Five straight 20-win seasons and post-season appearances, national attention, annually improving talent, $10 tickets. What more do you need? Let’s add three NCAA Tournament wins in the past two seasons, a player taken in the first round of the draft and even less expensive prices for admission. Put all those factors together and you have San Diego State basketball – men’s and women’s – easily the best deal for sports fans in San Diego.
The cost of attending an athletic contest, especially anything of a professional nature, has skyrocketed over the years. Gone are the days you can go to 20 home Padres games at $5 a pop. Try that at Petco Park and you get the impression that there’s a game going on somewhere in there, and you can watch the highlights on TV later.
The way the economy is, you have to look for deals. Here’s how they stack up, in my opinion.
CAN’T BE BEAT:
1. San Diego State basketball (men and women) – By far the biggest bang for the buck. Convenient to get to with plenty of parking and trolley access, a beautiful arena, an exciting atmosphere and good teams. This isn’t even close compared to our other options. The only question for the men next season is how close they'll come to 30 wins. My only concern is whether women’s coach Beth Burns can compensate for the loss of extraordinary guards Jene Morris and Quenese Davis.
2. High School Baseball – There’s a reason why so many local products have been on the Padres roster in recent years, because high schools in this area turn out great players who make the major leagues. That line of “see tomorrow’s stars today” is applicable in this case. The Lions Tournament is the oldest and biggest of its kind, annually bringing in strong teams from outside the area. Best of all, prep baseball is free and usually just down the street at your nearby campus.
3. Del Mar Horse Racing – Is there a better place to spend a summer’s day than where the surf meets the turf? It costs $10 or less to get in and whether you leave with anything in your pocket is purely up to you. National-quality horses, trainers and riders. If you can, get to the courtyard where you can see the horses parade before they race.
FINE IF THEY MEET YOUR INTERESTS:
4. Chargers – You can’t beat football as a singular event kind of sport. Game day is special, with hours-long tailgates in the parking lot of Qualcomm Stadium and an atmosphere hard to rival inside. The Bolts draw national attention, have several of football’s best players and are usually playoff quality. But the NFL is a big-ticket game, and your Sunday afternoon of fun can run into the hundreds of dollars if you take family or friends, and pay for seats, parking and food. The trolley and bus service helps getting to and leaving The Q, but if you have to take a car, it’s not easy.
5. USD Baseball – The Toreros are merely good these days, not great like a few years ago. Still, Cunningham Stadium is a fine place to see a ballgame, and USD annually takes on the best teams in college baseball. General admission seats are just $5.
6. High School Football – See Number 2 above. San Diego area high schools have produced four Heisman Trophy winners. The only drawback is a lack of competitive balance between the schools, particularly in the city of San Diego and the South Bay.
7. Women’s Tennis at La Costa – By whatever name the tournament is known as, and with whatever sponsor, they get pretty big names and sometimes the biggest of the big names. The matches are usually very good and you can always count on an upset or two. Getting there is pretty easy if you’re already in the North County and the ticket prices are reasonable.
8. San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl – At least the past couple of years, the newcomer among the local college football post-season games takes no backseat to the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl, which has been a dud recently. Teams are just as good and the tickets are less expensive, making for a nice pre-Christmas gift. Call the Holiday Bowl 8A.
NOT FAN-FRIENDLY:
9. San Diego State football – At first glance, SDSU football would appear to be a good deal. Division 1 college football at $12? Not bad. But go under the surface and you find some trouble beyond the fact that the Aztecs haven’t been bowling for 11 years. Marketing efforts have been pathetic, partly because of Athletic Department budget woes, and the radio tie-in with Clear Channel Communications has not paid off by creating buzz among San Diegans. Ever hear talk of SDSU football on a fall Friday? Nope. If you go to a game, Ace Parking makes getting into the lot at Qualcomm Stadium a worse experience than a root canal. Whoever runs concessions does the same for getting a snack. State does little to improve the atmosphere inside the stadium, which resembles a morgue with any attendance under 30,000, except to pump in fake crowd noise. Things will improve as coach Brady Hoke turns the Aztecs into winners. I think he will, and I’ve seen how cool things are when the team is good. Please, before I get too old.
10. Padres – They’re polar opposites from SDSU in that they try to make for a rewarding fan experience, but they fall flat. First, the team has been either dull or dull and bad for years, and the slow start this season isn’t helping perceptions. I warned more than a decade ago that the decision to put Petco Park in the East Village wasn’t a good one, and I think that’s proving out with declining attendance. It’s not too inconvenient for me personally, but it is to the majority of baseball fans who simply want to take their families to a game, not party in the Gaslamp afterward. That they lowered beer prices and got rid of the 5-for-$5 meal plan shows where the marketing is heading. And don’t get me started on ticket prices. Football-style costs for baseball don't fit the nature of the sport. Bad deal all the way around. I’m plenty happy to go twice a year, max, and watch the rest of the schedule on Channel 4. (End of rant)
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Not only do I like the Padres getting back to .500 after sweeping the Diamondbacks, I love how they did it. A young team showing the ability to work into an opponents’ bullpen for three late-inning rallies is a good thing. It shows they won’t back down. Now what they do against teams with strong relief corps is another question, but I like the mental makeup I see.
The other thing I liked was the plate discipline I saw from Kyle Blanks this weekend. He had some great at-bats, even the ones that just led to walks. While he didn’t score on either free pass Sunday, on Friday and Saturday he extended rallies and forced relievers to throw more pitches than they wanted.
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In Baltimore’s 8-3 win in Oakland Sunday, USD’s Brian Matusz raised his record to 2-0 while Chula Vista’s Ty Wigginton drove in four runs with a double and homer. Adam Jones of Morse had two hits in five at-bats.
Rancho Bernardo’s Cole Hamels suffered his first loss of the season for Philadelphia against the Marlins. He allowed just two runs in eight innings, but the Phillies lost in a shutout.
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