When I attended college in the mid-80’s, the only kind of computer printers anyone could afford were dot-matrix. Although professors usually wanted your essays typed, they hated reading dozens of papers written with those fuzzy dots. Most professors didn’t allow dot-matrix printouts.

That meant you had to write your papers twice, the old-fashioned way: once in an original draft, and another time on a typewriter.

One time, I wrote a brilliant essay, typed it, and turned it in. When I got it back, I was shocked to find I had received a B. The professor commented: “You make some excellent points, but your paper lacks a strong thesis.”

When I went back and compared my original draft to what I had turned in, I discovered I had forgotten to type one sentence. Not just any sentence, either: I skipped the thesis sentence, the one sentence that tied the whole paper together, that expressed the very point I was trying to make.

Petco Park is like that paper. It could have been brilliant, but there’s one big flaw which drops it from being a masterpiece to merely good. The Western Metal Supply Company building, which should be a centerpiece of the park, gets lost in a sea of larger, noisier structures surrounding it.

There’s a more in-depth review, along with lots of pictures, at humbug.com.