Yes, the city that photo really is Seattle. Yes, that really is a nice blue sky overhead. When the clouds part, and you can see Lake Washington and the Cascadia Mountains, including Mount Rainier, it's actually a beautiful city. It's just that it rains so much, such a sight isn't all that common.
Before You Go. Seattle is notorious for rain, but Safeco Field has a retractable roof, so the games will not be rained out. Before you go, check the websites of the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for the weather forecast. Right now, it looks like you might get away with no rain, and even nice weather: They're predicting the high 70s for daylight and the high 50s for evenings.
Seattle is in the Pacific Time Zone, 3 hours behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.
There is high-speed passenger ferry service from Seattle to the Canadian city of Victoria, the capital of the Province of British Columbia. But it takes 2 hours and 45 minutes, and costs a bundle: $185 round-trip. (The scenery in Washington State and British Columbia is spectacular, and this is clearly part of what you're paying for.) From there, you can easily get to Vancouver.
If you want to make this trip, you will have to give confirmation within 48 hours of booking. And it's a passenger-only ferry service: No cars allowed. If you'd like to make a side trip to Vancouver, you're better off driving or taking the train. But any way you go over the border, you should have your passport with you.
Vancouver does have a baseball team, a farm club of the Toronto Blue Jays, and they won their league's Pennant as recently as 2013. The 5,157-seat Nat Bailey Stadium is a classic, built in 1951 with support poles holding up an overhanging roof like old-time parks. But the team is no longer Triple-A: It's in the Northwest League, short-season Class A like the Staten Island Yankees and the Brooklyn Cyclones. And "The C's" will be on the road this weekend, at Salem, Oregon.
Tickets. Unlike the Seahawks and Sounders, who sell out every home game, the Mariners are averaging 25,093 per home game this season, about 52 percent of capacity, and down nearly 3,000 from last season. Even for a game against the Yankees, getting tickets shouldn't be a problem.
Infield Lower Boxes will set you back $85, outfield Lower Boxes $67, Upper "View Boxes" $36, View Reserved $22, and Bleachers $37 – and you'll be a lot closer than you would have been if you'd had similar seats at the Kingdome. The upper deck outfield seats in that concrete toadstool might as well have been in Spokane.
Getting There. It's 2,854 miles from Times Square to Pioneer Square in Seattle, and 2,856 miles from Yankee Stadium to Safeco Field. In other words, if you're going, you're going to want to fly.
After all, even if you get someone to go with you, and you take turns, one drives while the other one sleeps, and you pack 2 days' worth of food, and you use the side of the Interstate as a toilet, and you don’t get pulled over for speeding, you’ll still need over 2 full days to get there. One way.
But, for future reference, if you really, really want to drive... Get onto Interstate 80 West in New Jersey, and stay on that until it merges with Interstate 90 west of Cleveland, then stay on 90 through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, into Wisconsin, where it merges with Interstate 94. Although you could take I-90 almost all the way, I-94 is actually going to be faster. Stay on I-94 through Minnesota and North Dakota before re-merging with I-90 in Montana, taking it through Idaho and into Washington, getting off I-94 at Exit 2B.
Not counting rest stops, you should be in New Jersey for an hour and a half, Pennsylvania for 5:15, Ohio for 4 hours, Indiana for 2:30, Illinois for 2 hours, Wisconsin for 3:15, Minnesota for 4:30, North Dakota for 6 hours, Montana for a whopping 13 hours (or 3 times the time it takes to get from New York to Boston), Idaho for 1:15 and 6:45 in Washington. That’s 50 hours, and with rest stops, you’re talking 3 full days.
That's still faster than Greyhound (70 hours, changing in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minneapolis and Missoula, $518 round-trip, though it can drop to $470 with advanced purchase) and Amtrak (67 hours, changing in Chicago, $523 before booking sleeping arrangements).
On Amtrak, you would leave Penn Station on the Lake Shore Limited at 3:40 PM Eastern Time on Monday, arrive at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 AM Central Time on Tuesday, and board the Empire Builder at 2:15 PM, and would reach King Street Station at 10:25 AM Pacific Time on Thursday.
King Street Station is just to the north of the stadium complex, at S. King St. & 3rd Ave. S., and horns from the trains can sometimes be heard as the trains go down the east stands of CenturyLink Field and the right-field stands of Safeco. The Greyhound station is at 811 Stewart St. at 8th Ave., in the Central Business District, about halfway between the stadiums and the Seattle Center complex.
