Grown-up Petco Park deserves a World Series, not just a happy 20th birthday (2024)

Monday night’s Padres-Cubs game marked the 20th anniversary of Petco Park’s first official game.

The ballpark itself, arguably the franchise’s MVP, was unavailable for comment regarding its 20th birthday.

But if you listen to the clicking turnstiles and cheers echoing off the Western Metal Supply Co. building, here’s the message I’m passing along:

It would be appropriate for Padres teams to match the East Village gem that stands to receive some 6.5 million fans across the 2023 and 2024 Padres seasons.

In other words, get to the World Series.

And, folks, let’s not take another 20 years — or even half that — to finally get it done.

Many other boxes have been checked off inside the downtown ballpark since Point Loma High School graduate David Wells threw the first official pitch alongside 19 Tony Gwynn Dr. on the same April night Khalil Greene, 24, reached base in all five tries and fellow homegrown Padres infielder Sean Burroughs, 23, singled home the winning run in the 4-3, 10-inning victory over the Giants.

Though the baseball was often snooze-inducing back when the coastal ballpark was playing as big as Yellowstone Park and the Padres were notching only one winning full season between 2008 and 2021, the East Village era has brightened the franchise’s first quarter to the 21st century.

It’s a pleasant place to catch a game, a factor in three million fans swelling the attendance across the ballpark’s first season and again last year, with similar totals projected for this year.

National League West banners, courtesy of Bruce Bochy’s final two Padres clubs, went up after the venue’s second and third years.

Tony Gwynn is depicted in a Petco Park drone show on April 1.

(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Though Tony Gwynn never batted in a game at Petco Park, he provided commentary on broadcasts from there. His fellow Padres Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman secured milestone saves in the new park despite initially musing that 396 feet to dead-center might be too hitter-friendly.

A Padres team led by Adrian Gonzalez won 90 games on MLB’s smallest payroll seven years into the East Village era. Six years later, 1976 Cy Young winner Randy Jones threw out a ceremonial pitch to launch the 2016 All-Star Game downtown.

Giving the ballpark a long-overdue playoff run, the 2022 Padres sprinted to the National League Championship Series, and Jake Cronenworth provided the venue a much-needed signature moment. The lefty lashed an RBI single to center field, leading to the clinching divisional-round victory over the Dodgers before a raucous, wet crowd waving gold towels.

It was a reminder of how fun October baseball can be.

A World Series at Petco Park would pair downtown San Diego with an event that originated in 1903, while complementing the Fall Classics in Mission Valley in 1984 and 1998.

It would bookend the World Baseball Classics that brought international flavor to the East Village venue.

As requests go, it’s not unreasonable.

The World Series has been played in 20 different cities in the 20 years since construction of the $456 million ballpark, public funding for which San Diego voters approved just two weeks after the 1998 Padres reached the World Series.

No one could’ve expected the 2004 Padres, who ended up 87-75, to pull off what the 2009 Yankees would achieve in winning the World Series in the debut season of their new home, Yankee Stadium III.

Nor would it have been fair to expect the early-Petco Padres to advance to a World Series as fast the large-market Giants, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Texas Rangers and Washington Nationals did in their ballparks that opened in the past two decades.

Trevor Hoffman is depicted in an April 1 drone show at Petco Park.

(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Led by Bochy, the Giants got to and won the World Series 11 years after their downtown ballpark opened, although not before the Gonzalez-led Padres pushed that ’10 West race to the 162nd game.

The seventh Mets team to play in the franchise’s new home in Queens advanced to the 2015 World Series.

It took Pat Gillick’s Phillies only five years and Chris Young’s Rangers only four to win a World Series after moving into fancy new digs — prevailing in 2008 and 2023, respectively, the latter club guided by Bochy.

It takes beating out 14 teams to reach a World Series.

Dealt uncommon challenges — some of them self-inflicted — relating to ballpark litigation that led to haircuts for some Padres baseball budgets, and buffeted later by team owner John Moores’ diviorce, the Padres get a mulligan for not reaching the World Series in Petco Park’s 20 seasons to date.

The ballpark’s money-printing charm, however, makes it tougher to blame the World Series drought on San Diego ranking among MLB’s bottom-five media markets in size.

Fans find their seats before the Padres’ March 28 game against the Giants.

(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

In part because of projected robust attendance, Padres players’ payrolls stood 13th, seventh, fifth and third between 2020 and 2023. This year’s payroll stands 13th of 30, estimates Fangraphs.com, while the club now projects 3.3 million in attendance a year after announced paid turnouts totaling 3.27 million placed Petco Park second to only Dodger Stadium.

Of the 20 teams to reach the World Series in the past decade, nine carried a payroll that stood 10th or lower. Among those nine were four World Series champions: the 2015 Royals (17th in payroll), the 2017 “Trash Can” Astros (17th), the 2021 Braves (14th) and the 2022 Astros (10th).

So if 20 years from now the Padres still haven’t brought a World Series to the East Village, it would rank as a pretty big disappointment.