AT&T Park: Champion of the Sun

My first trip to AT&T Park was an Easter Sunday matinee last April, and I immediately fell in love with San Francisco's beautiful waterfront stadium.  The sun, the water and the views make AT&T completely unlike virtually every other urban baseball stadium, and in daylight you can fully appreciate all of the venue's intricate design elements.  Yesterday I made my first night trip to the stadium to see Cliff Lee and the Philadelphia Phillies battle Matt Cain and the Giants in one of the young season's most anticipating pitching matchups to date.  The players didn't disappoint - the starters breezed through the first ten innings of the game at an incredible pace before Melky Cabrera won it for San Francisco in the 11th - and in the process I saw AT&T Park transformed as light turned to dark.

In general (as I've established here before), I prefer night baseball games.  Growing up in New York, a summer day game at Yankee or Shea Stadium meant three straight hours roasting in 90+ degree heat and 90+ percent humidity, staring directly into the sun on every pop-up and begging your Dad to buy you a $7 Carvel ice cream sundae in a mini batting helmet.  We used to avoid day games whenever possible - if you wanted to catch part of a weekend series, it was best to go on Friday night and watch the other games from the comfort of your air conditioned living room.  AT&T Park is different, though.  While it's certainly a fun place to watch a game once the sun goes down, it's clearly a park that's made to be visited during the day time.  While the night view is dominated by left field's neon green Coke bottle and the scoreboard, the day view features a spectacular view of the waterfront that makes AT&T special.

AT&T Park looks great at night . . .

Part of my preference for AT&T Park during the day is purely semantics and logistics.  Unlike New York in the summer, San Francisco doesn't get super hot or humid and the afternoon weather is often nearly perfect, as it was yesterday when we arrived at the stadium around 6 PM. In fact, sometimes summers in San Francisco can be colder than the fall or spring, so having the sun to keep you somewhat warm is actually welcome.  AT&T Park is also known for its views, and you can much more readily appreciate the surrounding scenery during the day.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with the view at night, but for me it's just not as "special."

. . . but is even more impressing and special while the sun is shining.

I think day baseball in San Francisco also fits the character of the city and the Bay Area as a whole, though.  As great as New York City is during the day, the Big Apple is known for night life. The lights of Times Square, the illuminated top of the Empire State Building, the late night bar and club scene - there are good reasons why they call it the city that never sleeps.  San Francisco is, in my opinion, a day time city - while you can have fun there once it gets dark, you only fully appreciate the rolling hills and surrounding bay views when the sun is shining.  Much like its city, AT&T Park is best taken in during the day time.  Thanks to Cliff Lee and Matt Cain's quick work of the opposing offenses, we got to watch many of yesterday's innings fly by while the sun was still shining despite the 7 PM start.  On Saturday I'll be heading back to Oakland to se the A's play Cleveland, and I hope the game goes as quickly.  Not because I care about seeing O.co Stadium during the day, though - it's just that I don't want to hang out in Oakland late at night and risk getting stabbed.