A round-trip, nonstop flight from Newark to Seattle, if ordered now, could be had on United Airlines for just under $700. Link Light Rail can get you out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac), and the same system has Stadium Station to get to Safeco and CenturyLink Fields. The fare is $2.75.
Once In the City. Founded in 1853, and named for a Chief of the Duwamish Indians, Seattle is easily the biggest city in America's Northwest, with 700,000 people within the city limits and 4.5 million in its metropolitan area.
East-west street addresses increase from Puget Sound and the Alaskan Way on eastward. North-south addresses are separated by Yesler Way. ZIP Codes in the State of Washington start with the digits 980 to 994. In Seattle proper, it's 980 and 981; and for the suburbs, 982, 983 and 984. The Area Code for Seattle is 206. Interstate 405 serves as Seattle's "beltway."
The Washington State House in Olympia
First Avenue is the 3rd base side, the 1st base side is Atlantic Street/Edgar Martinez Drive, the left field side is Royal Brougham Way (Royal Brougham was not a car or a brand of booze, but the name of a Seattle sportswriter who championed the city as a site for major league sports), and the right field side is the railroad.
Michael Kun and Howard Bloom, Red Sox fans and the authors of The Baseball Uncyclopedia, have said that Safeco is the best ballpark ever built, better than their beloved Fenway, mainly because it’s more comfortable and convenient. It's certainly a far cry better than its predecessor, the hideous concrete King County Domed Stadium, a.k.a. the Kingdome (1976-2000).
Seating capacity is 47,476. The field is natural grass, and asymmetrical, and points northeast. Outfield distances are as follows: 331 feet to left, 388 to left-center, 405 to center, 385 to right-center, and 326 to right.
Unlike the homer-happy Kingdome, Safeco is a pitcher's park, leading to Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez wanting to leave the Mariners, and convincing Felix Hernandez to stay. (Although it didn't convince Cliff Lee to stay. Randy Johnson was already gone by the time Safeco opened in 1999.)
Richie Sexson hit the longest home run at Safeco Field so far, a 467-foot shot in 2006. Mark McGwire hit the longest at the Kingdome, a 538-foot drive off Randy Johnson in 1997.
The Kingdome. It served its purpose, getting Seattle
into MLB and the NFL, and was thankfully replaced.
CenturyLink Field, formerly Seahawks Stadium and Qwest Field, home of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and MLS' Seattle Sounders, is just to the north of Safeco, across Royal Brougham Way, on the site of the Kingdome. It is regarded as the loudest outdoor facility in the NFL (especially now that the Washington Redskins have left compact RFK Stadium and moved to their far less atmospheric stadium in the suburbs), and it has one of the better soccer atmospheres in the U.S. as well.
The U.S. soccer team has played at CenturyLink 5 times, and won them all, most recently a Copa America match with Ecuador on June 16, 2016. It also hosted the 2009 MLS Cup Final.
Safeco Field, with CenturyLink Field behind left field
In case you're wondering, Safeco is an insurance company, and CenturyLink is a telecommunications outfit, which bought similar company Qwest.
Food. As a waterfront city, and as the Northwest's biggest transportation and freight hub, it is no surprise that Seattle is a good food city, with the legendary Pike Place Market serving as their "South Street Seaport." Fortunately, Safeco lives up to this.
They have the usual ballpark fare, and baseball-named stands like the Batter Up Bar at Section 6, Big League Burger at 106, High Cheese Pizza at 109, 132, 141, 241 & 329; Grounds Crew Espresso at 111, The Natural (I'm guessing organic, or at least food with no artificial flavors) at 131, the Asian-themed Intentional Wok at 132, Double Play Chicken & Sausage at 137 & 341, Grounders Garlic Fries (the snack made famous by the San Francisco Giants) at 148, 326 & 337; Bases Loaded at 212, the Hot Stove Broiler at 218, Frozen Rope Ice Cream at 313 & 330, Good Hops Beer (as opposed to "bad hops") at 320 & 330, the Sweet Spot at 332, and the Caught Looking Lounge behind the bullpen.
The Left Field Gate has a stand called Blazing Bagels and a bar called the Flying Turtle Cantina. There are local favorites like Ivar's Seafood & Chowder, and ShishkaBerry's chocolate-dipped strawberries. There's no Starbucks or Seattle's Best Coffee stand at Safeco, but the city's coffee-soaked reputation is backed up with Grounds Crew Espresso.
