Seattle Mariners vs.San Diego Padres 6-27-08

Petco Park is a great ball park. It's in the top 5 of those we've seen so far. It' located in downtown San Diego and is well woven into the downtown architecture. The park integrated a National Landmark building, Western Metal Supply Co., into the stadium. They've added stands and luxury boxes to the building for a very ' Wrigley Effect'. Petco had the most spacious promenades of all the stadiums, easy access to concessions and rest rooms, and great site lines for all of the seats.

Tonight, the Padres celebrated retro night, celebrating 1978. They encouraged 70s dress up, 70s music (lots of disco), and 70s dancing. They exploded a ton of streamers on to the stands at the start of the game. There's a good picture of it. Nancy spent the 1st two innings winding up 2 streamers to take home so we can claim our spot at the Riverfest fireworks. The game time temperature was in the 70s (to go with the retro night theme). However, temps dropped into the low 60s with a cool breeze. Half the crowd was underdressed and left early. Nancy took out here beloved Atros blanket and saved the day. I suppose we deserved the cool temps after the 110+ temps in Vegas, but I sure do prefer hot to cold.

The game wasn't one of the best we've seen. The mariners and the padres are two of the worst teams in baseball this year. The game should have been a blowout for the Mariners, but they left 18 men on base. For the mathematically challenged, that's 2 men per inning. However, the Mariners were still good enough to win 5 - 2 allowing a meaningless 2 run homer to Chase Headley late in the game. Here's a link to the box score:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2008_06_27_seamlb_sdnmlb_1&mode=wrap

Here's a link to our pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14772189@N03/sets/

Hot Dogs: One of the best!! We got them at the kiosk behind home plate. Nancy rated her Italian sausage a 9.5. Great flavor, lots of veggies, soft bun, tasty (and spicy) mustard. I rated my Kosher hot dog a "9". Still very good. I suspect there was some grade inflation here (see previous post). We had lunch at noon and were starved. Hunger level clearly influences rating since I thought the stadium pizza I had as dessert was very good, too.

Pretzel Rating: I was a bit hungry in the 7th inning so I got a pretzel. It was worth it. Very hot, very soft and very tasty ... especially when dunked into the stadium mustard!!