As the Major League Baseball season starts chugging along and the San Diego Padres play their first home game of the season today it is time for people like me to take note: the days of easy parking in downtown San Diego have ended. For now.
To be more specific, the days of parking hassle free at San Diego’s central library have gone on hiatus at least until October, when the rest of Major League Baseball’s teams are chasing a World Series title and the dugouts at Petco Park have been protected with dust covers.
I can’t remember the last time I went to a baseball game. The pastime isn’t my cup of java and I would rather read a book about grand manors and manicured estates than sit through nine innings of grown men playing catch while thousands of fans around them chat about their weekend plans and neighborly gossip. Enter the central library.
Unlike my local branch library the central location is open Sunday and its book selection is wider than the array of excuses a sixth grader has for not doing his homework. Before the season, trips to pick up a book for a week or two were as simple as getting in the car and parking for a few hours in the library’s underground parking structure, then carelessly meandering among the tomes of fiction and facts. Two hours of free parking downtown is as rare and delightful as finding a meter with time remaining.
But when baseball season starts the two-hour parking offer has limits. If a game starts at a certain time then parking at the library, which is about a two-minute walk away from the stadium can get expensive.
For example, on Sunday the Padres game starts at 1:40 p.m. The special parking rate is $40 and is in effect from 11:40 a.m. (20 minutes before the library opens) and 2:40 p.m., an hour after the first pitch has been thrown. Cheapskates like me who don’t want to pay for two hours of parking, will have to wait at least until 3 p.m. to visit the library, which closes at 6 p.m. Of course there is the strong likelihood there won’t any parking at all.
A first world-non baseball fan’s problem, to be sure.
There’s no denying that the stadium has revitalized the area downtown and sharing a parking structure with baseball fans a few days a month is a small price to pay for the upgrades. Nevertheless it’s as frustrating as sun in your eyes during a day at the beach.
Whereas I could mindlessly wander downtown, park my car and choose just the right book to read, now I have to check the Padres schedule to see if they are playing at home before I commit to leaving the house.
And while I wish Padres fans and their team good luck at today’s first pitch of the season, I’m looking forward to the last out that ends it all six months from now.
