Petco Park

Built Backwards

The 1909 Western Metal Supply Co. building stands at the corner of what is now left field, its southeast edge serving as the foul pole 336 feet from home plate. Populous architect Joe Spear and his team — working with architect Antoine Predock — built the ballpark backwards from that brick corner. The building fixed the location of home plate and the entire field configuration, an approach novel enough to require MLB approval. When the Padres left Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley and opened here in 2004, they did not build around the old structure. They built from it.

The field that resulted carries its own numbers: 336 down the left-field line, 386 to left-center, 396 to center, 391 to right-center, 322 to right. The batter faces due north rather than the northeast alignment most MLB parks use. The Western Metal building itself holds the park inside it — the team store on the ground floor, a restaurant on the second and third, and bleacher seating on a rooftop deck on the fourth.

First Nights

The very first event at the park was a college game. San Diego State defeated the University of Houston 4-0 on March 11, 2004, drawing 40,106 — a then-record for college baseball. The first regular-season game came on April 8. San Diego native David Wells threw the first official pitch, Trevor Hoffman blew a save, and Sean Burroughs drove in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th to beat the San Francisco Giants before a sellout of 41,400.

Beyond center field, a 2.8-acre Park at the Park holds a grassy area, a children's play area, a miniature Wiffle Ball diamond, and a sand beach. The park is credited with stimulating the redevelopment of San Diego's East Village neighborhood, with impacts that exceeded even supporters' expectations. The 2026 season is the 23rd season of baseball at this park.

Reporting: SABR, Sports Illustrated, FriarWire, San Diego Union-Tribune. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.