Carolina Giants at Estadio Roberto Clemente Walker

The main entrance is straight back from home plate.

Clemente Stadium is a major-league ballpark except that the seats don't go all the way around. But they do curve behind the right field foul pole and include upper-level seating and a three-story press-box and luxury-box complex. A roof shelters some of the uppermost seats. Adding an upper deck and solving the traffic problem, it could hold an expansion MLB team (a dream of many people here).

Central seating as viewed from beyond the foul pole

The electronics are modern and operated professionally, but not to full potential. The Jumbotron played a Tina Turner concert video before the game. It can also display live or frozen video from the stadium cameras, but didn't show an instant replay. It showed the name and uniform number of each batter, in letters that left a lot of blank space. It did not show the batter's defensive position nor statistics; and there was no comparable display for pitchers and relievers. The screen can display a player's portrait as they do in some US minor leagues, but the only attempt they made was when corpulent Hector Villanueva came to bat for visiting Caguas; then they zoomed in on a fan's T-shirt with a cartoon diagram of a pig's face.

Recent History

Directions

Don't look for government road signs to the stadium; there are none. In particular, don't exit at Avenida Roberto Clemente (keep going). If you reach the El Comandante horse track, turn around and go back.

Asking for directions to "Clemente" is ambiguous; as well as the avenue, his name is also on another sports complex in Carolina, and on an amateur baseball stadium in the same city, and on the basketball coliseum next to the Bithorn in Hato Rey. Ask for "the Clemente stadium where the Giants play baseball."

The traffic light for your left turn into the stadium complex lasts long enough, after awaiting stragglers and scofflaws from the other directions, to admit about 3 cars per five-minute cycle. Police help the flow of traffic, but fans on the Santurce web site still complain about the tapones. They also complain that Carolina doesn't honor the tradition of granting admission to season-ticket holders of local opponents.

Concessions have to be reasonable, because the road into the stadium lot passes a plaza with restaurants including Church's, Burger King, SubWay, a pizza-and-pasta joint, and a Chinese restaurant.