Oracle Park

Oracle Park in 2021
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Former names	Pacific Bell Park (2000–2003) SBC Park (2004–2005) AT&T Park (2006–2018)
Address	24 Willie Mays Plaza
Location	San Francisco, California
Coordinates	37°46′43″N 122°23′21″W / 37.77861°N 122.38917°W / 37.77861; -122.38917
Public transit	2nd and King 4th and King San Francisco Golden Gate Ferry: Larkspur San Francisco Bay Ferry: Alameda, Oakland, Vallejo
Owner	Port of San Francisco
Operator	San Francisco Baseball Associates LP
Capacity	Baseball: 41,331 (2021–present) 41,314 (2020) 41,915 (2007–2019) 41,606 (2006) 41,584 (2005) 41,503 (2003–2004)[1] 41,059 (2001–2003) 40,930 (2000) 1,500 standing-room capacity NCAA Football: 45,000 (2011)[2] Rugby sevens: 42,000
Record attendance	44,046 (2010 NLDS Game 2)
Field size	Left field line – 339 feet (103 m) Left field – 354 feet (108 m) Left-center field – 399 feet (122 m) Center field – 391 feet (119 m) Right-center field – 415 feet (126 m) Right field – 365 feet (111 m) Right field line – 309 feet (94 m) Backstop – 48 feet (15 m) Fence height Left Field – 8 feet (2 m) Center Field – 7 feet (2 m) Dead Center Field – 10 feet (3 m) Right-Center Field – 20 feet (6 m) Right Field – 24 feet (7 m)
Surface	Tifway 419 Bermuda Grass
Construction
Broke ground	December 11, 1997 (December 11, 1997)
Opened	April 11, 2000 (April 11, 2000)
Renovated	October 2019—June 2020
Construction cost	US$357 million (US$632 million in 2023 dollars[3])
Architect	HOK Sport[4]
Project manager	Alliance Building Partners[5]
Structural engineer	Thornton Tomasetti[6]
Services engineer	M-E Engineers, Inc.[7]
General contractor	Hunt/Kajima[8]
Tenants
San Francisco Giants (MLB) (2000–present) San Francisco Demons (XFL) (2001) Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (NCAA) (2002–2013) California Redwoods (UFL) (2009) California Golden Bears (NCAA) (2011)

Oracle Park is a baseball stadium in the SoMa district of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has been the ballpark of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants. Previously named Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, and AT&T Park, the stadium's current name was purchased by the Oracle Corporation in 2019.^[9]

The stadium stands along the San Francisco Bay; the section of the bay beyond Oracle Park's right field wall is unofficially known as McCovey Cove, in honor of former Giants player Willie McCovey.

Oracle Park has also hosted professional and collegiate American football games. The stadium was the home of the annual college postseason bowl game now known as the Redbox Bowl from its inaugural playing in 2002 until 2013, and also served as the temporary home for the University of California's football team in 2011. Professionally, it was the home of the San Francisco Demons of the XFL and the California Redwoods of the United Football League.

Public transit access to the stadium is provided within San Francisco by Muni Metro or Muni Bus, from the Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley via Caltrain, and from parts of the Bay Area across the water via various ferries of San Francisco Bay. The Muni 2nd and King Station is directly outside the ballpark, the 4th & King Caltrain station is 1.5 blocks from the stadium, and the Oracle Park Ferry Terminal is outside the eastern edge of the ballpark beyond the center field bleachers.^[10]

History

Design and construction

Originally designed to be a 42,000-seat stadium, there were slight modifications before the final design was complete. When the ballpark was brought to the ballot box in the fall of 1996 for voter approval, the stadium was 15° clockwise from its current position. The center-field scoreboard was atop the right-field wall, with the Giants Pavilion Building being in two separate buildings.^[11] Groundbreaking on the ballpark began on December 11, 1997, in the industrial waterfront area of San Francisco known as China Basin in the up-and-coming neighborhoods of South Beach and Mission Bay. The stadium cost $357 million to build and supplanted the Giants' former home, Candlestick Park, a multi-use stadium in southeastern San Francisco that was also home to the NFL's San Francisco 49ers until 2014, when they relocated to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. A team of engineers from UC Davis was consulted in the design process of the park, resulting in wind levels that are approximately half those at Candlestick.^[12] But due to Oracle Park's location at San Francisco Bay, cold fog and temperatures in summer months are still not unusual at Giants games, despite reduced wind levels.

