SAN DIEGO -- Like all of the retro ballparks that have sprouted up across the country during the past decade, Petco Park has its share of charms and quirks.

As the Padres began workouts at their new downtown stadium this week, a few of the team's more prominent sluggers quickly acquainted themselves with what is surely among Petco's quainter touches: the four-story Western Metal Supply Co. building that seems to hang over the corner of left field.

With 334 feet between home plate and the left-field foul pole, as well as a slight breeze blowing from right to left, home run after home run was launched into the stately brick facade of the 95-year-old building.

Meantime, left undiscovered by even the most powerful of Padres was the territory beyond the fence in deep right-center, 411 feet away. If the early returns are any indication, it's the place where fly balls will go to die.

"Right-center, you better get every bit of it," Padres manager Bruce Bochy said. "Nobody's come close to hitting it out of there."

By week's end, the Padres had gotten their first taste of the sometimes maddening -- but always interesting -- world of non-cookie-cutter ballparks. In contrast to staid, symmetrical Qualcomm Stadium, the team's home for the past 35 years, Petco is a baseball purist's dream, featuring unusual dimensions and unusual design flourishes that should make the maiden season a wild ride for hitters, pitchers and fielders alike.

"It's our first year, so we're going to have a lot of unexpected things happen, I guarantee," third baseman Sean Burroughs said. "It's going to be interesting. It's going to be a different experience for everyone out there, but it's going to be fun, too."

Burroughs may have fun patrolling the hot corner, but those who roam the outfield or make a living smacking home runs to the power alleys would be less inclined to share the sentiment. Petco's layout is in the mold of San Francisco's SBC Park, with a short porch in right giving way to the deepest part of the field in right-center (420 feet at SBC) before the distance gradually lessens again toward another easily reachable corner in left.

The spacious middle of the outfield is the primary reason why the Padres went to great lengths to acquire free-agent center fielder Jay Payton, and it also suggests that Petco will be a pitchers' park. On the other hand, the short distances down the lines and the open-air design that allows winds to circulate off the water point toward it being a hitters' park.

So which is it? On this topic, reasonable minds can disagree.

"It's gonna be more of a hitters' park than a pitchers' park because balls are going to carry very well down the lines," Bochy said. "But if you make your pitches and keep (the ball in the) middle of the field, then you're going to be OK here because right center's huge and you gotta get all of it to get out in left center. So it's a little bit of both but more of a hitters' park."

Countered second baseman Mark Loretta: "I think the first wave of construction with these new ballparks, they made them pretty small: Baltimore and Cleveland to some extent. I think now with Pac Bell (now named SBC), Safeco, this one, they're pretty big. They're back to being more fair to pitchers."

Although less fair to outfielders. For his transition from first base to right field, Ryan Klesko certainly could have picked a better park than Petco. As if it weren't enough to have to cover significantly more ground than Brian Giles in left, Klesko must contend with another one of Petco's idiosyncrasies: the trapezoid-shaped section of seats that juts out from the right-field foul pole into the field of play.

Klesko wasn't present this week to start his training in the carom corner, but Bochy is already concerned enough that he is mulling a switch of Giles and Klesko.

"With Ryan, this is going to be a real, real, real tough adjustment for him," Bochy said. "Ideally I'd like to leave Brian where he's at because he's such a good left fielder. If I move Brian over to right and Ryan to left, we're not going to be quite as strong. But we may have to go that route."

Another potential wild card -- and friend to pitchers -- is the notorious San Diego marine layer. The Padres didn't have to deal much with heavy air at Qualcomm because of its inland location and because they played numerous games during the day, when balls tend to travel farther. Now that the team has moved seaside and is booked for mostly night dates at Petco, that will change.

"It will be interesting to see what happens during night games," Giles said. "With the air being a little saturated, that's going to affect (the ball)."

But, hey, who are the Padres to complain? They have the baseball-only stadium they coveted, and they already feel at home -- quirks and all.

"It's incredible," Loretta said. "I think it's better than I expected."

Contact staff writer Brian Hiro at bhiro@nctimes.com.