Safeco Field (Seattle)

The Angels and Mariners partake in an emotional pregame ceremony at Safeco Field on September 18, 2001, the first game back following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Seattle clinched the AL West the following night. (Courtesy of the Seattle Mariners)

 

Safeco Field, the Seattle Mariners’ home ballpark in 2001, first opened its gates in July 1999. A publicly owned ballpark, it succeeded the Kingdome, a multi-purpose indoor domed stadium owned and managed by King County, Washington. The Kingdome had hosted football, basketball, soccer, tractor pulls, motocross, trade shows, concerts, and Mariners home games beginning with the team’s first season as an expansion team in 1977. The Kingdome was imploded in March 2000 to make room for construction of a new football stadium on the Kingdome site. Safeco Field is located two blocks south of the Kingdome site and about a mile and a half south of Seattle’s downtown core.

Safeco Field opened to great fanfare and was an immediate hit with the Mariners fanbase. It was a baseball-only ballpark, designed specifically for baseball with natural grass, good sightlines for fans, a capacity of just over 47,000 fans, and a retractable roof to neutralize the Seattle rain. It allowed Mariners fans to move from a dark and dreary indoor structure into the sunlight, something particularly welcome to Seattle’s outdoor-oriented fanbase during Seattle’s sunny summers.

Fans responded by turning out in great numbers. Attendance for Kingdome games during the first half of 1999 averaged 28,190 per game, while attendance at Safeco Field games during the second half averaged 43,250 per game, an increase of 53%. By 2001, with the Mariners in first place from the first to the last day of the season, attendance jumped to over 3.51 million, the highest in baseball, with 59 of the 81 home games reaching sellout status.1

But despite the warm reception from Mariners fans, the construction of Safeco Field had been highly controversial. Citizens groups fought the public funding of the park at every turn. Taxes to finance a new ballpark were first narrowly rejected by county voters, then approved in a different form by the state legislature.

The park’s completion faced litigation and delays during its planning process, change orders and cost overruns during construction, and publicly-aired disputes that were resolved only days before the Mariners opened spring training camp in 2001.

The Public Funding Controversy

Seattle wasn’t sure it wanted to pay for a new professional baseball field in the 1990s though there was little doubt that the city needed one. The Kingdome, while fewer than 20 years old, was unsuitable for baseball—both aesthetically and financially. Unlike the cities and states hosting major-league teams that had recently supported publicly-funded ballparks in Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, Texas, and Denver, Seattle-area voters questioned why they should bear the financial burden of professional sports facilities.

There was a lot of history behind Seattle’s dilemma. Seattle’s first major-league team, the 1969 Seattle Pilots, had played in Sick’s Seattle Stadium, a minor-league ballpark with a capacity of only 18,0002 located several miles outside the downtown core of the city. After just one year there, the team filed for bankruptcy.

The American League helped shepherd the sale of the team out of bankruptcy to a group from Milwaukee just ahead of the 1970 season. The Pilots moved and opened the 1970 season as the Milwaukee Brewers. Litigation ensued, and the awarding of the Mariners franchise sprung from the litigation’s settlement.3

The Mariners began play in 1977 as an American League expansion team.

From 1977-99, the Mariners played their home games in the Kingdome, a stadium that had been designed for the NFL expansion Seahawks when the Mariners franchise was granted. Baseball was an afterthought. While its capacity of roughly 57,000 for baseball made the Kingdome one of the largest stadiums hosting baseball in the U.S., it had the fewest seats of any major-league ballpark in locations where baseball season ticket holders generally want to sit.4 Seats faced the 50-yard line, essentially center field, rather than the baseball infield. Suites added to the Kingdome in 1985, primarily for football and unsuitable for baseball, were located at the back of the lower level under the overhang of the upper levels, and had no view of fly balls or popups.

Through the 1980s, the Mariners consistently remained one of the lowest revenue teams in major-league baseball. Its ownership changed hands in 1981 and again in 1989, as the team struggled financially and lost more games than it won every year from 1977 until 1991.

When team ownership again changed hands in 19925, the new ownership group obtained agreement from King County, which owned and managed the Kingdome, to explore how the Kingdome could be renovated or its lease rewritten to provide competitive revenues for the Mariners. Detailed studies conducted in 1992-93 showed that Kingdome renovations would not achieve significant revenue opportunities and would be so expensive that they would not pay for themselves. Any lease improvements helping the Mariners would require the County to underwrite annual stadium operations costs, a politically unacceptable option.

In early 1994, King County Executive Gary Locke appointed a blue-ribbon task force to explore the need for a new baseball stadium. While this process was underway, Kingdome roof tiles began disintegrating and falling in July 1994, causing closure of the Kingdome for eight months and repairs ultimately costing King County over $70 million. This closure forced the Mariners to play all remaining 1994 games on the road. The task force’s January 1995 report, influenced by these studies and events, recommended a new outdoor ballpark, designed specifically for baseball, with a retractable roof to handle the Northwest climate, and providing revenue opportunities comparable to those of the new ballparks that had recently opened in Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Texas.

