By Chris Samson
Tuesday, April 11, 2000 dawned crisp and clear in the San Francisco Bay Area, bringing a sense of excitement and anticipation for my brother, two nephews and me. This was the long-awaited opening day at Pacific Bell Park, the new home of the San Francisco Giants. And Jon, Dave, Eric and I -- all transplanted L.A. Dodger fans from Palm Springs -- planned a 10 a.m. breakfast rendezvous a few blocks from the downtown ballpark before attending the scheduled 1:20 p.m. game.
The opening day game at Pac Bell Park between the rival Giants and Dodgers was the hottest ticket in the Bay Area, and the fact that we four were among the lucky 40,992 ticket-holders was directly attributable to Jon, who used his considerable influence (and intimidating 6-foot-10 height) at The WB to snare four of the coveted ducats.
Jon and his brother Dave had flown into S.F. from Burbank and Washington, D.C., respectively, Monday night before the game and holed up in The W, a spiffy SOMA hotel. It was a much shorter trip for Eric and I, who took public transportation from our homes in San Jose and Petaluma, respectively: Eric took the BART train and I cruised across the bay on a Golden Gate ferryboat.
While Eric took the opportunity to call on a business client in San Francisco before breakfast and Jon and Dave slept in after a night on the town, I caught a 7:20 a.m. ferry out of Marin and arrived at the S.F. Ferry Building at 8:10 a.m. From there it was a 20-minute walk along the Embarcadero and the waterfront to the ballpark.
Posters proclaiming “The Miracle on Third Street” decorated the Embarcadero thoroughfare along the way to the ballpark. Even more than five hours before game time, fans wearing orange-and-black Giants caps and warm-up jackets were already on their way to the ballpark. I walked briskly along the waterfront, the scent of ocean air mingling with the squawk of seagulls. The dark interiors of the old pier buildings and local hangouts like Red's Java House looked like they hadn't changed in decades. Then, as the palm tree-lined Embarcadero started to curve to the right around the bay, the brick exterior, the upper deck and the light standards of the new ballpark gradually came into view.
The ballpark is a sparkling new addition to the South of Market area and at the same time fits in perfectly in the neighborhood as though it's been there for decades. It's an urban ballpark, neatly tucked into a 13-acre lot, not a sprawling multi-use stadium in the suburbs surrounded by miles of asphalt parking spaces.
It was 8:30 a.m. as I walked around the ballpark, gazing at the giant Coke bottle replica (made in Petaluma) and baseball glove above the left-field bleachers and the “knothole gang” fence in right field. Three men walked by and one of them asked, “You wouldn't have an extra ticket, would you?”
“No, sorry,” I responded, adding, “Good luck.” I realized how lucky I was to be taking part in this historic day.
Just beyond the right-field wall, the sidewalk continues along the bay into an inlet, renamed “McCovey Cove” after the retired Giants' slugger, and to “O'Doul Bridge,” named after baseball great Lefty O'Doul. At the front entrance to the park, at the corner of Third and King streets, is “Willie Mays Plaza,” with a larger-than life statue of the Giants' Hall of Fame centerfielder and 24 palm trees, commemorating Willie's number.
The Muni line runs down the middle of Third Street and stops right in front of the ballpark. The Transbay Terminal and the Ferry Building are only 20 minutes' walking distance away. With only 5,000 parking spaces in the lot across O'Doul Bridge, the easy accessibility of public transportation is important.
The vendors were already setting up and selling their wares at this early hour. I snapped some photos, surveyed the scene, then explored the rest of the neighborhood. A block away, at Third and Townsend, I looked for “the little alleyway behind the Southern Pacific depot” that Jack Kerouac immortalized in his famed spoken-word piece. Further up Third Street, at No. 625, I gazed inside the office building that housed Rolling Stone magazine before publisher Jann Wenner pulled up stakes for New York City. Further up the block is a plaque on a wall commemorating the birthplace of Jack London.
Clearly, this once-rundown skid row area has been rejuvenated. Funky old office buildings are being renovated with Silicon Gulch and dot-com money. And the addition of Pacific Bell Park really gives this part of town a shot in the arm.
Four Dodger fans in Giant territory
Once all four of us had arrived at Pepito's, we each consumed a burrito gigante. Then we walked the two and a half blocks to the ballpark. As we approached the park, the crowd was growing, lingering in front at Willie Mays Plaza, buying souvenirs and just gazing in awe at the handsome new structure. A few desperate fans seeking tickets held up hand-lettered signs offering items in trade. One had an old Heineken blanket, the other a used Giants warm-up jacket.
“I think they'll have to come up with something better than that,” I said.
“I don't know,” quipped Jon, “that Heineken blanket looks awfully nice.”
“That's going to be an accident waiting to happen,” a bystander remarked. Eric coined a new term for the flotilla of fans: “That's a new form of tailgating – “sterngating.”
