Our Petco Experience...

We attended all three games at Petco this week while were on vacation in San Diego.  It was our first time there and it is truly a beautiful and convenient park.  The seats all seemed to have great sightlines and the common/concession areas were very convenient and spacious.  We stayed downtown and were able to walk to every game as well as go to restaurants and bars in the vicinity of the stadium which was very cool.  It was especially cool to have a drink at the Marriott Bar overlooking the park before the game and see the A's taking batting practice way, way down below.  

That said, I was so happy to be back at the Coliseum last night and today (and not simply because it's always nicer to be at your home team's park).  The Petco experience was just so...frenetic!  The music was loud and the graphics were garish.  There were loud, long intro songs for every.single.player at every.single.at.bat.  Furthermore, every single event had its own music theme and graphic (every strikeout, every walk, etc., etc.).  The Friar mascot was everywhere on the field and on the jumbotron at all times!  The "Pad Squad" was always running around between innings riling people up and giving things away.  It was overwhelming!  I know this is the trend (and it is fun to some degree) and is seen as necessary by many to increase participation (and thus profits) but I truly hope that when the A's get their new stadium that they will keep their more laid-back attitude (and keep the focus on the game as opposed to the spectacle).

I am wondering about others' experiences at other ballparks and if perhaps this the new norm and something that I am simply not used to.  I have to admit that I have been to very few other "modern" stadiums (just AT&T and Comerica) so perhaps I am behind the times and that this is something I will have to get used to in the future.

As a perhaps unrelated post script...I read recently about somebody posting about how laid-back the Padres fans are and I have to admit that our experiences there these past few days were the opposite of that!  I realize that the sample size was small (just three games) but it did make a big impression on us.  At all three games we encountered obnoxious fans (perhaps since they felt threatened that their stadium was filled with a good 1/3 A's fans??)  For example, at Wednesday's game, two Padres fans actually got mad at us for cheering for the A's. The people in front of us (who had recently moved there to escape the heat so those weren't their actual seats) said "Can you believe that we have to sit here and deal with this?? (sidelong glances at us for simply standing and clapping for Payton's two-run homer).  We shouldn't have to deal with this crap here!!"

That said, I loved Petco Park itself but thought that they didn't need to do so much promotion to allow people to simply enjoy the game of baseball!

P.S.  While we were there we did a lot of walking around downtown at all times of day just because we were there.  On Wednesday in the late afternoon I looked up at someone walking next to us who was talking loudly on a cellphone.  It was Huston Street!  He was heavily engrossed in his conversation or else I might have at least said hello (so much so that he almost wandered in front of a taxicab while crossing the street!).  Later we crossed paths with Bobby Crosby as he crossed the street to enter the stadium.  Very cool experiences because of having a downtown stadium.