As part of my relentless quest to visit all the major league baseball parks, tonight we went to a San Diego Padres game at Petco Park.

The Padres were the first Major League baseball team I ever saw play, back in 1971, in the third year of this expansion franchise when they played out in Mission Valley in San Diego Stadium (later rebuilt into the current San Diego Chargers Qualcomm football stadium).

Petco is 10 years old and is generally considered one of the best stadiums in baseball. It’s right downtown, in cozy confines on Harbor Blvd, across from the Convention Center. The aesthetics are outstanding, with a lot of interesting adobe-colored and -textured surfaces, even to the stall dividers in the bathrooms. As you walk in, you go up an escalator viewing water falling over beautiful sand-colored slate. Concourses are wide and varied in design, and there are palm trees in center field and ivy hanging from overpasses above.

Because the footprint of the stadium is small, there’s a lot of overhang of the upper tiers of seats, but the vertical spacing is sufficient that people in the seats below the overhangs don’t feel shadowed or squashed (although the trade-off is that the nose-bleed seats are pretty far from the field).

One unusual feature is the 1910 brick Western Metal Supply warehouse on the third base side. Listed on the National Historic Register, it couldn’t be demolished for the stadium so it was gutted and repurposed: a team store, suites with balconies overlooking the field, and a bar & grill. It doesn’t have the gravitas of the B&O warehouse in Baltimore, but it’s interesting to look at and a nice nod to downtown history.

The food is, of course, a vital consideration at any ballpark, and I rate Petco high on food. I usually test the dogs, and my Italian sausage with grilled peppers & onions was excellent.

Patrick went for the BBQ ribs and found them to be pretty good, although not outstanding.

There is a tremendous variety of food to choose from, including an area with deli salads and fresh fruit. I have to say, though, that I didn’t see many people in there: who goes to the ballgame to eat grapefruit?

They may even have overdone the number of craft beer booths. But perhaps beer can’t actually be overdone at a ballpark.

We walked around the concourse and came across a large scale model of the USS Midway (CV-41), complete with model airplanes on the flight deck. The Padres honor the military (especially the Navy) in a number of ways, including offering military discounts on all seats and incorporating camouflage design into their players’ uniforms. We also found the “Park in the Park” area beyond the center field fence, with a 10-foot statue of Padres great Tony Gwynn, a miniature baseball field where kids can play (and were playing) ball, and a sort of grassy knoll, similar to the ones you see at Spring Training parks, where families were sitting on blankets; seats there cost $5. Nice amenity!

And yet – and yet – I can’t give a hearty thumbs-up to the stadium. The design has one major, and to me fatal, flaw: you can really comfortably watch the game only from your assigned seat. As you walk around the concourses, your view of the game is blocked by various structures between you and the game – bathrooms, concession stands, restaurant areas restricted to high-priced ticketholders, and who knows what all; mostly you’re looking at blank walls.

At our superior Safeco Field, as you’re walking around, you can always see the game. You’re standing in line for a dog and hear a cheer swell from the crowd, you have only to turn around to see what’s happening on the field. And in addition, on two levels in left field you have “leaning” counters to stop and watch for, say, half an inning (including next to the bullpens, so you can offer helpful advice to the relief pitchers warming up), and in center field you have meet & flirt areas with stand-up tables for singles to mingle and still see the game.

Other minor negatives: The song played during the 7th inning stretch after Take Me Out to the Ball Game is ideal for dancing: Twist and Shout – but no one danced. Get moving, fans! We were sitting on the third base line, just past the visiting dugout, and the seats were nicely oriented toward the battery. But the big screen is just inside the left-field line, so we couldn’t see it without craning our necks uncomfortably around to the left. And the mascot – I’m sorry, but the “Swinging Friar,” complete with tonsure, is just a little creepy.

As the Padres haven’t done well yet this decade, the crowd was sparse, even including a lot of Arizona Diamondback fans taking a break from the desert heat of Phoenix. But in a nail-biter, the Padres did beat the Diamondbacks 2-1 with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th.