As far as I know, Safeco is the only ballpark that has a vegetarian-only concession stand, All American Vegetarian, under Section 132. The ING Direct Hit It Here Cafe is behind the right field fence and provides views of the field. In the tradition of Boog's Barbecue in Baltimore and Bull's Barbecue in Philadelphia, Mariner legend Edgar Martinez opened Edgar's Cantina at Safeco last season.
According to a recent Thrillist article on the best food at each MLB stadium, the best thing to eat at Safeco is Liege waffles -- Liege being a city in Belgium, a country known for its waffles among other things -- at Sweet Iron at Section 136.
Former Yankee and Mariner 3rd baseman Mike Blowers, who grew up near Seattle and is now a Mariners broadcaster, started a food-related team tradition in 2007. During an Interleague game against the Cincinnati Reds, a fan tried to catch a foul ball along the right-field line, but instead spilled his tray of fries along the track. While chatting on the air and seeing the mishap, Blowers' partner, former WCBS-Channel 2 & WFAN announcer Dave Sims, suggested that Blowers should send a new tray of fries to the fan. Blowers agreed, and sent his intern to deliver a plate of fries to the man. During the next game, fans made signs and boards, asking Blowers for free fries as well. Coincidentally, every time the fries were delivered, the Mariners seem to score or rally from a deficit, and thus the Rally Fries were created.
This became so popular with the fans that signs were even seen when the Mariners were on the road, though Blowers doesn't award winners on the road. Sometimes, in the tradition of the game show Let’s Make a Deal, fans wear costumes to get Blowers' attention. Silly? Sure, but it beats the Angels' stupid Rally Monkey.
Team History Displays. The Mariners began play in 1977, and have never been to the World Series. There are only 3 teams in the 4 major North American sports that have waited longer to get to the Finals: The NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs (1967) and St. Louis Blues (1970), and the NBA's Atlanta Hawks (who have played in Atlanta since 1968, and haven't reached the Finals since they were in St. Louis in 1961). If you count multiple cities, add the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals (1969/2005) and the NBA's Sacramento Kings (have only played in Sacramento since 1985 but haven’t reached the Finals since they were the Rochester Royals in 1951, beating the Knicks).
Nevertheless, the Mariners have won 3 American League Western Division titles, in 1995, 1997 and 2001, and also won the AL's Wild Card in 2000. In 1995, they beat the Yankees in a remarkable AL Division Series before losing the AL Championship Series to the Cleveland Indians. In 1997, they lost the ALDS to the Indians. In 2000 they beat the Chicago White Sox, and in 2001 they beat the Indians. But in both 2000 and '01, they lost the ALCS to the Yankees. (Remember: 116 wins don’t mean a thing if you don't get that ring! Then again, we didn't get it that year, either.)
The 3 Division Title banners hang in right field. The one for 2001 mentions the 116 wins. There is also a single banner for all 3 ALCS berths.
So if you count Triple-A Pennants won by current MLB cities, Seattle has waited longer for their next Pennant than any other city except Washington, D.C. (the 1933 Senators). And every other minor league city that has become a major league city, but one, has won an MLB Pennant since: Milwaukee in 1957, Los Angeles in 1959, San Francisco in 1962, Minneapolis-St. Paul in 1965, Baltimore in 1966, Oakland in 1972, Kansas City in 1980, San Diego in 1984, Atlanta in 1991, Toronto in 1992, Miami in 1997, Phoenix in 2001, Houston in 2005, Denver in 2007, and Tampa Bay in 2008. The only other exception is Montreal, which came so close in 1981, and had another chance cut short in 1994, before their team was moved away in 2004.
Indeed, it can be said that Seattle is an underachieving city in sports, period. Until the Seahawks won the Super Bowl in early 2014, the city had won only 2 World Championships, ever: The 1917 Stanley Cup (I'll get to that in "Sidelights") and the 1979 NBA Championship. And since the SuperSonics' back-to-back Finals appearances in 1978-79, the city's only trips to the Finals had been the 1996 Sonics and the 2005-06 Seahawks, until the recent Seahawk Super Bowls.
