a new hero...
Over labor day I travelled to Southern California for some UP performances. I wanted to take the opportunity to catch some baseball, however the Angels and Dodgers were on the road, so I arranged my trip to catch a Padres game.
I do harbor a fantasy of doing one of those "visit all the ballparks in North America" trips, so getting to check out a new ballpark was cool. Observations:
- Petco is a cool park, but I like PacBell (SF) and Safeco better. They seemed to be designed better. Petco is all bleached concrete and white steel, so it seems very institutional to me. I didn't realize how much I appreciate the aesthetics of brick at a ballpark until I was in Petco.
- That said, there are some really great touches to the park. First off, the foul territory is actually sloped away from the center of the field, so if you're sitting close, it really feels like you're at the level of the game. Makes for some interesting chases of balls that run foul. The park is also designed such that if you're in the neighborhood, driving or walking, you can look down some of the streets and see right into the park, because they've kept the area from right field to center field fairly open to outside the park.
- Perhaps my favorite feature is that they kept an existing building from the neighborhood and integrated it into the park. The corner of the building serves as the left field foul pole... brilliant.
- My second favorite feature is the skybridge from the park right to the Omni Hotel (I splurged and stayed at the Omni). So great to leave the park and be in your room in like 5 minutes. They also have condos there... hmmm, need to make my millions so I can have a getaway condo in that place...
The game was good... versus St. Louis. Great to watch a game between two teams that are in contention. But the revelation of the night for me was Khalil Greene, the Padres' shortstop. He's pretty amazing, and in the running for NL Rookie of the year. Here's a pic:
His hair's a little longer and it's really blonde. I only bring that up because the guy sitting next to me at Petco said "we call him Spicoli." He does look strikingly like the Sean Penn character:
Here's another photo of Greene, you can't really much of his face but what you can see looks pretty Spicoli-ish:
I do harbor a fantasy of doing one of those "visit all the ballparks in North America" trips, so getting to check out a new ballpark was cool. Observations:
- Petco is a cool park, but I like PacBell (SF) and Safeco better. They seemed to be designed better. Petco is all bleached concrete and white steel, so it seems very institutional to me. I didn't realize how much I appreciate the aesthetics of brick at a ballpark until I was in Petco.
- That said, there are some really great touches to the park. First off, the foul territory is actually sloped away from the center of the field, so if you're sitting close, it really feels like you're at the level of the game. Makes for some interesting chases of balls that run foul. The park is also designed such that if you're in the neighborhood, driving or walking, you can look down some of the streets and see right into the park, because they've kept the area from right field to center field fairly open to outside the park.
- Perhaps my favorite feature is that they kept an existing building from the neighborhood and integrated it into the park. The corner of the building serves as the left field foul pole... brilliant.
- My second favorite feature is the skybridge from the park right to the Omni Hotel (I splurged and stayed at the Omni). So great to leave the park and be in your room in like 5 minutes. They also have condos there... hmmm, need to make my millions so I can have a getaway condo in that place...
The game was good... versus St. Louis. Great to watch a game between two teams that are in contention. But the revelation of the night for me was Khalil Greene, the Padres' shortstop. He's pretty amazing, and in the running for NL Rookie of the year. Here's a pic:
His hair's a little longer and it's really blonde. I only bring that up because the guy sitting next to me at Petco said "we call him Spicoli." He does look strikingly like the Sean Penn character:
Here's another photo of Greene, you can't really much of his face but what you can see looks pretty Spicoli-ish: