Across the tracks along Harbor Avenue. Note the homeless person sleeping next to the fence. There were about twenty of them in the one block I walked from the parking garage to the grade crossing at the ballpark entrance. If you’re going to be homeless and sleep on the street San Diego is a good place to do it. You wouldn’t know it from this shot, but it’s an attractive palm-lined street.
The glamour shot of the entrance.
There’s an outfield flower garden section, and a kid’s sandlot playground.
Note the angled seats. Everyone faces the pitcher (Larry Lucchino, weren’t you involved in the design of Petco?)
These two leather reclining chairs are actual seats right past the left field foul pole in the porch of the Western Metal Supply Building.
The outfield has picnic garden and open-air amphitheater seating. Everything looks new except for the old Western Metal Supply building which is part of the park, with bleacher seating on the roof and porch seating attached to the first three floors. The foul pole is the corner of the building.
The Padres catcher is Josh Bard, wearing the same #28 that he wore with the Red Sox. Bard was traded to San Diego in exchange for Doug Mirabelli. Turned out Bard couldn’t catch a Tim Wakefield knuckleball so the Red Sox traded him to get Mirabelli back to be Wakefield’s personal catcher. A year later Bard was the Padres leading hitter and Mirabelli, hitting .178, was released. The year after that Bard hit only .108 and was released, only to be picked up again by the Red Sox.
The out-of-town scoreboard also has a field level video screen.
A friendly usher took this. The scorecard I’m holding is in Spanish.
I was a speaker at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas. The session was on how programmers can effectively communicate with engineers. I had flown out with a long layover in Seattle where I caught an afternoon Mariners–Angels game, then on to Vegas. My return flight involved a layover in San Diego, followed by a redeye to Boston. So I knocked off two more ballparks without having to pay for the trip.
The Rockies were in town, and Colorado’s Matt Holliday got some boos when he came to bat. Holliday had scored the winning run in a one-game playoff for the NL Wildcard the previous fall. Colorado then went on to their only trip to the World Series, where they were swept by the
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