New San Francisco Park is a Gem

Crippled by arthritis so bad he has trouble standing, Willie McCovey grinned as he surveyed the Giants’ quirky new bayside ballpark--with a mere 309 feet from home plate to the foul pole in right.

“When I saw the right-field wall, I thought about making a comeback,” the 62-year-old Hall of Famer said.

McCovey spent his Giants career at wind-swept Candlestick Park. The most feared left-handed slugger of his generation, he could have caused a big splash at new Pacific Bell Park.

That’s because many balls clearing the 25-foot wall in right field will land in a channel off San Francisco Bay. The inlet has been declared “McCovey Cove” and is destined to become a popular spot for sailors seeking souvenir baseballs.

In left field, hitters will aim at a giant glove. The 20,000-pound mitt--built of fiberglass over a steel frame--sits atop the bleachers, 518 feet from home plate.

“I like that big glove out there in left-center. It gives [Mark] McGwire something to shoot for. It’s nice to have something different,” said the Yankees’ Derek Jeter, who played at the park last weekend in an exhibition game.

The four-fingered mitt, based on a computer model of a 1927 Rawlings glove owned by the father of Giants general counsel Jack Bair, is just one of the old-time touches at the $319 million stadium, which officially opens Tuesday.

There are 653,284 bricks in the stadium, including the facades and parts of the outfield walls. And there’s a hand-operated scoreboard in right-center field.

The park was designed by HOK Sport, which also did Camden Yards in Baltimore, Jacobs Field in Cleveland and Coors Field in Denver, and it resembles those three 1990s parks. But it also mimics Chicago’s 84-year-old Wrigley Field with its bullpens on the field and its minuscule foul territory.

Front-row seats are just 48 feet from home plate--12 1/2 feet closer than the batter is to the pitcher. During an exhibition played last weekend, two foul balls sliced into the crowd behind the plate and barely missed hitting fans.

“If there was one word to describe this ballpark, I think it would be intimate,” Giants owner Peter Magowan said. “This is a baseball park for baseball fans. We could have built more seats, but we wanted to maintain that sense of intimacy.

“We could have built a very safe park. We could have cavernous foul territory, bullpens behind the outfield fences. I’m sure the players would have loved it. But we would have lost the experience our fans are going to have. This, to me, is real baseball.”

There still are plenty of things for the players to love, especially the Giants.

The 40,800-seat stadium, the first privately financed major league baseball stadium in 38 years, has a 6-foot-deep resistance pool in the home clubhouse with underwater windows so trainers can monitor movements. A sign next to the pool reminds players: “Warning: No Lifeguard on Duty.”

The extra-wide lockers in the Giants’ clubhouse are finished with cherry veneer, and there’s a clubhouse kitchen big enough for any appetite.

Not everything is perfect, however.

Giants ticket prices have increased more than 75 percent from last year. The average is $21.24, baseball’s sixth highest, up from $12.12 last season.

The weather remains a variable. Though the ballpark was turned around after aerodynamic studies determined how best to shelter it from the wind, San Francisco still can be frosty on summer nights.

It was balmy for exhibition games last week against Milwaukee and New York, and there was little wind. But a few days earlier, it was cold and blustery for the stadium’s official media tour.

Brewers manager Davey Lopes and some of his players complained the ballpark might have sacrificed practicality and safety in order to highlight its unusual features.

“I like nostalgia, but I think they went a little overboard,” he said. “It’s a hazard with the bullpen mounds on the field; guys will be susceptible to injuries. In my opinion, that has no place in the game.”

Lopes said Pacific Bell Park compares unfavorably to Seattle’s Safeco Field, which opened last July.

“They didn’t cut corners here like the Giants did,” he said in Seattle. “San Francisco is a nice field. But inside for the visiting side, it’s not very good.”

One thing just about everyone agrees on--the new park is a whole lot better than its reviled predecessor a few miles south on Candlestick Point.

“It’s beautiful. It’s unique,” the Yankees’ Chuck Knoblauch said. “Chalk it up as another new ballpark that was done right.”