There's a Mariners Hall of Fame display under the 3rd base stands. Members include 1984-91 1st baseman Alvin Davis, 1987-2004 designated hitter Edgar Martinez (now back as a coach), 1988-2001 right fielder Jay Buhner (as a Yankee Fan, you may remember him), 1989-98 pitcher Randy Johnson, 1989-99 and 2009-10 center fielder Ken Griffey Jr., 1994-2005 catcher Dan Wilson, 1996-2006 pitcher Jamie Moyer, 1993-2002 manager (and former Yankee outfielder and manager) Lou Piniella, and Dave Niehaus, who broadcast for the M's from their 1977 debut until his death following the 2010 season. There is also a statue of Niehaus on the center field concourse.
Although Gaylord Perry (who won his 300th game against the Yankees at the Kingdome in 1982), Goose Gossage, Rickey Henderson, manager Dick Williams and executive Pat Gillick have all been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, none have gotten in due to anything they did while employed by the Mariners' organization. Niehaus has been awarded the Ford Frick Award, considered the broadcasters' equivalent to Hall of Fame induction. Martinez is eligible for the Hall, but is not yet in.
Griffey was also the 1st Mariner to have his number retired, 24. They have also retired Number 42 for Jackie Robinson. When they signed Robinson Cano in the 2013-14 off-season, they gave him 22, which he had worn for the Yankees until Roger Clemens' return, rather than the 24 he had been wearing for the Yankees.
The M's also have not issued Number 00 since Jeffrey Leonard left the club, as the number is worn by their mascot, the Mariner Moose. Previously, the Moose wore the year as his number, i.e. he wore 95 in the club's most iconic season.
In 1999, despite still being active and only 29 years old, Griffey was named to both The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. In 2006, Mariner fans chose Griffey in a poll conducted for the DHL Hometown Heroes contest.
Stuff. The main Team Store is located along the 3rd base side. Additional merchandise locations and novelty kiosks are open throughout the stadium during all home games. As far as I know, they don't sell hats resembling sailor's caps with the team logo on them, keeping with the "mariner" image; or hats resembling the antlers of the Mariner Moose, but if they do, I'll bet they're a big seller.
Having never been to the World Series thus far, the Mariners don't commemorate their history with many books, but there is an Essential Games of the Seattle Mariners DVD collection. It features only 4 games, as opposed to most of these (including the Yanks' and Mets') having 6: The 1995 AL West Playoff with the California Angels (as the Anaheim team was then officially known), forged when the Halos had an epic collapse and the M's an equally amazing comeback; 1995 ALDS Game 5 (known to us as Donnie Baseball's swan song), 2000 ALDS Game 3, and the 2001 AL West clincher against the Indians (not to be confused with the '01 ALDS clincher, also against the Indians).
There are books about the Mariners, in spite of their comparative lack of history. The staff of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer chronicled the club's most important season, the one that got fans to vote to get Safeco built and save Major League Baseball in the Northwest, in A Magic Season: The Book on the 1995 Seattle Mariners.
C.N. Donnelly wrote Baseball's Greatest Series: Yankees, Mariners, and the 1995 Matchup That Changed History. (It may not have been the greatest postseason series in baseball history, but it sure did change history: Not only did it save baseball in Seattle, but it forced the Yankees to make the changes that led to the 1996-2003 dynasty.) A more acerbic look at this glory-hungry franchise is Shipwrecked: A People's History of the Seattle Mariners, published in 2012 by Jon Wells.
During the Game. A recent Thrillist article on "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans" ranked the Mariners' fans 20th -- just above the most tolerable 1/3rd of baseball fans. The article pointed out that...
The highlight of Mariners fandom was winning a divisional playoff game in 1995. People born after that game will be able to legally drink soon. There are kids in Seattle high schools right now who don't even remember the team being relevant. So M's fans are now made up of older people with revisionist history about how "fun" the Kingdome was, and younger people who go to Safeco and talk about the Seahawks. Seattleites have shown they can be great fans when a team even tries to win, but despite spending the GNP of Fiji on free agents, the Mariners haven't made a playoff push in over a decade.
Well, there was the 116-win season of 2001, but 21-year-olds would then have been 5, so they don't really remember that, either. But at least they don't remember how inadequate as a baseball facility the Kingdome actually was.
Wearing Yankee gear in Seattle, including inside Safeco Field, will not endanger your safety. Although Mariner fans hate the Yankees more than any other team, including their AL West opponents (the Angels, A's and Texas Rangers), they are generally nonviolent. Laid-back, even: When Clay Bennett bought the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics and moved them to Oklahoma City, there was a lot of sadness, but not much of a protest, even though the Sonics were the city's 1st major league sports team, had usually been good, and won what was then the city’s last major championship.
