Pac Bell Ballpark

From Ballpark Roadtrip

Pacific Bell Park

San Francisco, CA

Colorado Rockies @ San Francisco Giants

July 20, 2003

Contents 1 The Road Trip 2 The Park 3 The Game 4 Next Stop: Los Angeles!

The Road Trip

This year would mark our first travels to the West Coast after being out east in 2002. We'd start it San Francisco, work our way down to L.A. and San Diego, and then head across the desert to Vegas for Mike's wedding. Ed lives in the Bay Area so the rest of us were travelling by plane to meet up at Ed's. Bill was originally on the "maybe" list for the trip. Mike and Lumpy went online simultaneously to book tickets through JetBlue.com, and they let you choose your seat assignments. They picked the aisle and the window, left an empty seat in the middle in case Bill went. A couple hours after notifying Bill that the seat was left open for him, he bought it and was ready to go, there wasn't much arm-twisting required. Early on the morning of Saturday, July 19th, Mike and Lumpy departed Connecticut by commuter train to meet Bill in Manhattan and head to JFK airport from there, flying to Oakland. Once Mike and Lumpy got to Manhattan, they met Bill at Grand Central Terminal and from there, got a shuttle bus to JFK. On the ride over Bill had to make a confession that his obsession with the World Poker Tour inspired him to buy some poker books to learn how to play. To ease Bill's embarrassment, Mike dug in to his backpack and also whipped out a Poker book! Poker strategy would be a hotly debated subject from this point up until arrival in Vegas. Justin was flying DC to Oakland and would be there first. While Mike, Lumpy and Bill enjoyed the Jet Blue flight because they have live TV and the "World Poker Tour" was on for almost the entire flight. Jet Blue is one of these "new-age attitude" types of companies, somewhat like Southwest Airlines.

One cool thing which we noticed was they have a basketball court on the tarmac at JFK for the baggage handlers to play on during breaks-pretty cool idea (look over Mike's left arm)! After a good flight on Jet Blue, Mike, Bill, and Lumpy arrived in Oakland on schedule. They headed to the curb to wait for Dauber and Justin to pick them up while Dauber and Justin combed the terminal. This went on for a while before they all crossed paths and were on their merry way. Justin had also flown in on JetBlue but they had true live entertainment on his flight, as Fabio was a passenger. Has Fabio's career gotten so bad that he flies on Jet Blue, a cut-rate carrier? We'd head back to Dauber's and dump our bags, and then head in to San Francisco to do some sightseeing. The next morning was game day so we had to get up fairly early (~9:00) to have enough time to eat all the breakfast goods which Dauber's family had laid out for us and still have time to make the short drive to San Francisco. There is apparently a sovereign state in the Bay Area known as "Baseball Country" which, fortunately, the State of California was kind enough to mark. Good thing we all had passports.

The Park

Bye-bye Candlestick, welcome to PacBell! It goes without saying that PacBell is among the "elite" parks; it's beautiful, fan friendly, high-tech, and takes baseball seriously. When you arrive at the park you are greeted by a statue of Willie Mays, palm trees, and a crowd of fans anxious to see the game. There are many convenient entrances to this waterfront stadium and the staff keeps the lines moving quickly. There is a MUNI (public transportation) stop right at the stadium so it's very easy to get to without bringing your car, although we found there to be decent private parking as long as you get there early. This is the only park that we've been to (as far as we know) that will allow you to exit the park and then re-enter (more on that later) which is extremely convenient. We also had no hassle with baggage inspections while lugging all of our crap in whereas most parks treat us like a bunch of terrorists. Like some of the newer parks, it has "gimmick seating" in the form of McCovey cove where you can park your boat and wait for a Bonds homer with your fishing net in hand. Get to the park early, especially if you have kids, because there is a lot of fun stuff for them to do in the Coca-Cola park out in left field. Big kids (us) and little kids alike can ride the slide. Notice how they have the overpass strategically positioned so you don't burn your ass on the sun baked metal at the end. Pretty smart, eh? Speaking of smarts, they have small stations positioned about the park where you can download the current box score wirelessly onto your Palm Pilot. We're more likely to have a mustard covered scorecard than mess with any electro-gizmos four our scorekeeping needs but these folks can be a little nerdy in Sillicon Valley. And if you just want to hang out and look tiny in front of a huge baseball glove, they can accommodate that, too. We noticed something very impressive out PacBell while waiting in line at a concession stand. The National Anthem began before the game and one of the employees behind the counter yelled "national anthem" or something like that and immediately, every soda machine was stopped and every employee froze in silence. Everyone in line removed their caps watched the colors on the nearby TV monitor. At the conclusion of the anthem, everything snapped back to normal. We hadn't noticed whether or not this takes place at other parks but the PacBell staff handled it very seriously and professionally. And speaking of concessions, PacBell has almost everything you can ask for. The standard stuff like burgers and dogs, several kinds of sausages, several micro brewed beers, and their famous Gilroy Garlic Fries. Take some fries and smother them in garlic and spices and you have the crowd favorite at PacBell. Gilroy is a town about 100 miles south of the Bay Area that is regarded as the garlic capital of the world so PacBell really has a claim to the garlic fries as a local tradition. Now every stadium is adding garlic fries but PacBell is the original. Unfortunately, they don't have micro brewed mouthwash at the park as a chaser for those fries.

