Itinerary: AT&T Park, San Francisco

OK, so what can be said about AT&T Park that hasn’t already been said? It’s beautiful? Check. It gets cold at night? Supposedly Mark Twain covered that. You can sit in a boat and catch home run balls? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let’s get to the real nitty-gritty. There’s no doubt that AT&T Park, formerly known as SBC Park, formerly known as Pacific Bell Park, is a cool place. To watch a ballgame, sure, but this is one of those parks where you can not see one pitch and still have a blast. Let us count the ways…

The approach

I went on a Sunday in May — the third Sunday in May, to be exact, and to anyone who’s lived in San Francisco, that should ring a bell. Yes, myself, Twisted Sister and Cousin Joe ran Bay to Breakers that morning. And after I peeled myself off the pavement, wrapped my knee in gauze and popped about six Advils (more on that in a sec), I went with the group (joined in this rather non-athletic pursuit by Mrs. Fan) to see the Giants take on the Astros.

Getting there was a breeze because, in anticipation of Bay to Breakers, we spent the previous night in a downtown hotel so that we could walk to the starting line and have a place to clean up after we were done. So once all that was completed, it was an easy walk of maybe 3/4 of a mile… at least, it was for everyone else in my party. Unfortunately for me, I had run maybe the last half of the race on a knee that had grown sore, and by the time I had showered and cooled down, the knee was howling. So I went to the Advil and hoped it would get better, and when that didn’t happen I sucked it up and dragged my lame leg all the way to the ballpark.

(By the way, if you’re not staying downtown, you’ve got other options. I’ve taken BART to the Montgomery Street stop and walked — you’re looking at maybe a 25-30 minute walk as it’s at least a mile. There’s also a Muni stop — Muni being a sort of light-rail version of BART that runs only within San Francisco city limits — that’s right at the ballpark, but you’d have to know San Francisco pretty well to use it, and if you are you’re probably coming from a non-touristy area of town anyway. If you’ve got a car, be ready to pay at least $20 to stash it at either one of the precious few lots around the park or at a downtown garage.)

If you’re walking to the park from more than a block away, you’re in luck. Lots of cool bars and eateries to choose from, and the area is usually alive whether it’s a day game or a night game. My friendly advice would be to save the outside eating/drinking until after the game, because this is one of the few sports venues where it’s totally worth it to go inside in and get gouged on food.

The build-up

Since I set up the whole food thing above, I might as well get right to it. I’ve been to a lot of stadiums and arenas around the country (which, of course, is why I have this blog). AT&T Park is hands down my favorite for food, and let me count the ways: Garlic fries (yes, they’re worth the bad breath). Caribbean-style jerk chicken. Clam chowder served in a sourdough bread bowl (and whether it’s gourmet or comes out of a can, I don’t know, but if you’re a visitor to San Francisco on a cold evening, this is the thing to have). Crab and lobster rolls. Fried dough (as delicious as it is simplistic-sounding). And these are just the things I’ve actually tried.

Now, none of this comes cheap. It wouldn’t come cheap wherever you were in San Francisco, but at AT&T Park it really isn’t cheap. Some of these choices would run you in the $10-15 range. But again, if you’re a visitor and you’re looking to experience the park, then go ahead and splurge. Chances are you’ve already come to grips with the fact that San Francisco is an expensive city. Live a little.

So here’s what our group of four did: We bought two orders of garlic fries, a hot dog and an order of chicken tenders with fries. The calorie-counting Twisted Sister and I quickly realized that this was way too much food — what happened was that we had bought the garlic fries thinking we’d share two orders among four people, but it wasn’t until after we had ordered that we realized the other two had broken off to order their own food. So we were stuck with the fries, which we ate ourselves. Add an order of cotton candy around the seventh inning, and by the end of the afternoon we probably consumed more calories than we had burned running 12 kilometers through the City. It was worth every calorie.

The ambiance

We arrived in the second inning, so once we had our food we went straight to our seats in the upper deck, along the left-field foul line. Good seats, with a nice view of McCovey Cove, and it didn’t feel like we were too detached from the action. But what we didn’t get to do was walk around the park much, which was a shame — it was a beautiful day, not too breezy and therefore not too cold, and it would’ve been nice to check out the scenery.

From what I remember, they’re a little tight about letting people walk through the left-field region — the area with the giant Coke bottle and mitt — and with good reason. There’s hardly any space out there. And that pretty much goes for the rest of the park, which fits neatly into the space for which it was designated, but obviously some creative architectural design went into making it so. If you’ve got box seats, the concourse that gets you there is the same one that workers, media and team personnel use, which means that if not for some strategically placed burly men and velvet ropes, you could walk straight into one of the clubhouses. The main concourse, where you’d enter the park, is really narrow except for the area behind home plate. Put it this way: If you’ve just bought food at a stand on the third-base side, your seats are on the first-base side and the first pitch is about to be thrown, just give it up, relax and shoot for the second inning.

But if you’re visiting for the first time, do take some time to wander around, stop and enjoy the scenery. If you’re on the left-field side, take in that view of the Bay Bridge from just outside the park. Wander over to right field and look at all the kayakers in the cove. And venture into center field, where behind the batter’s eye are a few stands that only the regulars seem to know about.

The damage

Tickets: $20 each (purchased on StubHub)

Transportation: $0

Food: just under $30 (2 orders of garlic fries, a hot dog, an order of chicken tenders with fries, two bottles of water and cotton candy)

Souvenirs: $0