Fox Sports Radio’s Bay Area Correspondent George Devine, Jr. joined over 41,000 fans for a historic evening in San Diego.

Thanks George for a terrific first hand view of the opener in San Diego.
Marty

Click below for George’s story. The pre-game chatter started aboard a Southwest Airlines 737 bound from Oakland to San Diego’s Lindbergh field. One man appropriately wore his Giants road grays on the flight. Another thumbed through the box scores of Wednesday’s games. The scene resembled one that Bay Area fans recognize on their way to the Oakland Coliseum or SBC Park, but BART and MUNI do not offer you complimentary peanuts on the way to enjoy America’s pastime.
And that chatter stretched all the way from the Bay Area to San Diego’s newest jewel on the waterfront of what locals refer to as America’s Finest City. If you hit the scan or seek button on your rental car’s radio like I did a few times, you found it difficult to avoid mentions of a long-awaited day in local history. The local papers and TV news mentioned the “Countdown to Downtown” about every fifth word or so. The hotel bellmen sported Padre caps and the digital signs on the front of city buses exclaimed “Go Padres!”
The talk about Petco Park reached its crescendo as I approached it. The game’s newest cathedral sits between the southern edge of San Diego’s downtown and the foot of the Coronado Bridge. Unless you wanted to drive out to Admirals’ Island, you’d immediately notice the similarities between Petco and some of baseball’s other “retro” parks. The soft earthtone exterior provides a contrast to the brick and mortar of Coors Field, SBC Park, Safeco Field, and Camden Yards. But the rundown waterfront area provides a similar backdrop to those venues. A streetcar line runs parallel to the third-base side of the grandstand, like MUNI’s N car does at SBC. Empty warehouses dot the nearby landscape.
Just like SBC Park, Petco graces the waterfront with its silhouette. But unlike the Giants home, fans enjoy vistas of downtown San Diego instead of boats in the harbor.
One of the area’s once-derelict warehouses has found a new purpose as a cornerstone of the ballpark. The leftfield foul pole rests against the old Western Medal Supply Building. The structure dates back to the early 1900’s, and now like the B&O Railroad warehouse in Baltimore, it houses a team gift shop at field level while the upper stories have been converted into luxury boxes. The rooftop provides San Diego with a touch of Chicago’s North Side. Metal bleachers and a barbeque pit might make you think you walked along Waveland Avenue to get there.
The City of San Diego hopes the area around Petco Park follows in the successful footsteps of the nearby Gaslamp District. It boasts packed restaurants and nightclubs, and attracts San Diego’s hippest crowd. And perhaps crowd’s streaming into Petco Park will transform some of those abandoned warehouses and storefronts into bustling sidewalk cafes.
Changes around the ballpark perhaps will follow a transformation of the fans’ experience.
For the first time San Diego baseball fans find their team playing within the confines of a neighborhood rather than in the middle of a parking lot. I took a walk around Petco’s main level an hour before David Wells hurled his first pitch of the night to Giants leadoff man Ray Durham. I ran into a father and son who talked about how great it is for their beloved Padres to play in a “baseball only” facility. But they also bemoaned swapping their five-minute drive to the Murph for a 30-minute streetcar journey to Petco. Next, they’d love to see the NFL’s Chagers get a new facility. A woman waiting to buy beers mentioned how she won’t miss those Saturday off days in September following Friday-night doubleheaders to accommodate San Diego State football games. That’s right, the collegiate Aztecs had scheduling preference over the major league Padres at Jack Murphy Stadium
Those same fans have spent years boasting about the local talent which has streamed out of San Diego and onto every Major League Roster. Just ask the A’s, they drafted Eric Chavez out of Carmel High School. Chavez’s prep teammate, Eric Munson now starts for the Detroit Tigers. Wells graduated from Point Loma high school a few decades after another Yankee lefthander who also tossed a perfect game, Don Larsen. The splendid splinter, Ted Williams also grew up playing the game in San Diego. Another left-handed swinger with a sweet stroke caught the attention of the scouts while playing for San Diego State. Tony Gwynn then spent 20 years playing for the Padres. Thursday night, Gwynn helped usher in a new era in San Diego baseball with two legendary former teammates, Dave Winfield and Rickey Henderson. If you want to send mail to the Padres, be sure to address it to “Petco Park, 19 Tony Gwynn Drive.”
Now they can also boast about a grand venue for the Great American game. Families with small kids can take in action from a grassy hill beyond the centerfield fence. It even includes a natural-grass tee-ball diamond. The Gaslamp hip crowd can enjoy two levels of luxury boxes and the huge suites in the Western Metal Supply building. Padre pitchers can work with the comfort that rightfield has been Barry Proofed. Barry Bonds hit 39 homers at the Murph, more than any other visiting player. Legend claims the 411-foot alley in right was designed to foil his home run hitting prowess. But no architect
could draw up Jay Payton’s leaping grab in the sixth. Payton reached over the fence in right center and robbed Bonds of an opportunity to tie his Godfather Willie Mays for third on the all-time home run list with 660.
Downtown baseball has magnetized fans and revitalized neighborhoods across the nation. Perhaps some other city, maybe Oakland, will see what’s starting here in San Diego and complement a municipal jewel like Jack London Square with a new sparkling home for the local nine.