With this recommendation in hand and with the Kingdome closed for repairs, King County and the Mariners approached the Washington state legislature for funding authority to develop and build a new ballpark. In the spring of 1995, the legislature authorized the county to levy an additional sales tax in King County to build a new ballpark, and to pay for Kingdome roof repairs and Kingdome renovations for the Seahawks. The Mariners were required to contribute $45 million to construction costs, sign a long-term lease, and share profits whenever they reached profitability. A last-minute amendment required that the funding package be placed in a referendum before King County voters.

King County authorized the funding package, principally supported by a 0.1% increase in the general sales tax within King County, and put this package on the September 1995 ballot. An active public campaign ensued, with baseball fans forming a group called Home Town Fans to advocate for its passage and opponents forming a group called Citizens for More Important Things. Public debate over the measure was vigorous throughout the summer of 1995, with the vote coming just as the Mariners were closing in on the Angels in Seattle’s first pennant race. The September referendum was the closest vote in King County history. Opponents defeated the proposal by a vote of 50.1% to 49.9%.6

Following the vote, Mariners CEO John Ellis announced that the Mariners ownership group would put the team up for sale. It was generally expected that an out-of-town buyer would emerge and seek to move the team. Washington Governor Mike Lowry asked the Mariners to delay any sale to give him time to convene a special session of the legislature to try to save baseball in Washington.

Governor Lowry brought together the leadership of both houses of the legislature who, working closely with Mariners representatives, crafted a new financing package that recognized major-league baseball as an asset to the State of Washington and did not place the burden solely on King County taxpayers.7 The legislation assigned responsibility for building and overseeing the ballpark to a special purpose public entity, The Washington State Major League Baseball Stadium Public Facilities District (PFD), 8to remove this from day-to-day oversight by local elected officials. The package also included an emergency clause making it immune from a referendum challenge.

Many legislators from outside King County initially felt the new stadium was solely a King County economic issue and, given the failure of the King County ballot measure, were reluctant to embrace a role for the State. However, as Representative Marlin Appelwick, a co-sponsor of the bill recalls, “Fans statewide were glued to television and radio as the Mariners created tremendous excitement in the 1995 pennant race and the playoffs. They responded with calls, emails and letters that were absolutely critical to persuading legislators to support the bill. Even fans who had never set foot in the Kingdome understood that without a new stadium they could lose the team and never experience this excitement again.”9

The new package passed the legislature and was signed by Gov. Lowry in October 1995, while the Mariners were playing in the American League Championship Series for the first time.

Litigation immediately followed. Citizens groups challenged the emergency clause in court while protesting that political leaders had not followed the will of the people. The Washington Supreme Court upheld the emergency clause,10 and the King County council approved its share of the funding package.

A PFD Board was appointed in the following months, and the planning, siting and designing of the new ballpark began in early 1996. But cries of “We didn’t vote for this” would echo for a number of years.

Disputes Over Ballpark Construction and Costs

Even with a financing plan in place by the end of 1995, design and construction issues, lease negotiations, bond approvals, and additional litigation continued to add to costs, delays and controversy up until Safeco Field’s grand opening and beyond. The PFD managed the design and construction of the ballpark, with input but not veto power from the Mariners.

The architecture firm chosen by the PFD to design the ballpark was NBBJ, a distinguished Seattle-based firm with little experience in designing baseball stadiums. The Mariners favored HOK, a Kansas City-based firm that in the previous ten years had successfully designed and overseen construction of new ballparks in Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Denver.11

Completing a ballpark design, conducting environmental impact studies required by state law before a site could be chosen, and negotiating permit conditions resulting from site selection, added months to the planning process. Legal challenges to the sufficiency of this process added more time. In late 1996, lease negotiations between the PFD and Mariners reached a stalemate.

Then, in December 1996. County Council leadership announced a six-month delay in its consideration of bond financing for the ballpark. In response, the Mariners held a press conference announcing that they had given it their best shot, were reluctantly acknowledging the lack of support from local leaders, and were therefore pulling out of the process and offering the team for sale.

Only the intervention of the state’s senior U.S. Senator, Slade Gorton, pulled the project from the abyss. In meetings with the Mariners, King County officials, PFD leadership and the City of Seattle, Gorton obtained agreements by all parties to resolve their major differences and to move the project forward more expeditiously. A lease was signed, a bond structure agreed upon, and permit issues largely resolved.

The Mariners agreed to push the target date for the opening of the new ballpark back from Opening Day 1999 to midseason 1999.

Ballpark opponents continued their active opposition. Further legal challenges were filed opposing the use of public funds and the issuance of public bonds. Even after the lease was signed, the bond structure approved by King County, and the bonds sold in early 1997, bond proceeds had to be held in escrow until all legal challenges could be resolved.

