Petco Park, 2012

#19

This was the 1st of 5 parks on our 2012 trip. I couldn't work out a game here on this trip, but we did tour the park. I will hit it for a game someday, since Chris is based in SD. This park has a really nice exterior. It is a beige stone that matches the mountains in the area.

It has a lot on tropical trees around the park, which gives it that So Cal feel. It is in a downtown area, that was rundown before the park was built, but now is prime area. 

The warehouse inside, which is a cool feature in the park, was there and abandoned when they bought the property, and they built the park around it and re-built the inside to make it work for baseball. 

Just to the right of the warehouse is the scoreboard, which is pretty nice. It was not running since there was no game, but it is sweet anyway. 

It seems like they used a lot of ideas from other parks and incorporated their own feel to make it work there, which I think is pretty smart. The view through the outfield into the downtown area is really cool. The sitelines seem excellent from anywhere in the park.  There was a concert that night and they were setting up for it, so I wasn't able to get a shot of the full field without the stage in it, so I will have to get it next time. There is a "park in the park" also, behind the batters eye in center field, which is similar to what minor league teams do. It is GA tickets to hang in there for the game. The Tony Gwynn statue is in that area, and it was shut down due to the concert, but I did my best to get a pic from far away. 

Heres the retired #'s on top of the batters eye, with the cityscape in the background. 

I did get to see some other cool Padres Memorabilia in the park though.

These were all time Padres set up in lockers. Ray Kroc is actually the McDonalds owner who when the Padres were for sale way back, and someone buying them wanted to move them out of the state, he outbid them to keep them in SD. Neat piece of history. 

One thing I love about most downtown ballparks is they are usually surrounded with lots of pubs and sports bars to hang before a game. There were lots here. We walked around after the tour and grabbed some grub. There is also a little walking bridge across the street from the stadium which is prime for taking some pics.