route for every single section in the park??

Overall Grade: A-

Game Stats:

Teams: Giants vs. Rockies
Final Score: 3-2 Giants
WP: Merkin Valdez
LP: Ryan Speier
S: Brian Wilson
Time: 2:52
Announced Attendance: 30,509
Ticket Price: $15.25
Parking Price: N/A

Trip Stats:

Home team record: 3-3
Best Anthem: Tropicana Field
Miles Driven: 2205
States Visited: 6
Beds slept in: 8
Next Stop: Oakland Athletics
Favorite Park: AT&T Park (Giants)

1000 Pardons...

Dear All,

Internet access (at least with my laptop) has been hard to come by lately. I've found a public machine to check my email but not to hook up my computer with all the pictures and witty repartee.

I realize I've fallen behind in my duties and I will post the latest reviews ASAP.

Kind Regards,

Mgmt.