While a ceremonial “groundbreaking” was held in March 1997, actual construction had to be delayed until legal challenges could be adjudicated and bond proceeds released. Fortunately for the project, the state courts consolidated all of the pending legal challenges into a single case and granted expedited review In mid-June 1997, the Washington Supreme Court handed down a comprehensive opinion upholding the validity of the underlying State legislation and the County’s bond issuance.12 Construction finally began in earnest.

What had originally been estimated as a two-and-a-half year construction timetable now had to be compressed into two years, even with the ballpark opening pushed back to the All-Star break in 1999. This accelerated timetable had consequences of its own.

Bid packages were hastily constructed and numerous change orders resulted, with major impacts on the construction budget. By the halfway point of construction, it became apparent that there would be significant cost overruns. Close monitoring of the project’s budget began to show the overruns growing toward the $100 million range, increasing the total project cost by about 24%.

Under the terms of their Development Agreement with the PFD, the Mariners were responsible for paying for cost overruns. This hadn’t been part of the Mariners’ original understandings with the state legislature but had been deemed necessary by the PFD for the project to go forward, since the public funding authorized by the state legislature was finite. The Mariners, suddenly seeing their original $45 million commitment growing with no ability to control it, while at the same time bearing operating losses of approximately $20 million per year for each additional year they played in the Kingdome, brought in New York counsel to threaten litigation if additional public funding wasn’t found. The Mariners claimed that the overruns were the result of negligence on the part of the PFD and its agents, the architects, and construction contractors. The PFD countered by claiming that the timetable demanded by the Mariners was unrealistic and caused the overruns.

These arguments were fought in the public media from late 1998 into 1999. They remained in the public consciousness as Safeco Field opened on July 15, 1999, and would linger into early 2001.

Resolution and Earthquake Precede the 2001 Season

On February 6, 2001, the Mariners and the PFD finalized a settlement, resolving the disputes hanging over the stadium project and bringing a new-found and ultimately lasting peace to the embattled ballpark, setting a tone of partnership and cooperation for the 2001 season. The Project Closeout and Settlement Agreement was the culmination of two years of wrapping up construction issues and clarifying operating issues that percolated to the surface as the PFD and Mariners tried to make their landlord-tenant relationship work. It ended the animosity that had marked the final days of construction and formed a blueprint for how the Mariners and PFD would cooperate with one another going forward through the remainder of their 20-year lease term.13

As the team opened spring training in 2001, the Mariners, the PFD, and all Seattle baseball fans could now focus on what would happen on the field, rather than in the back rooms or courtrooms. But the ballpark’s history of disruption was not quite finished.

On February 28, 2001, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit the Puget Sound region, disrupting life in Seattle and collapsing buildings in historic neighborhoods within blocks of Safeco Field. News reports carried estimates of upwards of $4 billion of damage in the region. The ballpark, constructed entirely on landfill in a part of town that had once been a bay and still had underground tidal activity, was of immediate concern. Fortunately, Safeco Field survived the earthquake with minimal non-structural damage,14 reassuring fans that its modern design and construction techniques offered stability in an inherently unstable section of Seattle.

As ballpark construction issues faded into the background, and even an earthquake couldn’t disrupt preparation for the 2001 season, Mariners fans waited anxiously to see if the team could improve on its 91-win season from 2000. A new cast of characters would be on the field. The approaching 2001 season would be the first without any of the Mariners “Big Three” superstars on the field. Public officials and baseball fans had justified the expenditure on Safeco Field, in part, by the hope that revenues from a new ballpark would help the Mariners retain their three young superstars of the 1990s: Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr., and Alex Rodríguez. But Randy Johnson had been traded to Houston in mid-1998, his final contract year with the Mariners; Ken Griffey Jr. was traded at his request to Cincinnati after the 1999 season; and Alex Rodríguez signed a record-setting free-agent contract with Texas following the 2000 season. Only Edgar Martínez, Dan Wilson, and an injured Jay Buhner remained from the Mariners glory teams of 1995 and 1997. Johnson, Griffey, and Rodríguez had been replaced by a less-celebrated group with names like García, Olerud, Cameron, Boone, Jamie Moyer, and an unknown but highly-touted curiosity from Japan named Ichiro.

The Safeco Field Experience

Safeco Field was a one-of-a-kind ballpark. It wasn’t the first ballpark built with a retractable roof, but it was the first to have a roof that, when retracted, preserved the open-air look and feel of a purely outdoor stadium. It was an outdoor ballpark with a detached rolling cover. The Safeco Field roof did not have high walls to support it or to keep the outside air out. Instead, it was built on a steel structure that slid entirely off the ballpark on 128 wheels, stacking the roof’s three panels over the adjacent railroad tracks. It provided fans with a large umbrella to keep the Northwest rain off them and the field. But it was an open-air facility, neither heated nor air conditioned. The outside elements of temperature, humidity, and breezes were present whether the roof was open or closed.

