Petco park is in a superb location, close to the Gaslight district of San Diego, enabling a visitor to eat dinner or have a drink before the game with a great selection of food and beverage. The outside of the stadium is beautifully landscaped.
The Padres played their first game at Petco on April 8, 2004. They defeated the San Francisco Giants in 10 innings. Interestingly enough, it wasn't the first game at Petco. On March 11,2004 Mr. Padre, Tony Gwynn,, led his team to a win over the University of Houston as part of a 4 team NCAA baseball tournament. Petco was originally scheduled to open in April 2002 but several lawsuits filed by the citizens of the city delayed construction. After construction finally resumed the Padres struck a name-rights with Petco, the pet supplies retailer. Just a few days after reaching the agreement, PETA called for the Padres to cancel the agreement as they argued that too many animals died from overcrowding and sickness in the Petco stores.
The Pacific Coast League Padres moved to San Diego from Salt Lake City in 1936. Native son Ted Williams, helped lead them to the league championship in their second season in SD at just 19 years old. He was born on August 30, 1918 in San Diego. He fought in 2 theaters of war and finished his Hall of Fame career with the Boston Red Sox.
Besides The Park at the park (see our last blogpost), Petco also has "The Beach", a large sandy area with sand toys for the children and a small ballpark for the kids to try their skill at hitting a homerun and running the bases. A Tony Gwynn statue stands at the back of the Park at the Park
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| The Beach at Petco |
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| Kids park at Petco |
Unfortunately, we never saw the San Diego Chicken, nor Harry the Heckler, two former mainstays at Petco. I checked Harry's Facebook page and there are no entries past November of 2014. Harry made life miserable for opposing left fielders unless they were former Padres players. He always kept it clean. In the Ultimate Baseball Road Trip book, he is quoted, "I spend each off-season researching all of the left fielders in the league, I look for their weaknesses as players - deficiencies in their games - and I write myself notes for when the season begins." One such incident was when Harry was heckling Larry "Chipper" Jones. Chipper hated his given name Larry. Chipper tried to bribe Harry by sending a clubhouse attendant with an autographed bat to Harry. When he came to left field, Harry said, "How do I know it is really your autograph, LARRY?" The Padres left fielders always toss the warm up ball to Harry. He keeps the 1st one and gives all the other 8 to kids sitting around him.
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