San Diego Padres - Stadium #4

 

The Padres sold parking in multiple garages next to the stadium.  Considering the ballpark has a city block built into it, the Padres seem like they own the entire city.  To get across the street to the stadium, there was a cool sky bridge to take.  The concourse was really crowded and kind of confusing to walk through since you went from the inside, to the outside in a city (essentially) and back inside.  I found it difficult to find the team store coming in from where we did.  I’m pretty sure they fit everything in a standard team store into a phone booth.  It was so cramped in the store, it was hard to move around, let alone, get by people who were stopped. If I thought the Giants game was hot, boy was I in for a surprise.  Jake even tried hiding under his seat to get away from the sun.  We ended up leaving our seats fairly early to get back to the shaded concourse.  There was a light breeze so it made it tolerable.  The seats themselves were fairly far away from the action and obviously in direct sun the entire game.  It was pretty cool to see an actual city building incorporated into the ballpark.  As far as keeping the fans engaged, they did an ok job.  Though, we did leave the game much earlier than we wanted to because it was so hot.  Jeremy and I had also been to a game there before, so I didn’t feel like we were missing out too much.   As for the hotdog, I cannot say enough good things about it.  It was just the right thickness, the bun was soft and the dog itself had a good meat flavor.  I contemplated buying a second one.  As I write this, I do regret not buying the second one, even if I did only eat it during our hour drive back to the hotel.  The only thing I will downgrade the food experience is they no longer have the slushies they had when Jeremy and I first went to a game there in 2008.  With the heat, a slushie would have made the heat more tolerable.  This marks a tick in the unhappy column. The Padres played the Dodgers on August 6, 2023 at 4:10 pm and we sat in section 311, row 15.  The price I paid for the tickets to this game was $54 and it seemed a bit high.  Again, if they use dynamic pricing, I’m sure I’m paying for the Dodgers and not the baseball experience. If you want to see the box score, here’s a link