After years of playing indoors in the sterile gray Kingdome, Safeco Field allowed the Northwest population a chance to experience baseball in an outdoor environment, with views of the water, mountains, and skyline available somewhere in the ballpark most days of the season. The team’s only criterion for closing the roof was fan comfort. Seattle rain, while an almost daily event during most non-summer months, tends to be a light on-and-off drizzle. But temperatures in the rainy months stay cool.

While no one can say for certain how many games would have been rained out each year in Seattle, fans who sat through their kids’ Little League games in the Northwest in April, May, and June knew all too well the cold and wet experience. Through the early years of Safeco Field, the Mariners found that they closed the roof for part or all of 27% of their home games.15

Most importantly, the roof gave Mariners fans the certainty that home games would be played and not rained out. This was critical for Mariners fans, who typically came the longest distance to attend games of fans of any major-league team.16 Surveys done by the Mariners in alternate years consistently showed that more than half of those attending Mariners games came from outside the immediate Seattle area, traveling more than an hour to get to the game. The prospect of a rainout, or of watching a game in a cold drizzle, would have been a significant deterrent.

Opening or closing the roof took between 10 and 20 minutes, with the roof speed adjusted for wind and weather conditions. During Safeco Field’s first few years, opening and closing the roof was still a novelty that fans wanted to see.

The Mariners made the movement of the roof into its own attraction, accompanying it with Richard Strauss’ Thus Spoke Zarathustra, better recognized as the theme song from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The roof’s movement was featured at the conclusion of each game, helping diffuse postgame traffic by holding fans in their seats.

Besides its roof, Safeco Field had other unique features. The Pen may have been the most unusual. The Pen was a hospitality area at field level, directly behind the home and visiting team bullpens, open to all ticket holders. From here fans could watch pitchers warming up in the bullpens from only a few feet away, watch the game from a left-field and center-field vantage point, and enjoy some of the ballpark’s most varied food and beverage options.

The Bullpen Pub immediately adjacent to the visitor’s bullpen had glass peepholes where patrons could look directly over the catcher’s shoulder as he received pitches. The Pen particularly caught on with the college and 20-something crowd, who could buy cheap seats and then spend the entire game mingling in The Pen. Local pundits began referring to The Pen as “The Best Singles Bar in Seattle” on weekend nights.

Train whistles were another prominent feature of Safeco Field. The city’s major north-south railroad line, carrying passengers and freight up and down the West Coast, ran just behind the right- and center-field stands. The state’s busiest at-grade railroad crossing was at the northeast corner of the ballpark, requiring all passing trains to blow their whistles as they approached this crossing to warn pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Thus, the soundtrack of a Safeco Field game always included train whistles, prominently and frequently drowning out the crowd and brief portions of the game broadcasts.17

Safeco Field also became known for its baseball-themed artwork, both inside and outside the park. In preparing the original budget for the ballpark’s development, the PFD had insisted that one-half percent of the construction budget for the ballpark be dedicated to artwork.

Every level of the park has baseball-themed art done by local Northwest artists. Most iconic is “The Mitt,” a 9-foot high by 12-foot-wide bronze sculpture of a baseball glove designed and sculpted by Seattle artist Gerard Tsutakawa. The Mitt stands outside the left-field gate and is a fans’ favorite place to meet and be photographed.

The rotunda at the park’s Home Plate Entry features “The Tempest,” a hanging chandelier made up of 1,000 regulation-sized translucent baseball bats. Even the Safeco Field Parking Garage hosts art—a series of metal relief sculptures entitled “Six Pitches,” showing hands gripping baseball’s most commonly-thrown pitches.

The upper concourse of the ballpark, exterior to the seating bowl, became known for its spectacular views. Fans could sit at tables along the concourse to enjoy pregame concessions while looking westward over Seattle’s container terminal and the Puget Sound at the Olympic Mountains.

At the northwest corner of the upper concourse was Lookout Landing, an open hospitality area that overlooked Puget Sound to the west, Seattle’s waterfront and skyline to the north, while still affording a view of the field below. From Lookout Landing, fans could also see the expanse of tracks along which the roof supports rolled.

The wide lower concourse of the ballpark allowed fans to walk a complete 360-degree circuit of the ballpark without ever losing sight of the field. This permitted fans to mingle with friends sitting in other sections without giving up a view of the game, something that the Kingdome and older ballparks could not offer.

Another unique feature of Safeco Field didn’t quite develop as planned. With underground water flowing from Beacon Hill to the east toward the Puget Sound only two blocks west, and the water table only a few feet below field level, the ballpark incorporated a water retrieval system that could capture the ground water beneath the surface and use it to water the field. The Washington Department of Ecology had issued a special permit for this recapture system, the first such use approved in the state. But when the Mariners tried this system, they found it unsuitable for use. The ground water which had been thought to be fresh water flowing toward the Sound turned out to be too saline, since the underground flow proved to be tidal and often brackish.

