New Ballgame for Cash-Conscious Fans

John Mood, 58, has been a reverent fan of the San Diego Padres for 17 years, since he moved here from the Midwest. A self-proclaimed atheist, Mood sees baseball as his true religion and San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium as his favorite cathedral.

In recent years, though, Mood has found the weekly tithe--admission to the games and costs inside the stadium--to be ever more of a burden. As prices have gone up, the expectations of the team have gone down.

On Tuesday, when Mood and thousands of other San Diegans descend on the stadium for the start of yet another baseball season, they will find higher prices for parking, tickets and concessions--and on the field, a team picked for no better than fourth or fifth place.

And they will enter a stadium that, in recent years, has been viewed increasingly as a buffer against spiraling inflation by a city badly in need of money.

City Manager Jack McGrory said Friday that, for the stadium to break even in 1991, the Padres need to draw more than 2 million fans. That may not happen if the team plays poorly, especially in April and May.

“The key for us, looking at the Padres and Chargers, is that they get off to a good start,” McGrory said. “A bad start affects overall attendance levels. The fans get soured, and it’s tough to get them reinterested.”

Last year, Padres’ attendance was 2.1 million. McGrory said the extra stadium revenue went to “capital improvements”--such as roads, libraries and parks. But it may be a stretch to count on the ’91 Padres to pave streets and buy new books.

Still, McGrory said city officials remain hopeful that the stadium--swayed largely by the Padres--will cover its annual operating costs ($4.6 million) and debt service ($2.5 million) and have money left over for the rest of San Diego.

Some say it’s amazing that the stadium made money last year, considering the woeful performances of the Padres, who finished fourth in the National League West, and the Chargers, who once again failed to make the playoffs in the National Football League.

Many experts had picked the Padres to win the pennant and

play in the World Series. Instead, the team plummeted, and two of its star players, Jack Clark and Tony Gwynn, spent most of the year bickering.

Clark is now with the Boston Red Sox, and that’s just one change fans can expect Tuesday.

When they enter the stadium, they will pay $4 per carload, as opposed to the $3 a year ago.

When they reach the ticket booth, they will find that general admission tickets have gone from $4 to $5. They will find the Upper Level renamed the View Level, and, that it costs more--$9.50 per ticket, as opposed to last year’s $8.

Loge tickets have gone from $8 to $9.50. And Plaza, Field and Press Level tickets--considered the best in the house--have gone up to $11, from last year’s $9.50.

Concessions are higher, too. Pizza, formerly sold by the slice, used to cost $2.25. It’s now an individual-size pizza that costs $4. But, said Steve Gregosky of Service America Corp., the stadium’s concessionaire, it’s Domino’s Pizza. Fans can also buy Rubio’s fish tacos, and, later in the year, ICBY Yogurt and a name brand of submarine sandwiches.

A 16-ounce beer has gone up from $2.25 to $3, and the 24-ounce beer formerly sold at the stadium now isn’t sold at all. Fans cannot purchase beer after the seventh inning, and no one can bring beverages into the stadium.

There is one price decrease , however. Hot dogs are now $1.50 instead of $1.75.

Fans can also expect changes in the Padres’ uniforms. The colors are now navy blue and orange, as opposed to the old brown, white and yellow mix, and stadium manager Bill Wilson says the outfield wall mirrors the new look.

Wilson said the stadium no longer has foul poles. Those have been replaced by nets, one foot wide, with “bright-orange piping,” he said, “and suspended by a cable, so that people can see right through them.”

He said the backstop is “no longer supported by eight poles, but rather, by a pole-less support cable, which is seamless and affords terrific visibility.”

Wilson said one of the biggest changes involves restrictions on “tailgating,” that popular stadium pastime in which fans congregate around cars and recreational vehicles strategically placed in the parking lot for a party or picnic.

Tailgaters will not be allowed to take up more than one space if parked in the inner ring of the parking lot nearest the stadium. Also, although tailgaters may park next to the eight finger-like walkways leading into the stadium, Wilson said, any wiener-roasting or hamburger-frying on the walkways themselves “is now strictly prohibited.” Wilson added that he would prefer that all tailgaters use the outer ring of the parking lot.

John Mood, who describes himself as the quintessential fan, said he will “never understand” why the Padres got rid of slugging outfielder Dave Winfield and shortstop Ozzie Smith, whom Mood describes as “the best ever.”

As a part-time professor and free-lance writer, Mood said he and his wife can no longer afford the stadium’s parking prices. So they ride their motorcycles and park on streets “several hundred yards away.”

He and his wife always sit in the general admission section, because they can afford it, and “it’s the only place in the park where, if you happen to land next to an obnoxious fan, you can always get up and move.”

He’s not big on the “frills”--concessions and souvenirs--not so much because he doesn’t want them, but rather, can’t afford them.

“I know families who have two children who can’t go to a game now without dropping $100,” Mood said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Ridiculous is an adjective Mood will never use in describing the game, which he says has a symmetry and beauty that can’t be matched in American life. He agrees with all of the baseball rhetoric spouted in books and movies in recent years--it really is a field of dreams peopled by the boys of summer.

“I’ve never gone to a game that I didn’t enjoy,” Mood said. “It rewards intelligence on the field like no other sport.”

Mood said that, despite the increases in parking, ticket and concession prices, the worst change of all, as far as he’s concerned, was the Padres losing pitcher Eric Show to the Oakland A’s. Mood said he used to come to the games two hours early so that he and Show could chat by the Padres’ bullpen.

“My friends couldn’t understand that acquaintanceship,” Mood said. “Eric is a raving right-winger (and member of the John Birch Society). I’m a left-winger. He’s a Christian. I’m a nonbeliever. He’s a capitalist. I’m a socialist. But what I like about him is, he’s a great conversationalist.

“And that’s one of the great things about baseball, which only the true fans know. It lends itself beautifully to conversation, so I look forward to the start of every season for that reason alone.”