Landmark in the City - Tour of AT&T Park

Last week, the company I currently work for held a summer celebration at AT&T Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants.

The highlight of the day for me was the quick tour of the park. We were assigned a group tour guide and showed us around the park with out the ball game crowd. Thank you AT&T Park and my employer.

The day started out cloudy but muggy. A lot of my co workers were shuttled in but I took the BART and then Muni since I live in the city. There was already a long line going into the ballpark at 10:30am.

 

[read my other SF Giants blog here]

By 11:30am, the sky has cleared out and sunshine was upon us. A former Giants 1st baseman, JT Snow, greeted us and gave us a quick story that happened in one of the games of the 2002 World Series between the Giants and the Angels. I remember the series went to Game 7. JT Snow seems like a nice guy.

   

After a ballpark themed lunch, I went to the clubs section for a ball park tour.  I signed up for a 1:15 tour. I saw a bunch of people coming back from their tours and judging from their looks, they've enjoyed the tour immensely.

Our tour guide took us first to the field. While I've been to a couple of games where we were seated behind the Giants dugout, I never walked on the field. There was a crunching sound when I walked on the clay.

   

Aside from being told not to step on the grass, I was not sure if our tour guide was supposed to be telling us anything about the field like how often they water the grass, how many people are needed to maintain the field, where the clay came from, etc. 

I didn't mind not getting any information from our tour guide because I was admiring the ball park from the field. I noticed how the ball park looks new, clean and quiet without the usual crown during game day. 

   

   

Our next tour stop was the Visitors Clubhouse. 

I was surprised how clean it looked and smelled. 

Good job, Giants!

   

 

Next was the Giants Club. The walls are decorated with old pictures from the Giants' days as New York Giants.

 

   

If you haven't been to a game in one of the club suites, here is a view.

   

Here's a view of Rincon Hill from the ball park.

   

Did you know that there is a bowling alley inside the Giants Clubhouse?

   

There were also interesting displays on the corridors.

    

 

This one, a signed ball that was used during Tim Lincecum's no hitter ball game. I believe he has two no hitters.

 

Here's a pano of of the ball park.

   

I checked the SF Giants' website and found out that there are ballpark tours for a fee. I wonder how that tour differs from the free tour we got last week? Maybe, I'll go reserve a tour one of these days.

 

Let's Go Giants!

~rl