Tixmas Stadium Tour 2- AT&T Park, Home of the Giants

At this point, I had only toured two of the historical staples in MLB- Fenway and Dodger Stadium.  AT&T certainly doesn't have the same historical feel of those two, but it also doesn't try to.  AT&T plays to its strengths, with a big one being technology.  I have never been in a stadium so technologically advanced, and it kinda matches where the franchise is at- a modern powerhouse that seems to evolve and win every other year.  As you can see in the picture above, they were getting ready to host a bowl game (football at a baseball stadium is definitely on my bucket list) so the tour wasn't what it normally is in the offseason, but it was cool to see the transformation in progress- they were literally working on the field while we were there!

Being a tour guide seems like one of those jobs that would be really easy, but I'm sure it really isn't.  Over the years we've had a wide variety of tour guides, but San Francisco's remains among my favorites.  You can tell when someone is passionate about a team, and his love was truly genuine.  Plus, he wasn't in the easiest situation having to adjust to a football field being set up while he was leading us, but he was equal to the task.  In fact, he did something that we've never done before on a tour and may never do again- we got to go into the Giants locker room and meet the team equipment manager!  Joel got to sit in Tim Lincecum's locker, we saw Bruce Bochy's office, and we got our picture with one of the most well respected equipment guys in the game.

My favorite part of the tour, though, was looking out at the field from above home plate.  We didn't get to go down on the field, but from a higher vantage point, you could see the bay and imagine Barry Bonds blasting balls out to the people floating around in boats.  We also got to see some of the behind the scenes stuff, like their display case for their World Series trophies (which they would add to the following year- seriously, every two years), and the visitor's batting cage.

Similar to Dodger Stadium, these tours run year round.  They cost $22 per person and are definitely worth every penny.  I think this is still Joel's favorite public tour.  One thing to note is that parking around the stadium is limited- we were almost late because it took us a while to find parking and when we finally did, it was a bit of a jaunt to the gate where we were meeting.

Shoutout to our tour guide- you made AT&T fun!  I definitely see some Giants games in our future!