When it opened on March 31, 2000, the ballpark was the first MLB ballpark built without public funds since the completion of Dodger Stadium in 1962.^[13] However, the Giants did receive a $10 million tax abatement from the city and $80 million for upgrades to the local infrastructure (including a connection to the Muni Metro).^[14] The Giants have a 66-year lease on the 12.5-acre (51,000 m²) ballpark site, paying $1.2 million in rent annually to the San Francisco Port Commission.^[13] The park opened with a seating capacity of 40,800, but this has increased over time as seats have been added. In April 2010, the stadium became the first MLB ballpark to receive LEED Silver Certification for Existing Buildings, Operations and Maintenance.^[15]

Following the 2019 season, the organization began the process of relocating the bullpens from the first and third base foul lines to behind the outfield walls in center and right-centerfield. The motivation was two-fold: to address player safety issues that had arisen over the years by having the bullpen mounds in the field of play, and to slightly alter the dimensions of the park to perhaps increase, if ever-so-slightly, the potential for home runs in certain areas of the outfield,^[16] most notably in right-center field, affectionately known as Triples Alley (a design feature meant as an homage to the centerfield depth of the Giants former home in New York, The Polo Grounds). Prior to these modifications, multiple players both home and away had experienced various levels of injury sustained by tripping over the bullpen mounds while chasing foul balls. Most notably, former Giants outfield prospect Mac Williamson sustained a concussion during such a play that significantly altered his season.^[17]

Naming rights

On April 3, 1996, Pacific Bell, a telephone company serving California based in San Francisco, purchased the naming rights for the planned ballpark for $50 million for 24 years. The stadium was named Pacific Bell Park, or Pac Bell Park for short.^[18]

Just days before the sponsorship was announced, SBC Communications had announced their intention to acquire Pacific Bell's parent company, Pacific Telesis, a deal which closed in April 1997. SBC eventually stopped using the Pacific Bell name for marketing, and reached an agreement with the Giants to change the stadium's name to SBC Park on January 1, 2004.^[18]

After SBC bought AT&T Corporation on November 18, 2005, the name of the merged company became AT&T Inc. As a result, in 2006 the stadium was given its third name in six years: AT&T Park.^[18]

On January 9, 2019, it was reported that AT&T had given the Giants the option of ending the naming deal a year early, if the team could quickly find a new partner.^[19] The Giants and Oracle Corporation came to a rapid agreement, with the old AT&T Park signs being replaced with temporary Oracle Park banners on January 10.^[20]

2020 renovations

The Giants renovated the center field section of Oracle Park between October 2019 and June 2020.^[21][22] The bullpens were moved from foul territory into center field, so the Giants decided to make their garden smaller to fit the bullpens behind the center-field wall. With this renovation, the dimensions of the park have slightly shrunk. Left-center was trimmed down from 404 feet to 399 feet, right-center (known as Triples Alley) was trimmed down from 421 feet to 415 feet (to represent the San Francisco area code), and dead-center was trimmed down from 399 feet to 391 feet, making it the second shortest dead-center field distance in MLB, behind only Fenway Park in Boston.^[23] With this renovation, approximately 650 bleacher seats had to be removed, so the two terraces could be built for fans to watch the relief pitchers warm-up from up close.^[24] The center field wall shortened from eight feet to seven feet, but after the Giants first exhibition of the 2020 season, the dead-center field part of the wall (covering the garden) was raised from seven feet to ten feet to improve visibility to the hitter.^[25]

Despite having the unique moniker of the least home-run friendly field over several seasons prior to the renovations, it is believed that these renovations were made to increase home run output from the Giants. The MLB has seen a surge in home run production in recent years, and the Giants consistently ranked well towards the bottom in this category in large part because of Oracle Park's extreme advantage to pitchers. This hurt the run production of Giants players and also discouraged power hitters from wanting to play for the Giants. From 2017 to 2019, one of the common criticisms of the Giants was their lack of offensive output and unwillingness to adjust to a home run-heavy offense. However, the Giants significantly improved in 2020, the first year the dimensions were moved in. Things would trend upward with a massive bounce-back season in 2021; several Giants such as Brandon Belt and Mike Yastrzemski fueled the offense with more home runs, especially to a shortened triple's alley (which was infamous for turning what would be a long HR in several ballparks into deep 420-foot+ flyouts, killing several promising San Francisco scoring opportunities in the past). Oracle Park still ranks towards the bottom of the home run category, but this designation is not as consistent anymore.^[26]

During the 2023-24 offseason, the Giants installed new programmable LED lighting technology providing full color spectrum capabilities and motion lighting effects for Giants home runs, wins and other special occasions. Oracle Park became the first MLB ballpark to have spotlights, in the form of 12 advanced moving light features. Speaker upgrades were also done with the addition of subwoofers, allowing a more immersive audio experience.^[27]

Features

The stadium contains 68 luxury suites, 5,200 club seats on the club level, and an additional 1,500 club seats at the field level behind home plate.