They do something cool at the end of the game where they let what appears to be any child run onto the field and run the bases. You can see it in the stadium picture above under Getting Tickets. There were hundreds of kids running the base path; we couldn't believe they allowed them on the field! Another example of PacBell setting itself apart from the rest is the courtesy sign holders at the end of the tunnel. They hold signs that tell you when the batter is in the box so you don't come charging out with a tray full of garlic fries and block everyone's view of the pitch. Right after the pitch, the sign comes down so you can go to your seat.

The Game

We arrived at the ballpark fairly early because it was Juan Marichal bobblehead day and we wanted to be there in time for the bobblehead conspiracy. They give away less bobbleheads than the # of tickets so you are not guaranteed a bobblehead but we figured, getting there over an hour early should give us plenty of time as they had over 20,000 to give out and 20,000 people aren't going to want to sit around the park for an hour waiting for the game to start. Most people tend to show up at the last minute. Well, as soon as we parked the car, we noticed that the streets are filled with people "scalping" bobbleheads, this didn't look good! And let's just say the type of people scalping the bobbleheads didn't look like your typical baseball fans. Here's the scam: PacBell is the only park we've heard of at which you can enter the stadium, leave and re-enter. When you leave, they give you some sort of wristband that gets you back in. This is normally great, we love the idea, except on bobblehead day. People will get there as soon as the doors open, grab their bobblehead, and then go back to bed or find something cheaper to eat, as they wait until game time to return. What also sucks, is that the Ebay value of the bobblehead is greater than the cost of many tickets so bobblehead "scalpers" will just get a bleacher seat, grab the bobblehead, scalp the bobblehead outside the stadium, and then go back to bed and forget about the game. Maybe they even find a way to scalp the bracelet so they get their money back for the ticket. We were pissed needless to say, but somehow managed to get one bobblehead from a friend of a friend who was at the game. We deemed Lumpy to be the keeper of the bobblehead. He opened it up and the foot fell off. Guess it just wasn't meant to be. As soon as we got home from the game, we checked Ebay and there were hundreds if not a thousand Juan Marichal bobbleheads on sale from today's game. Go figure! Before the game we met up with Ginger (a friend of Lumpy's from college) and her husband, they were joining us for the game along with a bunch of Dauber's family, as well as Jen, our tour guide. We all went our separate ways before the game checking things out in the stadium. We met in our seats and had a great time. Dauber's Dad brought a fan/mister bottle, just like the one we had at Comerica and he sprayed us to keep everyone cool. There was a fat farm of girls in front of us who kept complaining about the mist getting on them; maybe they were afraid it would melt the fat away. Do you think they came in the "FATYGRL"-mobile? It was pretty hot and very sunny, lots of sunblock was necessary and hats are always a good idea, though Dauber must have shrunk his in the wash. This is the second year in a row where the first game resulted in a whole lot of sunburn. We pigged out on garlic fries and sausages and had a blast. Definitely one of the best games ever. As we were packing up to leave the ballpark, we asked someone to take a group shot of us. Apparently, some of the stadium seating along the rail is removeable, assumedly to accomodate handicapped fans. Well, one of the stadium crew guys was in our way and tried to hide to stay out of the picture. We thought this was hilarious and fortunately, got him in the shot.

Next Stop: Los Angeles!