Mariners television commercials in those early years of Safeco Field celebrated the new ballpark and the phenomenon of outdoor baseball. A spot featuring Edgar Martínez had him driving to work on a beautiful day, reaching toward the two garage door openers on his visor marked “House” and “Safeco Field.” He presses the Safeco Field button, and you see the ballpark roof opening while Martínez exclaims, “We’re playing outside today!” A second spot had Jay Buhner removing his cap and buffing his bald head in right field, reflecting the sun into the opposing batter’s eyes while Dan Wilson tells the batter that some days in Safeco Field can be really bright. Another spot had Martínez and John Olerud sharing laundry tips on removing grass stains from their uniforms, something that had never occurred in the Kingdome.

As fans packed the ballpark in 2001, they were fervently engaged with the team from day one. A few fan follies became part of the lore of the 2001 season. The first happened only two weeks into the season when the Texas Rangers came to town for the first time since Alex Rodríguez signed with them. Rodríguez had disappointed Seattle fans by turning down Seattle in favor of Texas, even though they understood why he might choose the record contract he received. But they were particularly offended when he explained that he joined the Rangers, not for the money but because he wanted to play for a winner. But the 2000 Rangers had finished 71-91, in fourth place in the AL West, 20 games behind the 91-71 Mariners. Then, adding salt to the wound, he became a spokesman for a Dallas-area effort to lure Boeing to move its headquarters from Seattle to Dallas.

Seattle fans got their chance to express their feelings to Rodríguez in person on April 16. This took a few forms. First, boos rang through Safeco Field every time Rodríguez stepped out of the dugout, reaching a deafening crescendo every time he was in the batter’s box or fielded a groundball. Second, play money rained down from the upper deck when he came to bat. And third, one enterprising fan who sat in the front row immediately behind the visitors’ on-deck circle managed to bring a fishing pole with him and attached a dollar bill to the line, which he held over Rodríguez’ head while he was in the on-deck circle.18

Another fan-inspired theme had greater lasting impact. As the Mariners got off to a fast start, going 20–5 in April and 20–7 in May, it seemed not to matter if they fell behind in a game, or had not scored early in innings. They always seemed to come back. One day that spring,19 a banner appeared in the stands proclaiming, “Two Outs, So What!” That catchphrase became a hallmark of the Mariners 2001 season. It originated with an individual fan but quickly caught on with other fans, and similar signs popped up around the ballpark throughout the rest of the season.

The Mariners marketing theme in 2000 had been “SODO Mojo,” one that had been popular among fans and was adapted to “Let’s Mojo” for 2001.20 But 2001 quickly became the year of Two Outs, So What. Interestingly, fans’ perception of the Mariners two-out-scoring proclivities was likely driven by the sheer number of runs that the Mariners scored rather than their two-out frequency. The Mariners scored 339 runs with two outs that season, roughly 36.6 percent of the league-leading 927 total runs they scored in 2001. This percentage is actually lower than the 37.2 percent of two-out runs scored across the major-leagues in 2001 and was lower than the 37.5 percent of two-out runs the Mariners scored in 2000.

Fans in 2001 also came out in record numbers for the seventh and final Buhner Buzz Cut Night. This event was dreamed up in 1994 by the Mariners’ award-winning marketing department, offering free tickets to seats behind Jay Buhner in right field to any fans who had fully shaved heads, or who agreed to shave their heads, Jay Buhner style. A local hair cutting business sponsored the event, providing staff to shave fans’ heads outside the Kingdome. Four-hundred-twenty-six fans had their heads shaved that first year, including two women. The event grew over the years, but the 2001 event far surpassed any of the others. A total of 5,258 fans had their heads shaved on the plaza outside Safeco Field. Another 988 showed up already shaved, for a total of 6,246 fans who were admitted for free, including 112 women. As in prior years, Jay Buhner himself showed up, spent time with the fans, and shaved a few heads.

The 927 runs scored by the Mariners in 2001 is even more impressive when viewed in the context of Safeco Field’s emerging identity as a pitcher’s park. Although there was limited data on Safeco Field prior to 2001, it was strongly trending in that direction. In the year-and-a-half that Safeco Field was open prior to 2001, its ballpark index was a mere 84 for runs scored, 86 for hits, 82 for doubles, 51 for triples, and 88 for home runs (broken down further as 84 for right-handed hitters and 97 for left-handed hitters). In 2001, Safeco Field’s ballpark index was 89 for runs scored, 90 for hits, 94 for doubles, 57 for triples, 85 for home runs (broken down as 75 for right-handed hitters and 104 for left-handed hitters.21 The park index is the ratio of home field performance versus road performance for each statistical category, indexed as a percentage. So an index of 82 for doubles means that the team playing in that park hit 82% as many doubles per at-bat at home as on the road. An index below 100 indicates the park favors pitchers, an index above 100 indicates that it favors hitters.

