Well, we have officially started our 4th annual baseball vacation! Our first stop was in San Francisco to see the Giants take on their arch-rival LA Dodgers. We walked around the outside of the entire park starting behind home plate located on 24 Willie Mays Plaza. The outfield walls are bordered by a sidewalk that allows visitors of the park to walk around near the bay and local marina storing LOTS of sailboats.
From the outside, the ballpark is quite impressive with lots of outdoor area for fans to mingle before/after games. You can also see the backs of some of the park's amenities including the large Coca-Cola bottle and old-fashioned baseball glove. There are a couple of statues that we saw; the first was of Orlando Cepeda but the best one was of Willie Mays near the 3B entrance. There was a mural of Giants' accomplishments painted on high up on a wall near the RF entrance which was perfect as this was where we were planning to enter the park since our seats were in the famous "arcade" area. There were several impressive facts displayed on the wall including all the pennants and division titles the team has won throughout the many years of their existence. One interesting note was that the Giants have gone 0-for-California as far as World Series titles as their last title came in 1954 which was 4 years before they left NY for the west coast.
The Giants beat their hated in-state rival LA Dodgers in front of a capacity crowd of over 42,000 people including many using standing room which I just don't get. There was not much offense by either team as the Giants scored 2 runs on a 2-out triple by Edgar Renteria. Some minor "controversy" on this play as the Dodgers' CF Matt Kemp clearly lost the ball in the sun that in another couple minutes would have been hidden completely behind the stands. I don't believe Kemp would have caught the ball but he may have limited Renteria to a double and kept one of the runs from scoring. I think the ball was going to the wall regardless though and while you never know what might have happened had one thing changed, the Dodgers still scored ZERO and you can't win a baseball game with no runs.
The crowd was definitely into it...reminded me of a Cubs vs. Cardinals game. There were quite a few brave Dodger fans but they were pretty quiet throughout the game as their team didn't give them much to cheer about other than the pitching of Kershaw who was stuck with the loss. I was quietly cheering for one new Dodger - former Cub Ryan Theriot had just been traded to the Dodgers the day before along with LH starter Ted Lilly (Lilly was the main piece of the trade, but wasn't pitching, plus The-Riot used to be my favorite Cub). Theriot went 0-4 with 2 Ks but played some solid D at 2B for his new club.
The park itself was pretty nice; MUCH better than Candlestick for baseball or so I'm told as I've never been there. As I mentioned at the beginning, we sat in the Arcade area which consists of only 3 rows of seats followed by some standing room (filled to capacity!) and a walkway before you're looking at a railing and then the sidewalk and bay outside the stadium. We were there pretty early so we saw both teams take BP (the Dodgers even looked pathetic during BP). While my wife and daughters went to tour the park, my son and I hung around. One ball screamed over us (no chance unfortunately to catch that one) and several went into the bay but we never had a real chance to catch a ball. My son, however worked himself into getting a ball thrown up to him which he caught and kept as a proud souvenir so that was a nice highlight. The scoreboard was very large, but didn't show as many replays as I would have liked; the in-park announcer was a female with a piercing voice that had my youngest flinching nearly every time; and the unique angles particularly in RF made the park somewhat unique. The Stalag 13 security attitude was a bit disturbing as we had to present our tickets on return to our seats following a run for the famous garlic fries (a little too greasy even for me) and then again once we were seated. With so many people in attendance, this seemed a bit excessive to me as anyone that may have been sitting in the wrong seat certainly would have been quickly discovered by the real seat holder pretty early on as there seemed to be very few empties. The weather was a factor and although it was a sunny afternoon, it was hardly a comfortable "shorts day" even in the bleachers...remember this is early August! The Coca-Cola bottle and baseball glove were unique but the park really just didn't knock me out. As such, I have ranked AT&T ranked 8th on my list so far. I doubt it is in any danger of moving down following our next game in Oakland, but it certainly could get pushed even further down the list.
With Sunday’s win by the Giants, we have started up a new winning streak at 1 and are now 10-5 overall. There are only 14 ball parks listed below because we actually saw a double-header which my youngest was very nervous about during our first trip but was happy to learn that a double-header means two games, not two heads.
OK, so here is my updated ball park ranking to date:
1. Comerica Park (Detroit)
2. PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
3. Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
4. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia)
5. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City, MO)
6. Fenway Park (Boston)
7. Miller Park (Milwaukee)
8. AT&T Park (San Francisco)
9. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
10. Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
11. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees – pre-2009)
12. Wrigley Field (Chicago)
13. Metrodome (Minneapolis)
14. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)
Next up is Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, CA on Wednesday when the A's will host the KC Royals. Both teams are not very good, but who am I to say since I am a stupid Cubs' fan. Is it worse to have a team you're not spending $140 million on losing badly night after night or a team you're not spending much money on losing night after night...maybe it's a wash for us fans. Anyway not exactly expecting a big crowd for a Wed afternoon game in Oakland with these two teams facing off, but we'll see.
OK - I got some questions about Barry Bonds and why I didn't mention him in this post. Well, I'm NOT a big fan of BB so that's the primary reason. There were a few items indicating some of his accomplishments although most people feel they are tainted accomplishments to say the least but I can't remember seeing anything inside the ballpark itself. The items I did see were plaques mounted in the sidewalk between McCovey Cove and AT&T's right field wall. These items included his 600th HR, his 714th HR, his single season HR record and his all-time HR career record. Again, I feel like ALL of these achievements are tainted just as I feel A-Rod's 600th yesterday is also tainted due to his known steroid use.
ReplyDeleteI know and understand that BB's records will end up in the record books and will remain there probably forever, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or acknowledge it.