Tickets Go Smoothly, but Pregame Is a Problem : Baseball: Parachutist injured at San Diego, where a computer glitch seems to be remedied.

Things were nearly back to normal at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium on Tuesday night. Ticket problems appeared to be solved, but an accident involving a parachutist resulted in one injury and the delay of the second Atlanta-Padre game in the series.

The extent of the man’s injuries was not known.

The unidentified chutist came down in a formation with two other jumpers, hit hard and slid along the ground near Braves players Fred McGriff, Deion Sanders, Ryan Klesko and Mike Kelly, who were warming up in left field.

When the players realized he was hurt, they motioned for medical assistance.

The parachutist lay motionless for several minutes, but was seen moving his arms and legs after he was put on a stretcher.

It marked the second day in a row of problems, and 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 play in the first afternoon home opener in the club’s 26 seasons, the TicketMaster computer system that operates the ticket sales broke down.

The Padres-Braves game 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 gate sale far exceeding 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.