This is the Mariners' 40th Anniversary season, and they are wearing a uniform patch commemorating this.
The Mariners hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. They don't have a lot to hold your attention during a game. Aside from the Rally Fries, there's no special "Get Loud" device, unless you want to count the playing of "Louie, Louie" by Northwest-based band the Kingsmen, which is played after "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the 7th Inning Stretch. Their postgame victory song is "Fire" by Seattle native Jimi Hendrix.
Since Edward McMichael, a.k.a. Tuba Man, died, there's been no really noticeable Mariner fans like New York cowbell men Freddy "Sez" Schuman and Milton Ousland (Yankees) and Eddie Boison (Mets).
In 2011, the Mariners' marketing staff came up with an idea to encourage the growing fanbase of "King Felix." (Funny, but I thought you had to have a crown to be a king. He's never even seen a postseason game except on television. In fact, since he got to Seattle, the Mariners have never even come close.) Every Hernandez start at Safeco is now accompanied by a King's Court section, a place for his fans to sing, dance and cheer while donning custom-made shirts. The team encouraged fans to dress like Larry Bernandez, Hernandez's alter ego from a Mariners TV Commercial, or show up in wacky costumes, rewarding the best with a ceremonial turkey leg. (The favorite snack of 16th Century English monarch King Henry VIII.)
Do they know this is a ripoff of a section at Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium, where fans used to wear werewolf masks and call themselves The Wolf Pack when Randy Wolf pitched for the Phillies? Those same fans also put on sombreros for Vicente Padilla and called themselves the Padilla Flotilla, and big fake mustaches for Sal Fasano and called themselves Sal's Pals. (Then again, Yankee Fans have done the same, with "Judge's Chambers" in right field for Aaron Judge.)
Fitting in with the Pacific Northwest's image, the team's mascot is the Mariner Moose. You may remember a real moose walking through the streets of Cicely, Alaska in the opening sequence of the TV show Northern Exposure. That sequence was filmed in Roslyn, Washington, 82 miles down I-90 to the southeast of Safeco.
You may also remember that, during the 1995 ALDS between the Yanks and M's, the Moose was doing the artificial-turf equivalent of water-skiing behind an ATV, when he lost control and his rollerblades led him to crash into the outfield wall, breaking his ankle. He continued performing on crutches (though not doing the skating) through the rest of the Playoffs. He wore Number 95 at the time, matching the year, but has worn Number 00 since 2000.
The Moose with his pals: Squatch,
of the now-lost SuperSonics, and Blitz of the Seahawks.
After the Game. SoDo is not an especially high-crime area, and, as I said, Mariner fans do not get violent. You might get a little bit of verbal if you're wearing Yankee gear, but it won't get any worse than that.
Two bars are usually identified with Mariners and Seahawks games. Sluggers, formerly known as Sneakers (or "Sneaks" for short), is at 538 1st Avenue South, at the northwest corner of CenturyLink Field. A little further up, at 419 Occidental Avenue South, is F.X. McRory’s. Keep in mind, though, that these will be Mariner-friendly bars.
As for Yankee-friendly bars, while there are Yankee Fans everywhere, I couldn't find anything specific on the Internet. I've been told that the following are good for football Giants fans, but I cannot confirm any of these: Buckley's (232 1st Ave. W. at Thomas St.), Goldie's (2121 N. 45th Street), the Lucky 7 Saloon (12715 NE 124th Street in Kirkland) and Big Daddy's Place (13420 NE 177th Place in Woodinville). Buckley's is just to the west of Seattle Center, near the waterfront. The rest are a fur piece from Safeco or even downtown: Goldie's is 6 miles north of the ballpark, the Lucky 7 is 18 miles northeast, and Big Daddy’s is 22 miles northeast.
If you visit during the European soccer season, which will soon be upon us, the leading "football pub" in the Pacific Northwest is The George and Dragon Pub, 206 N. 36th Street, 5 miles north of downtown. Bus 40.