On the facing of the upper deck along the left-field line are the retired numbers of Bill Terry, Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell, Monte Irvin, Will Clark, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, Jackie Robinson, Willie McCovey, and Gaylord Perry, as well as the retired uniforms, denoted "NY", of Christy Mathewson and John McGraw who played or managed in the pre-number era. These two pre-number–era retired uniforms are among only six such retired uniforms in all of the Major Leagues.

Oracle Park has a reputation of being a pitcher's park and the most pitcher-friendly ballpark in the National League, because the depth of the outfield limits home runs, according to ESPN.^[28] ESPN's MLB Park Factors lists Oracle Park as having the fewest home runs per game 6 out of the past 7 years, the one exception coming in 2013, when it was the 3rd lowest.

Right field and McCovey Cove

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The most prominent feature of the ballpark is the right-field wall, which is 24 feet (7.3 m) high in honor of former Giants Willie Mays, who wore number 24. Because of the proximity to the San Francisco Bay, the right-field foul pole is only 309 feet (94.2 m) from home plate, the shortest in the NL . The wall is made of brick, with fenced-off archways opening to the Cove beyond, above which are several rows of arcade seating. The fence angles quickly away from home plate; right-center field extended out to 421 feet (128.3 m) from home plate (changed with the 2020 renovations to 415 feet). Atop the fence are four fountain pillars. Jets of water burst from the four pillars at the end of the National Anthem, as well as when the Giants hit a home run or win a game.

The right field area was designed to resemble the Polo Grounds. This deep corner of the ballpark has been dubbed "Death Valley" and "Triples Alley." Like its Polo Grounds counterpart, it is very difficult to hit a home run to this area, and a batted ball that finds its way into this corner often results in a triple. It is 415 feet (126.49 m).^[29] Triples Alley is also infamous for bad bounces, most notably when Ichiro Suzuki hit the first-ever inside-the-park home run in an All-Star Game in 2007, by lining the ball off one of the archways and sideways past the outfielders. Nate Schierholtz performed the same feat in the 2009 season as a pinch hitter. Aubrey Huff did it again in the 2010 season, as did Conor Gillaspie in 2011. Ángel Pagán ended a game in May 2013 with a two-run walk-off (extra-inning, come-from-behind) inside-the-park home run, the first of its kind at the then-named AT&T Park.^[30]

Beyond right field is China Basin, a section of San Francisco Bay, which is dubbed McCovey Cove after famed Giants first baseman and left-handed slugger Willie McCovey, and into which a number of home runs have been hit on the fly. As of April 20, 2024, 103 "splash hits" have been knocked into the Cove by Giants players since the park opened; 35 of those were hit by Barry Bonds, who remains the only player to record two splash hits in the same game. The most recent splash hit occurred on April 20, 2024, by Patrick Bailey. These hits are tallied on an electronic counter on the right field wall. Opponents have hit the water on the fly 54 times; Todd Hundley of the Los Angeles Dodgers was the first visitor to do so on June 30, 2000. Curtis Granderson, Luis Gonzalez, Cliff Floyd, and Max Muncy are the only visiting players to do so twice. Carlos Delgado and Adam LaRoche have performed the feat thrice. Bryson Stott is the most recent visiting player to record a splash hit, doing so on September 3, 2022. On June 27, 2010, David Ortiz became the first American League player to hit a splash hit. Since then, the only other AL players who have are Mitch Moreland, Adam Dunn, Rougned Odor, and Shin-Soo Choo.

Behind the scoreboard in center field is a pier where ferries let fans off at the park. On game days, fans take to the water of McCovey Cove in boats often with fishing nets in the hope of collecting a home run ball. Just beyond the wall, behind the King Street ballpark, is a public waterfront promenade. Across the cove from the ballpark are McCovey Point and China Basin Park, featuring monuments to past Giants legends.^[31]