After collecting various souvenirs and having our picture taken in front of the Marina Gate, we entered the park through the outfield turnstile that faces the bay. Inside the gate, we each added a few commemorative necklace-ticket-holders (free) to our souvenir collection. Then, right in front of us, we saw a concession stand, “Say Hey! Sausage Specialties,” with no one in line. Since we had just eaten, none of us wanted a sausage, but it was a little after 11 a.m. already, and time for our first beer of the day. We each coughed up 6 bucks (ouch!) for the 16-ounce cerveza with commemorative cup (another souvenir).
Our first view of the inside of the park was from directly behind the centerfield wall, and it was exhilirating. The Giants were on the field, taking pre-game batting and fielding practice. The green grass in the outfield looked perfect; a sprinkling of fans were starting to fill the seats in the three tiers of seats in the main part of the stands.
We admired the quirks, asymmetrical dimensions and odd angles of the park. Eric pointed out that the right-field wall has four different surfaces, including brick, padding, metal and signboards, that will make it a challenge for outfielders playing caroms off the wall. Right field also has the dubious “Rusty the Mechanical Man,” a 14-foot image of a ballplayer who emerges from a shed in right field during the game. Rusty is part of the Old Navy advertising in right field, which includes a “Splash Hits” counter that will keep track of home runs hits into the bay.
The giant Coke bottle in left field – containing a slide that is part of a children's playground – is one of the most visible commercial aspects of the park. This is the first privately financed ballpark built in the country since Dodger Stadium in 1962, and the Giants had to solicit corporate sponsorships to pay the $319 million price tag. The naming rights, for which Pacific Bell paid $58 million, is the biggest chunk. But the commercialism is somehow palatable – after all, billboard advertisements on outfield walls have been part of baseball tradition for decades.
We walked through the centerfield bleachers, under the Coke bottle and the 26-foot-high replica of a vintage baseball glove next to it. The glove looks so authentic it seems as though it was made out of real leather. There's a children's play area underneath the Coke bottle, including a small pitching cage with a radar gun that lets kids see how fast they can throw a baseball (most tosses registered around 28-32 mph, well below the standard 90-plus mph major league heater).
Pre-game ceremonies
The four of us watched the interminable pre-game ceremonies together. Giants owner Peter Magowan (the man responsible for keeping the Giants from moving to Florida a few years ago and for building the new ballpark) got a well-deserved ovation and the Dodgers were loudly booed. Father Floyd Lotito, a Franciscan monk (“Friar Tuck,” said Eric), gave a blessing of the park. The centerfield video screen showed a short program about “Stitches,” the loveable baseball, and its offseason tour of Northern California cities. Actor Danny Glover stumbled awkwardly through the readings of two baseball poems (one from “Field of Dreams,” the other written by late baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti). A couple of parachutists, trailing colored smoke, landed on the field. The cast of “Beach Blanket Babylon” (led by a large woman wearing a huge hat with a San Francisco skyline) sang “San Francisco.” Three large American flags were unfolded and held on the field by several dozen flag holders – one of the flags was so big it covered the whole outfield. Bobby McFerrin sang a meandering acapella version of the national anthem, climaxed by an unexpectedly loud flyover by four Navy jets, so low that they seemd to barely clear the light towers. The roar of the jets jolted the crowd, and the planes made one more flyover before the game finally got underway, about 20 minutes late. Fireworks went off in McCovey Cove; confetti fell from the upper deck; red, white and blue balloons were released from behind the centerfield wall.
For the record, Giants' lefty Kirk “Woody” Rueter made the first pitch to Dodgers' outfielder Devon White, who singled a 2-2 pitch to right field for the first hit of the game. The Giants' Barry Bonds doubled in Bill Mueller in the bottom of the first for the first two-bagger and RBI in the new park, giving the Giants a 1-0 lead. In the second inning, Dodger shortstop Kevin Elster hit the first homer, to left-center, to tie the game. Giants' catcher Doug Mirabelli tripled to the deepest part of center field in the second. Bonds homered to right-center in the third for the first Giants' home run. The game went back and forth, with the Dodgers getting three home runs (all by Elster) and the Giants going deep three times (Bonds, Mirabelli and J.T. Snow). Snow's ninth-inning home run to right field -- just above the "Old Navy Splash Landing" sign -- fell short of splashing into McCovey Cove, just as the Giants' rally fell short. The final score was Dodgers 6, Giants 5.
Heading home after the game
The post-game exodus from the park went about as smoothly as you can expect for nearly 41,000 people leaving a confined space at the same time. Eric and I met Jon and Dave at the pre-determined rendezvous spot in front of Happy Donuts across the street from the park, then we all walked up Third Street together to the Transbay Terminal, where Eric caught a BART train back to the South Bay. Jon lived dangerously by raising his fist and shouting “Dodgers rule!” amid a crowd of Giants fans. Wisely, none of the orange-and-black crowd messed with the tall dude.
I walked on to the Ferry Building and caught the 5:45 boat back to the North Bay. Meanwhile, Jon and Dave visited Jack in the Box where Jon balanced out his beer-to-food ratio before BARTing over to Oakland Airport to catch an evening flight back to Burbank. And Dave caught a late-night red-eye from SFO back to D.C.
All four Dodger fans were back at work the next morning, a little bleary-eyed and stifling a few yawns, but cherishing their memories of opening day at Pac Bell Park.
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