After years in the Kingdome, which consistently favored hitters and was hard on pitchers, both the team and PFD had wanted to design a fair ballpark. The Mariners anticipated that right-handed hitters might hit balls over the left-field bleachers out onto Royal Brougham Way, much as balls leave Fenway Park for Landsdowne Street or leave Wrigley Field for Waveland Avenue. But the dimensions of the park, combined with Seattle’s cooler temperatures and prevailing breezes from the north (in from left field) made Safeco Field play as a pitcher’s park, particularly for right-handed hitters. As of this writing, some 26 and a half seasons after Safeco Field opened, the only ball ever to leave the park was one hit by Nelson Cruz in batting practice on May 28, 2016, a 63-degree day with a 10-mph breeze blowing out to left field.

The dimensions of Safeco Field in 2001 were 331 feet to the left-field foul pole, 390 feet in left-center-field, 405 in dead center, 386 in right-center, and 326 to the right-field pole. The deepest dimension was 409 feet to an angle in the outfield wall just left of dead center field. This was actually shorter than what had been originally designed, which had the outfield wall extending deeper into left-center field, reaching a maximum dimension of 422 feet. But in late 1998, after studying wind patterns and talking to players, the team revised the center-field wall design.22

The most significant park factor in how balls carried seemed to be Seattle’s cooler temperatures and breezes that often came from the north. The team noticed that when the roof was closed, temperatures would rise slightly and, as a result, balls would carry better. Although the park was not sealed and breezes could still enter from the north, with the roof closed the breezes were somewhat diminished and the heat generated by the crowd dissipated less quickly. Mariners hitters frequently asked whether the roof could be closed more often, but the club’s approach remained the same – the roof would only be closed for fan comfort, which meant that it was open except for rain or temperatures generally below 45 degrees.

The other park factor that affected play on the field was sunlight. To those outside of the Pacific Northwest, this might seem a non-factor in often overcast Seattle, but not so in the summer. Many summer days in Seattle are cloudless. Seattle is the northernmost of all major-league cities. As such, summer sunsets are later at night, with the sun more directly aligned with Seattle’s latitude. Seattle often stays light until nearly 10 P.M. in the summer. The glare of the sun during these long sunsets could be intense. Added to that was the fact that Seattle’s air usually had fewer pollutants than in other cities. Visibility at Safeco Field as the sun lowered in the sky could be challenging.

As originally designed, Safeco Field’s upper deck had clear windows at the back of the seating area, below the upper deck’s roof, so even after the sun fell below the roofline, the setting sun would shine through these windows along the third base line, directly into the eyes of the right fielder. The Mariners quickly moved to cover those windows.

The other unanticipated effect of the bright sunlight was its reflection off the center-field batter’s eye.23 The Mariners made significant changes to the batter’s eye as they learned its shortcomings. At the end of the 2000 season, the team extended the width of the batter’s eye by 20 feet, changed its angle to steer reflected light away from hitters, tilted it forward for the same reason, and repainted it with a darker shade of green while texturing the paint to create a more non-reflective surface.24

How much this helped hitters is hard to quantify. The Mariners did lead the league in runs scored, hits, batting average, on-base percentage, and OPS+ in 2001, but at the same time their pitchers had the lowest ERA, fewest runs against, and lowest opposing batting average in the league.

Similarly, it’s impossible to know how much changes to the Mariners roster for 2001 helped the team fit Safeco Field. Did the exit of Griffey and Rodríguez over the two prior years make the team better fit the ballpark? Griffey was a left-handed pull hitter and should have had no problem reaching the right-field fence in Safeco Field. And Rodríguez had such prodigious power that the challenges of hitting to left field might have only had minimal effect. In hindsight, we can only observe that the 2001 team had no problem playing at home. They won 57 home games while setting an American League record of 59 road wins.

Home runs weren’t the driver of the Mariners’ 2001 success. The 2001 roster did not have any classic power hitters. Only Bret Boone (37) passed the 30 home-run mark, something he had never previously achieved. But in Safeco Field, the right-handed hitting Boone drove many of his home runs to the opposite field, taking advantage of the shorter fences there. Three others surpassed 20 home runs: Mike Cameron (25), Edgar Martínez (23), and John Olerud (21).

As a team, the Mariners hit more home runs on the road, 90 compared to 79 at home, and generally hit better on the road. Their road slash line was .293/.365/.454 compared to .283/.355/.436 at home. Those differences were fairly small. Most significantly, as a team, the Mariners offensive numbers demonstrated their depth of really solid performers throughout the lineup, whether at home or away, even without reliance on home runs. The offseason additions of Ichiro and Boone certainly gave a substantial boost to these numbers.