Sidelights. Aside from the KeyArena and the Safeco/CenturyLink complex, Seattle doesn't have a lot of sports sites worth mentioning. But these should be mentioned:
* Sick's Stadium. The PCL team played 2½ miles southeast of Safeco, first at Dugdale Field (1913-1932) and then at Sick’s Stadium (1938-68 and 1972-76, built by Rainiers' owner Emil Sick). The Seattle Pilots also played at Sick's, but lasted only one year, 1969, before being moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers, and are now chiefly remembered for ex-Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton’s diary of that season, Ball Four.
Elvis Presley sang at Sick's on September 1, 1957 (since it had more seats than any indoor facility in town); supposedly, Hendrix, then 15, was there. A few days prior, Floyd Patterson defended the heavyweight title there by knocking out fellow 1956 Olympic Gold Medalist Pete Rademacher.
Demolished in 1979 after the construction of the Kingdome (whose inadequacies were very different but no less glaring), the site of Sick's Stadium is now occupied by a Lowe's store. 2700 Rainier Avenue South, bounded also by McClellan & Bayview Sts. & Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Mount Baker station on the Link light rail system.
* Husky Stadium. The home of the University of Washington football, the largest stadium in the Pacific Northwest (including Canada) is right on Lake Washington, and is one of the nicest-looking stadiums in college football. A rare feature in major college football is that fans can dock right outside and tailgate by boat. (The only others at which this is possible: Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee, and Heinz Field for University of Pittsburgh games.)
It opened in 1920, making it the oldest stadium in the Pacific-12 Conference. The Seahawks played a few home games here in 1994, after some tiles fell from the Kingdome roof, and played their games here in 2000 and 2001 between the demolition of the Kingdome and the opening of what's now CenturyLink Field. In 1923, it was the site of the last public speech given by President Warren G. Harding before his death in a San Francisco hotel.
A major renovation was recently completed, necessary due to age and the moisture from being on the water and in Seattle's rainy climate. Pretty much everything but the north stand of the east-pointing horseshoe was demolished and replaced.
The Huskies played the 2012 season at CenturyLink, and moved into the revamped, 70,138-seat Husky Stadium for the 2013 season. Rutgers University will play its 1st game of the 2016 football game against Washington here, on Saturday, September 3. 3800 Montlake Blvd. NE, at Pacific Street. Light Rail to University of Washington Station.
* Edmundson Pavilion. Adjacent to Husky Stadium, at 3870 Montlake, is Alaska Airlines Arena at Clarence S. "Hec" Edmundson Pavilion, the home of "U-Dub" basketball since 1927. Hec was the school's longtime basketball and track coach, and "Hec Ed" hosted the NCAA Final Four in 1949 (Kentucky over Oklahoma A&M, the school now known as Oklahoma State) and 1952 (Kansas over St. John's). It has also hosted the State of Washington's high school basketball finals.
UW has been to the Final Four only once, in 1953, although they've won the regular-season title in the league now called the Pac-12 11 times, including 2012; and the Conference Tournament 3 times, most recently in 2011. Washington State, across the State in Pullman, reached the Championship Game in 1941, but hasn't been back to the Final Four since.
The Kingdome hosted the Final Four in 1984 (Georgetown over Houston), 1989 (Michigan over Seton Hall), and 1995 (UCLA over Arkansas). It also hosted 3 U.S. soccer team matches: A win, a loss, and a draw.
* Tacoma Dome. The Sonics used this building during the 1994-95 season, as the Seattle Center Coliseum was demolished and the KeyArena put up in its place. Opening in 1983, it seats 17,100, and its most common use has been for minor-league hockey and concerts. 2727 East D Street, about 32 miles south of downtown Seattle. It can be reached from downtown Seattle by Bus 590, 592, 594 or 595, and it would take about 45 minutes.
The Spokane Coliseum, at Boone Street and Howard Avenue, seated 5,400, lasted from 1954 to 1995, and was replaced by the 12,200-seat Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, across the street. It's home to minor-league hockey's Spokane Chiefs, who, despite not being in Canada, won their junior hockey championship, the Memorial Cup, in 1991 and 2008. 720 W. Mallon Avenue. Spokane is 280 miles east of Seattle.
They played at the Seattle Ice Arena, which seated only 4,000 people, and was demolished in 1963. The IBM Building, a typically tacky piece of 1960s architecture, now stands on the site. 1200 Fifth Avenue at University Avenue, downtown.
Seattle Center also has the Pacific Science Center (think of it the Northwest’s version of the American Museum of Natural History and its Hayden Planetarium), the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (not sure why Seattle was chosen as the Hall’s location, although the city is a major aerospace center).
