Seattle Mariners tickets

If 0lympic Stadium in Montreal is considered the worst sta¬dium in baseball, the Kingdome surely ran a close second. Fortunately, Safeco Field replaced this depressing warehouse in 1999. Although not located in a cold-weather clime like Montreal or Minnesota, Seattle has its share of inclement, mostly rainy, weather. But given a choice between spending a warm, sunny day outdoors in the beautiful Pacific North-west or sitting in a dingy gray domed stadium, lots of fans might choose to stay away from the ballpark. It is a credit to the Mariners' organization, which assembled an exciting team that featured Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez, that attendance remained at comparatively high levels during the mid- to late nineties. The fans here were loud and enthusiastic, a great contrast to the dark, dismal surroundings, dominated by concrete, artificial turf, and the charcoal-gray dome.

Major League Baseball has not always been successful in Seattle. A differ¬ent franchise, the expansion Seattle Pilots, played one dismal season in 1969 at Sicks Stadium, a minor-league ballpark, before moving to Milwaukee in 1970. But Seattle was given another opportunity in 1977 with the expansion Mariners, and although the team has never won a championship, the city has been generally supportive. Due to the small-market status of Seattle and its less than hospitable ballpark, however, previous Mariners owners tried to move the team to Florida. To cope with the growing disparity in revenues between big-market and small-market franchises, Seattle elected to build a baseball-only field that would per¬suade the Mariners to remain and, hopefully, stay competitive. It remains to be seen whether the new stadium alone will be enough to increase revenues to a pennant-contending level. In any event, most fans will not miss the Kingdome. Hitters, on the other hand, will miss the cozy dimensions when compared with its successor, the more spacious Safeco Field.

RUSS DAVIS "The Kingdome to me was like an empty warehouse. It was kind of gloomy, never saw daylight. Good hitter's park. There wasn't a whole lot of character to it. It was kind of outdated. I think it was time for it to go."

JASON SCHMIDT "Kingdome-I was in awe, 'cause I was sitting in the outfield looking down on the players. It was exciting, you know? I was looking down and seeing the players, even if they were not good players back then, they were guys that I have in my mind still."

RICHIE SEXSON "It was hard for me to fathom playing in something like that [the Kingdome], because it was so big. You just dream of getting there and playing and things like that. You . . . want to believe that you're going to get there, but it's mostly just a dream when you're that young. I was about eight or ten, somewhere around there, first time I saw it."

JOHN OLERUD "First big-league ballpark I ever remember seeing is the Kingdome in Seattle. And that was a big deal at the time, and just exciting being there for a big-league ball game."