If Safeco Field gave an extra assist to any aspect of the team’s performance, it was on the mound. Mariners pitchers did well both at home and on the road, but exceptionally well at home. The pitching staff had an ERA a full run lower at home (3.04 to 4.05). Mariners pitchers gave up 26% fewer home runs at home – only 68 at Safeco Field compared to 92 on the road. Opponents hit for a slash line of .249/.318/.414 when the Mariners were on the road but only .222/.283/.343 at Safeco Field, resulting in a 100-point difference in OPS (.731 on the road; .626 at Safeco Field).

So, while Mariners hitters had a slight preference for the road, the pitching staff definitely liked home cooking. Safeco Field’s park factors made a considerable difference to the pitchers, while only a slight disadvantage to the hitters. This was likely a reflection of the fact that most of the Mariners hitters hit to all fields and did not rely exclusively on the home run.

The most momentous Safeco Field event of 2001 was the July 10 All-Star Game. The Mariners had eight players on the American League squad: starters Ichiro Suzuki, John Olerud, Bret Boone, and Edgar Martínez, as well as reserves Freddy García, Kaz Sasaki, Jeff Nelson, and Mike Cameron. Fittingly, Ichiro got the first hit, García was the winning pitcher, and Sasaki earned the save. But the game would be known as the Cal Ripken game.

It began before the first pitch when Alex Rodríguez, chosen to start at shortstop, insisted that Ripken, chosen to start at third base, switch positions with him to become the only player to appear in 15 All Star games at shortstop. In the third inning, Ripken hit a solo home run into the left-field bullpen, becoming at age 40 the oldest player to homer in the midsummer classic. Then, midway through the game, Commissioner Bud Selig presented the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award to Ripken and Tony Gwynn, each of whom was playing his last season. Ripken was chosen MVP of the game.

After the All-Star break, as Mariners fans began to recognize the caliber of their 2001 team and the historic significance of the 116-win record they were chasing, fan interest became rabid. Of the final 50 home games, 48 were sellouts. Only two midweek games with Tampa Bay in August failed to sell out, and those each drew over 44,000 fans.

September opened with the Mariners in first place by 17 games over the defending division champion Oakland A’s. The Mariners won eight of their first nine September games. Then, just when it seemed like nothing could slow their 2001 title run, the unthinkable happened on September 11. The tragic events of that date brought baseball and much of American life to an abrupt halt. Team travel became impossible with all air traffic grounded, while Americans wondered what might come next. For one week all games were suspended, to be made up during the first week of October.

The resumption of baseball on September 18 signified a return to some sense of normalcy, a distraction desperately needed. Another Safeco Field sellout crowd saw the Mariners shut out the Angels in that first game back, cementing a tie for the division crown.

But it was on the following night, September 19, that the most iconic Safeco Field moment of the 2001 season occurred. Midway through their sold-out game with the Angels, the Mariners learned that Texas had beaten Oakland, making the Mariners the first team to clinch their division championship. Players and coaches congratulated one another in the dugout, and fans cheered when the news was announced mid-game on the scoreboard.

Four innings later, the Mariners completed another shutout of the Angels, and Mariners players lined up on the field to shake hands in a subdued celebration. At the back of the line of players was Mariners long-time video coordinator Carl Hamilton, a Marine veteran, who had brought out a large American flag. Together with player Stan Javier, Carl began waving it. Mark McLemore then took the flag to the pitcher’s mound where the team gathered around it, kneeling in prayer. Public address announcer Tom Hutyler asked the boisterous crowd for a moment of silence, and the ballpark became still. After an extended moment, McLemore spontaneously took the flag and began walking it around the bases, with the entire team joining in this solemn procession. Upon reaching home plate, McLemore, Mike Cameron, and Lou Piniella raised the flag high and the team, some with tears in their eyes, saluted the Safeco Field crowd. The unique and respectful celebration, in many ways, remains the defining moment of that historic season.

Last revised: April 20, 2026

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks the following current and former Mariners officials for fact-checking his personal recollections and providing insights and additional resources as he researched this chapter: retired president Chuck Armstrong, retired vice president of communications and club archivist Randy Adamack, president Kevin Martinez, chief operating officer Trevor Gooby, senior vice president and general counsel Melissa Robertson, senior vice president of marketing and communications Gregg Greene, and vice president of public relations Tim Hevly.

 

NOTES

1 While ballpark capacity of 47,000 gave the Mariners the potential of drawing 3.8 million each year, this represented total attendance, rather than paid attendance. Because complimentary ticket requirements imposed by MLB, its Labor Agreements, and various sponsorships brought down the number of tickets actually for sale, the Mariners considered a sellout to occur when only single tickets remained. This usually came about as ticket sales approached 45,000, making the paid attendance potential roughly 3.65 million. All references to the number of 2001 sellouts at Safeco Field reflect the data contained in the Seattle Mariners’ 2002 Information Guide on pages 176-77.

2 The team had committed to expanding the capacity of Sick’s Stadium from its original 11,000 to 30,000 to accommodate major-league games. But they had approximately 18,000 seats by Opening Day 1969, and this grew to roughly 25,000 by midseason.