Also in this complex is Memorial Stadium, a high school football stadium built in 1946. It used to host the old North American Soccer League version of the Sounders, and now hosts the women's soccer team, the Seattle Reign. On June 24, 1975, it hosted a game between the national teams of the U.S. and Poland, ending in a draw.
Also in this complex is the KeyArena, home of the WNBA's Seattle Storm and formerly the SuperSonics. The Storm's Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson were named to the NBA's 15th Anniversary 15 Greatest Players in 2012. A high school football stadium is also on the site. Number 33 bus, although the nearest Link station is several blocks' walk away.
On May 12, 2014, the New York Times printed a story that shows NBA fandom by ZIP Code, according to Facebook likes. With the loss of the Sonics, Seattle fans not only refused to accept their former heroes as Oklahoma City Thunder (Thunders? Thundermen?), but also refused to accept the next-closest team, their former arch-rivals, the Portland Trail Blazers, 171 miles away, as their new team. They seem to divide their fandom 4 ways, none of which should surprise you: The Chicago Bulls, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. But if Seattle should ever get another team, these fans would certainly get behind the new Sonics.
At 967 feet high, Columbia Center, a.k.a. The Black Tower, is the tallest building in the Northwest, and, for the moment, the tallest building in North America west of the Rocky Mountains except for the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles. (A building going up in San Francisco, and another in Los Angeles, are both expected to top the Black Tower by 2017.) If you're wondering about Seattle's most famous icon, the Space Needle was once the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River, but at 605 feet it is well short of the Black Tower.
Aside from Seattle Center and its Space Needle, and the stadiums, Seattle's best-known structure is the Pike Place Market. Think of it as their version of the South Street Seaport and Fulton Fish Market. (Or Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market, Baltimore's Harborplace, or Boston's Quincy Market/Faneuil Hall.) It includes the 1st-ever Starbucks store, which is still open. Downtown, 85 Pike Street at Western Avenue.
If Seattle ever got a new NBA team, it would rank 17th among NBA metro areas in population. It would also rank 17th in the NHL. The closest NHL team is the Vancouver Canucks, 144 miles away. According to an article in the January 8, 2016 edition of Business Insider, the Canucks are the most popular NHL team in the State of Washington.
Aside from the Pacific Science Center and the Science Fiction Museum, Seattle isn't a big museum city, although the Seattle Art Museum, at 1300 1st Avenue at University Street, might be worth a visit.
The State of Washington has never produced a President, so there's no Presidential Library. Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson ran for the Democratic nomination in 1972 and 1976, but didn't get particularly close. The State's never produced a Vice President, either. Thomas S. Foley served a District centered on Spokane in Congress from 1965 to 1995, and was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1989 to 1995.
Not many TV shows have been set in Seattle. Northern Exposure was filmed in the State of Washington, and Twin Peaks was both filmed and set there, but not in the City of Seattle. The science-fiction series Dark Angel, which vaulted Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly to stardom, was set in a dystopian future Seattle, but was filmed in Vancouver. So was Millennium. So was Smallville, but that wasn't meant to be Seattle.
Arrow, about another superhero, is filmed in Vancouver, and perhaps due to Green Arrow wearing a green costume, I've often thought of his hometown of Star City (Starling City on the show) as being DC Comics' analogue for Seattle. While Frasier was set in Seattle, and Grey's Anatomy still is, there were hardly any location shots.
Nor have there been very many movies set in Seattle. The most obvious is Sleepless in Seattle, and the city was home to Matthew Broderick's and Ally Sheedy's characters in WarGames (in which Broderick's computer hacking has much greater consequences than it would 3 years later in the Chicago-based Ferris Bueller's Day Off).
Singles came along in 1992, at the height of grunge and the rise of Starbucks, which helped make Seattle the hippest city in the country in the years of George Bush the father and Bill Clinton's first term -- or, as Jason Alexander put it on Seinfeld, "It's the pesto of cities." It also reminded us of how good an actor Matt Dillon is, how gorgeous Kyra Sedgwick is, and that Bridget Fonda (daughter of Peter, niece of Jane and granddaughter of Henry) and Campbell Scott (son of George C. and Colleen Dewhurst) were worthy of their genes.
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So, if you can afford it, go on out and join your fellow Yankee Fans in taking over the Mariners' ballpark. And if they bring up 1995, feel free to bring up 2000 and 2001.
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