This is not a bad deal, my license fee helped to finance the new ballpark that the Giants felt they needed. I'm a lifelong Giants fan and my wife has become an avid fan since that wonderful September we had in 1997. We had worked on the Yes on B campaign to get the ballpark built. Gee whiz, was that in '95? Anyway, the Giants were great in '97 and we believed all the hype about the new ballpark being sold out, so we bought 4 charter seats in an area that we always liked to sit in at Candlestick, about even with homeplate, looking up the firstbase line. They told us we had made a great choice, that every seat was great one, that the views and sightlines would be spectacular. We waited for the new park, the 30 games we went to in '97 became 50 in '98 and 60 in '99. We couldn't wait for our great charter seats and the new park.

When we got to the new park, we were impressed. It's beatiful. The field and the quirky dimensions are great, I really think it makes the game better.

But there were a few differences between between what we were told we were getting and what we got. We were told that the charter seats would be wider than at Candlestick. Some of the charter seats are 21 inches wide, ours are 19 inches, the same as at Candlestick (in the upper deck the seats are 17 inches wide). We were told the rows would be wider, "like row L in the box seats at Candlestick". our row (row 35) is not that wide, in fact, add the cupholder to the back of the seat in front of you and you have a lot less room than we had at Candlestick. We were told that our seats would be "just under the overhang, like the first row of reserved seats at Candlestick". Row 35 is five rows under the overhang and 6 rows from the back, pretty much half way under the overhang. By the way, the people sitting behind us in row 36 say they got the same pitch. We said, "will the backstop block our view?" The Giants said, "The backstop will be suspended by thin cables like they do it in Oakland, it won't block anyone's view." The backstop is not suspended by cables, the pole runs right through homeplate from where we sit. Plus, to add insult to injury periodically there's a remote control camera mounted on the side of the pole that swivels and turns exactly in front of any right handed batter at the plate.

Are you still with me? I know I just keep adding things up and many of you are saying "We should have such a problem, you've got great seats!" But here's the my main complaint and the one that fills me with dread and sadness because there's almost nothing that can be done about it. The Lower Deck of the Ballpark has too shallow a slant. You can't see over the row in front of you. If an adult sits in front of me, homeplate is blocked from view. Sure it's a great view if no one sits in front of you, but hey, the place is sold out, someone ALWAYS sits in front of you.

I complained to the Giants. I asked my account rep, Margo Malone, about the issue. She said she'd "never heard that complaint before. Why don't you try sitting on a cushion?" This was incredible to me, no one believed what I was saying, that's why I decided to document the problem and display it here. Below, I've included some pictures of my view of the New Ballpark. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Am I out of line to complain about this? The Giants promise "the best experience in baseball" they promised "great views from every seat" (they didn't say "of the game", I checked my documents), they always say "we're listening", but they never say they'll respond.

I have a theory about why the lower deck is so messed up. The Giants had a height limitation on the entire structure, they had a formula for how many seats they had to have to make the thing viable financially, so in order to get enough rows in to satisfy the finances they fudged the rise of each step on the lower deck. The company that designed the park, HOK, has designed a lot of the new ball parks, including Coors Field, Jacobs Field, and Camden Yards, presumably they know what rise has to be from row to row. It's unbelievable to me to think that they've built a country full of ballparks that require people to constantly crane their necks. The Giants had to know what they were doing when they built this ballpark.

I love going to the game, I love to watch baseball and watch the Giants win, but Pacific Bell Park is flawed. The Giants, with my help, built a bad ballpark and it makes me mad. The seat licenses allow me the right to buy these seats for the rest of my life, it's just darned depressing to think that for the rest of my life, every time a person sits down in front of me at the game, I'm going be craning my neck to see.

I love the team, but I hate the organization.

Update:

March 17, 2001
After sending emails to the Giants (Larry Baer, our rep Margo Malone, Tom McDonald, and anybody else I could think of) and to HOK, I can say that from the log of my website, that people from both the Giants and HOK have looked at the site. HOK has not responded. We've had a couple of calls from our Giants rep Margo Malone.

The first time, she said that the matter had been turned over to VP of Consumer Marketing Tom McDonald and VP of Ticket Operations Russ Stanley. Neither one of them ever called us.

The next time, after I sent Margo email saying that neither Mr. McDonald or Mr. Stanley had contacted us, Brady talked to her on the phone. Here are some of the things Margo said to Brady (these are from notes Brady took during the conversation around 6pm on March 5th, 2001):

Margo: "In some sections, the grade has problems."
(when Brady asked if she was saying that Pac Bell Park was faulty, she backed off.)

Margo: "If I move you, I'd have to move your whole section."
(She also said that part of the problem was that we have motivated the other people in our section to complain.)

Margo: "The pouting is just making the situation worse."
(She immediately recanted this, saying that it wasn't what she said when Brady repeated it back to her.)

At the end of this conversation she told us that she would refer our case to her supervisor, Director of Cient Relations, Annemarie Hastings. We haven't heard from her. (no surprises there.)

On March 10th, Margo called us to say that, the Giants had contacted HOK about our issues and were waiting for a response... ... ...

This is a typical view from my seat when an adult sits in front of me.

This guy was taking a picture himself, maybe he's got a website up somewhere. (sorry my flash didn't go off.)

It doesn't have to be a tall man.

It doesn't even have to be a man who sits down in front of me.

It doesn't even have to be a big woman.

It just has to be a regular adult sitting in front of me and my view is blocked.

(you can send me your good view too, and I might even put that up.)

Thanks a lot for taking the time to look, I know this probably won't get me anywhere, but I had to do something. --David