3 A detailed history of the Pilots litigation and its settlement can be found at https://www.historylink.org/File/10321.

4 Season ticket holders in baseball generally want to be in the lower level of the ballpark in foul territory. The Kingdome had approximately 13,000 seats located in that area. Because of the design for football, a disproportionate number of seats were in the upper level, peaking at the 50-yard line..

5 This change of ownership came about when previous owner Jeff Smulyan offered the team for sale pursuant to a Kingdome lease clause allowing him to terminate the Kingdome lease after first offering the team for sale for 120 days at a price equal to either an appraised value or the sum of his investment in the team, and only if no investor emerged who would commit to keep the team in Seattle. The new ownership group led by Hiroshi Yamauchi, head of Nintendo Ltd. of Kyoto, Japan, bought the team pursuant to this offer for the explicit purpose of keeping it in Seattle.

6 Mariners fans went to bed the night of the election believing they had won. But absentee ballots coming in over the following week changed the outcome. The margin of defeat was 1,082 votes out of 492,918 cast.

7 The State of Washington directly funded a portion of the costs via a sales tax credit to King County and a fixed commitment of lottery proceeds, while giving King County the authority to implement a 0.5% county sales tax on restaurant and bar sales supported by the state restaurant association and a 2% rental car tax largely paid by tourists. The Mariners continued to commit $45 million and a share of profits.

8 The PFD’s mission and history is available at https://ballpark.org/mission-and-history.

9 Email to author on December 6, 2025.

10 CLEAN v. State, 130 Wn.2d 782, 928 P.2d 1054 (1996)

11 To compensate for the PFD’s choice of architects, the Mariners hired Brad Schrock of HOK to assist NBBJ in learning the operational and design needs of a modern ballpark. Schrock had been the principal design architect of Coors Field in Denver and remained deeply involved throughout the Safeco Field design process.

12 King County v. Taxpayers of King County, 133 Wn.2d 584, 949 P.2d 1260 (1997), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1076 (1998)

13 The success of this Agreement is best measured with the benefit of hindsight. For the remainder of the lease term, which extended until the end of the 2018 season, no further lease amendments were required and no significant public disagreements between the Mariners and the PFD ever again surfaced. Both the PFD and Mariners heralded their partnership as a model for public-private cooperation.

14 The ballpark and adjacent parking garage experienced some cracking of walls and concrete, but much of the damage was to televisions (individual cathode ray tube units) and signage mounted around the ballpark falling from their mounting brackets. The Mariners estimated the total damage at $473,000.

15 Rules established by Major League Baseball allowed the roof to be closed either at the beginning of the game or while the game was in progress solely for fan comfort. If closed at the start of the game, it could be opened one time. Any opening during the game had to occur between innings and was subject to umpire discretion if the visiting team questioned whether it created a competitive advantage for the home team.

16 Major League Baseball defined home television territories for each team, which was the area in which the team could sell the rights to its local television programming without infringing the rights of other teams. These territories tended to define a team’s fanbase. The Mariners had the largest home territory of any U.S. team in terms of geography, although one of the smallest in population. The Mariners’ home television territory included the States of Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho and Montana, as well as shared rights in Hawaii and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta.

17 This would change in 2010, when the Washington State Department of Transportation completed a bridge over the railroad tracks and closed the at-grade crossing of the tracks at S. Royal Brougham Way. Trains no longer had to sound their whistles.

18 Ballpark security confiscated the fishing pole, but not before local television, in-park cameras and national media had recorded the prank.

19 Current Mariners officials (in 2025) are uncertain when during the 2001 season this banner first appeared.

20 SODO was the name given to that part of town where Safeco Field was located. It originally stood for South of the Dome but has come to represent South Downtown since the Kingdome was demolished in March 2000.

21 Stats Inc. Major League Handbook 2002 (November 2001).

22 In 2013, the Mariners would once again adjust the outfield dimensions, bringing in the left-field and center-field walls, with the greatest change being that the left-center-field dimension, shrunk from 390 feet to 378 feet.

23 The batter’s eye is a ballpark feature located beyond the center field fence that is designed to provide a better hitting background for batters as they try to see the flight of the pitch and read its spin. It might be a grass area, a dark wall, or simply a seating section closed to fans so that a hitter isn’t trying to pick up the ball in a sea of light-colored clothing. In Safeco Field, it is a wall.

24 This was only the first of many adjustments to the Safeco Field batter’s eye. In 2002 the Mariners planted cypress trees in front of the batter’s eye to soften the background and reduce glare. Hitters complained that the trees made visibility worse, and they were removed that August. In 2003, the Mariners installed a new surface on the batter’s eye, an aluminum honeycomb material that theoretically trapped light and minimized any reflective surfaces. This material was painted a flat black. This surface seems to have worked best and remains in place.