Atop most fans list of favorite baseball stadiums is San Francisco's AT&T Park. If it's not their favorite, it's almost always in their top five. And for good reason.
This ballpark is listed right in the middle of stadium sizes in the MLB, as the 16th largest. The way that the ballpark is configured makes it feel like one of the smallest, though. The feeling of intimacy at AT&T is one of its best features.
And speaking of features, this park is filled with plenty of unique features - the interesting angles and dimensions of the outfield, the view of the Bay, McCovey Cove, the Levi's mitt and Coca Cola bottle (with a slide in it) in the outfield, and the kids play area.
It's a great place to see a baseball game. They also offer one of the best stadium tours in the MLB if you can squeeze it in on your baseball trip.
The following day we took our west coast baseball tour guests to San Francisco. We hopped a short flight and arrived at SFO in the early afternoon. Once we checked into our hotels, everyone had the afternoon and evening on their own to go see the sites. We provided 3-day metro cards that allowed our guests to use the public transportation to go practically anywhere in the city.
By now, I'm sure you're picking up on my love of food. Yeah? So when in San Francisco, a city that's known for its great food, how could I not explore just a bit? We opted to go to Rocco's Cafe, a local Italian spot that we discovered by watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.
Chef Don, founder of Rocco's, paid our table a visit and chatted with us for quite a while. Turns out he's quite the baseball fan. In fact, Rocco's is so close to AT&T Park and the food is so good, that we've heard several of the Giants players, managers and staff members frequent the restaurant. I'm sure that several members from the visiting teams make their way to Rocco's too. If they don't, they're missing out!
Vida Blue - Following his Major League debut the summer of 1969, Vida was the 1971 American League Cy
Young Award winner and Most Valuable Player. As part of the Oakland A's, he won three World Series Championships in 1972, 1973 and 1974. He appeared in six All Star Games and was the first pitcher to start an All Star game for both leagues.
Blue played for three teams - the A’s, Giants, Royals. He was traded to Giants in 1978 for 8 players and $390K and promptly won 18 games that year. The Mansfield, Louisiana native resides near San Francisco and actively promotes the game of baseball. You can see more of Blue's statistics on the MLB.com site.
We're very excited about the returning of Vida Blue as part of our Big League Player Experiences on our West Coast and Bay Area Tours. Vida has made a couple of appearances for us (appearance in 2006 at Chop House above and in 2008 below at AT&T Park during Giants batting practice) and is always a fan favorite.
About the Big League Player Experiences - Get inside the game like never before when you meet up with Big League ballplayers on each of our baseball road trips. Players like Vida Blue, Bill Lee, Dave Parker and Tom Browning have joined us on our tours. Join us on a Big League Tours and you'll see what our guests tell us is the favorite part of their experience. See more about the Player Experiences.