Padre Ticket Problems Disappear : Baseball: Crowds move smoothly Tuesday after high demand and computer glitch delayed season opener.

Things were back to normal at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium Tuesday night, but memories of Monday’s computer glitch at the ticket windows were all too fresh in the minds of Padre officials.

An hour before the Padres were to take the field Monday for the first afternoon home opener in the club’s 26 seasons, the TicketMaster computer system that operates their ticket sales broke down.

As a result, the game between the Padres and the Atlanta Braves was delayed from 2:05 to 2:20 p.m., and even then, the start was too early for many frustrated ticket-holders. It wasn’t until the second or third inning that all of the 42,251 fans had reached their seats.

Bill Adams, the Padres’ senior vice president for business operations, said computers for TicketMaster outlets throughout Southern California were affected. The outage lasted 40 minutes, by which time some would-be ticket-buyers had left the stadium.

Adams said there had been “a few complaints” Tuesday and that each caller had been offered tickets to a future game.

“It was a very trying situation,” he said. “Having all those fans and not being able to service them was totally frustrating, and we had no alternative.”

Adding to the problem was the fact that the gate sale far exceeded expectations.

After last year’s much-publicized “fire sale” of high-salaried players, the Padres’ off-season demand for tickets was so light that the upper deck was covered with a tarp. This trimmed the seating capacity from 59,722 to 46,510, and the Padres didn’t expect more than 35,000 for opening day.

As it turned out, 10,300 tickets, about triple the number that had been anticipated, were sold on game day. Although the crowd of 42,251 was more than 4,000 shy of the newly listed capacity, it was announced as a sellout because of a large number of complimentary tickets plus some that were for luxury boxes and not available for general use.

On top of the ticket problem, the parking lots became clogged to the point where many cars had to be parked on nearby streets.

“We have space for 18,000 cars,” Adams said. “The normal average is three people to a car, but this being an afternoon game with many folks coming from work, the average was closer to two per car.”

This is TicketMaster’s first season of serving the Padres, who had used Teleseat in the past.

“For the first time, we can put any ticket-buyer in any available seat at any of our 38 ticket windows,” ticket director Dave Gilmore said. “The tickets are printed right at the windows, and that’s why the computer breakdown was so serious.

“We opened the windows at 9 a.m. and we were fully staffed,” he said. “It’s just that the timing couldn’t have been worse. The amazing thing is that we sold more than 10,000 tickets.”