An Affordable Fantasy – A Behind-The-Scenes Tour of San Francisco’s AT&T Park, By Chuck Strom

Not long ago I discovered that AT&T Park gave tours to the general public, including visits to a luxury box, the Giants’ dugout, and the visitors’ locker room. At $15 dollars per ticket, the price of admission seemed cheap for the privilege of living a childhood dream, so after Christmas last year I prevailed upon my daughter Jillian to ride with me for three hours down to San Francisco. As we got out of our car in the virtually empty stadium parking lot, a construction rig a couple of blocks away drove steel foundation pilings into the ground with a clang that could be heard over half the city. “Aren’t they ever going to stop?” Jillian asked. “No,” I said.

Our tour guide was a retired executive who preferred to spend his golden years volunteering for the Giants over playing golf. He took us first to the upper deck behind home plate, where he gave us a brief history of the ballpark and described the various art works, including the Coca-Cola bottle and 1920’s-era baseball glove behind the left-field bleachers. As he spoke, a couple stood at home plate with a small party and renewed their wedding vows as the words “MAZEL TOV” shone in bold letters above them on the scoreboard. The scene reminded me of a wedding performed before a game last spring on the pitcher’s mound by Giants announcer Mike Krukow. “Always stay with your starter,” he told the couple. “Never go to your bullpen.”

The park was set up for football, as it had been since October for the University of California Golden Bears football team, whose stadium was being renovated. A gigantic set of portable bleachers sat in right and center field, leaving just the right amount of space for the gridiron while ensuring decent views for most of the fans. Coming up that weekend was the Kraft Fight Hunger college bowl game between UCLA and Illinois. In the end zone nearest us, a couple of stadium workers spray-painted the letters ILLINOIS with the aid of a stencil. I had always wondered how crews managed to decorate grass fields with such precision.

We visited a luxury suite at the far end of right field, where the view and the tan vinyl furnishings seemed wholly inadequate for the $80,000 annual price tag. I felt much better about the $35 a ticket I had paid the previous August to sit about twenty feet higher in the upper deck. After the suite we went to the Giants’ indoor batting cage, where our guide told us a story about Edgardo Alfonso, a third baseman whom the Giants had acquired back in 2003. Alfonso, who had frequently victimized the Giants at the plate when he played for the Mets, never found his batting stroke during his time in San Francisco—not an unusual experience at AT&T Park. It wasn’t for lack of trying. One day after a long extra batting practice session, Giants manager Felipe Alou called Alfonso into his office. “Show me your hands,” Alou told him. Alfonso held them up, fists closed. “Now, open them,” Alou ordered. Alfonso complied, revealing palms blistered and bleeding from gripping the bat. “Don’t let anyone tell you baseball players don’t work hard,” our guide concluded.

The entrance to the dugout was across the hall from the batting cage, announced by a large sign that read “RESTRICTED ACCESS AREA.” This was an attraction for visitors if there ever was one. After leading us up the steps, our guide allowed us a generously long time to explore the area around the dugout and home plate, so long as we stayed off the perfectly manicured grass. The dugout floor was pristine, free of the crushed paper cups, sunflower seeds and goodness knows what else that normally littered it during games. I dragged Jillian around and took her picture wherever I could find a good background, including in the dugout and at home plate facing the scoreboard. I gave her the camera and had her do the same for me. One picture I had her take was my version of the classic manager pose, leaning on the railing with one foot on the top step, trying to look as if I was getting ready to walk out to the mound to remove a struggling pitcher. Usually I’m too self-conscious to act out fantasies, but this was too good an opportunity to resist.

Eventually our guide called us over to the other side of the field, where we went through the visitors’ dugout, down the steps, and through a tunnel to the visitor’s clubhouse. There we stood among the lockers while our guide explained the clubhouse’s features. One of the support pillars had a large sheet behind glass that had been signed by virtually every visiting player that had passed through AT&T Park, with the exception of Ken Griffey, Jr., whom the clubhouse manager had jokingly forbidden from signing on account of all the injuries he’d suffered after being traded to the Reds. A few feet away was a small cubicle where the visiting team manager had his office. I considered taking Jillian in there with me to tell her that she was being traded for a player to be named later, but I thought better of it. Our guide led us out soon after, thanked us for coming and announced the end of the tour.

When we got home that night, I immediately took the camera’s memory card and plugged it into the computer to look over the pictures we’d taken. My wife had told me before leaving to make sure I took a lot of pictures of people and not just scenery. As I viewed the results I silently thanked her for the advice. I could hardly stop looking at the pictures of Jillian. Smiling beautifully from just about every frame I’d taken of her, she was gorgeous in her Giants cap and Oregon State sweatshirt, the latter being her favorite piece of clothing. Her face seemed absolutely perfect. I wasn’t sure whether to marvel that a descendant of mine could look this good or to take it as a sign that maybe this parenting thing was going to work out after all.

Either way, it was the best part of my day.

– Chuck Strom