Austin
Smith
The
Park
The bay area has many different
attractions and landmarks to visit, but none more exciting then AT&T Park
home of the Giants. The stadium is located in beautiful downtown San Francisco,
and as you walk up to the front gates you can smell the garlic fries before you
even have your ticket scanned to enter. My journey begins when I take my first
steps into the stadium. With 40,000 people there you can feel the excitement in
the air, everyone walking around trying to grab last minute food, and drinks so
they can get to their seats and enjoy the game. As you walk around the stadium
you will get to the right field wall, and you are so close to the bay you can
literally jump off the wall into the water. As I look out into the bay you can
see the bay bridge, and in the distance you can see The Golden Gate Bridge.
Day or night it is the one of the
most beautiful baseball stadiums ever build. As I was walking to my seat, and I
started talking to one of the local fans Joe Banks. I asked him what was the
biggest difference in environment from Candlestick old giants stadium, and
AT&T. He laughed and said, “Pretty much everything, its newer, nicer, and
in the best city in the world.” I ask the opinion of a non-local Padres fan to
see a more realistic opinion of the park. I asked how this stadium compares to
the others around the MLB, and she replied with, “This stadium and PNC Park are
the best stadiums in baseball.” First pitch was thrown around 6:00 PM so as it
started to get dark, and the lights turned on you could see the mist from the
bay start to roll in. It looked like they had misters on all the lights, but
the humidity made it not feel cold at all outside.
The best thing about the Stadium is that out
of 41,503 seats there is not a bad seat. From every seat you have a great view
and can clearly see the game, day or night. The San Francisco Giants also have
one of the most loyal fan bases in the entire MLB with a sell out rate of about
99% every home game. The home fans have their favorite players though, and one
of them happened to be on the mound that day. Tim Lincecum has played for the
giants for 8 seasons, and won three championship rings with them. A lot of
memorable events have occurred in this stadium such as Barry Bonds breaking the
homerun record, Matt Cain throwing a perfect game along with many no hitters
thrown from various other players. From the first pitch to the last you can
tell that these fans are intent and know what’s going on in the game.
If you are a club member, or season
ticket holder there are certain parts of the stadium that you are allowed to
enjoy that the general public can not. The stadium has multiple gift shops, but
the busiest of them all is the dugout store. When I was trying to walk through
to leave I saw that the checkout lines went around the entire shop. They had
Giants Jerseys, hats, shirts, just about anything giants they had it for sale.
As I was walking out of the stadium and into downtown you finally realize how
many people the stadium actually holds. All of the streets were full of cars,
and people walking in every direction. For a stadium that is 14 years old it
feels looks like it was just built. In Conclusion AT&T park has become not
only a very popular destination point, it is a landmark in San Francisco. The
locals believe that is the best stadium around the MLB, and many others have
to agree just based on its location, and
design. Visiting this stadium was one of the best baseball experiences I have
had.
