T-Mobile Park's 25th anniversary: Mariners faced instability, futility before finding home

SEATTLE — The Mariners quietly celebrated a milestone on Monday, and the first game ever at what is now T-Mobile Park.

On July 15, 1999, the Mariners played at then-Safeco Field, in what was an improbable occasion after what seemed like years of uncertainty, twists and turns.

No one may know that better than former King County Executive Gary Locke.

“As soon as I was elected, I formed a task force to look at the adequacy of the Kingdome,” said Locke, then a rising leader who had a big concrete problem on his hands.

King County was the landlord for the King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium. It opened in 1976 and was falling apart quite literally by 1994.

“There were all these acoustical tiles glued up to the bottom of the roof, and they got waterlogged and started sagging,” said Locke.

They fell onto the field and stands.

The Mariners were in a state of flux—with new Japanese ownership—and now questions about the long-term viability of their home park.

It had been a wild story just to get to this point.

The Kingdome was, in part, a creation after Major League Baseball once spurned the city. The Seattle Pilots played the 1969 season at Sick’s Stadium in the Rainier Valley, before moving to Milwaukee. Sick’s was where a guy named Fred Hutchinson starred back in the day.

Then Washington State Attorney General Slade Gorton sued to get another team — that would become the Mariners.

Gorton once again brought the new ownership group together to save baseball a second time.

But the ball was now in Locke’s glove, who believed he had put together a sales tax package to build another stadium in September of 1995.

“It failed, it failed by the slimmest of margins,” he said.

The game seemed over until the Mariners went on a magical run.

The previously hapless franchise that had never sniffed the playoffs, went on their “Refuse to Lose” run. Edgar Martinez’s double, scoring Ken Griffey, propelled the Mariners to the American League Championship Series.

Locke found a double-play partner in Gov. Mike Lowry.

“He said, a truly cosmopolitan community has to have professional sports," saidLocke. "He was very much in support of having the legislature convening the legislature for a special session to come up with a different financing package for the new baseball stadium."

"Quite frankly, the end result put together by the legislature was so much better than the original package that was defeated at the polls," Locke added. "Because now it was no longer just a sales tax."

The Legislature approved it in October of 1995.

After the Mariners threatened one more time to pull out of the deal, the King County Council approved the deal that fall, eight days before an ownership deadline.

“It was a vindication of all the civic and political leaders of Democrats and Republicans, Eastern and Western Washington coming together to really put together a beautiful stadium that was going to ensure baseball—Major League Baseball—for the community," said Locke. "And not just the Seattle area, but really for the entire region."

When the stadium opened that July day, the Kingdome still towered over left field. Voters had approved a new Seahawks stadium too. The old indoor stadium would be detonated in March of 2000.

Now T-Mobile Park has lasted longer than the Kingdome.

“We want this to be the Wrigley Field, Fenway Park of the West,” said Fred Rivera, Vice President and General Counsel for the Mariners. “I think one thing we're most proud of as well as this is really as a community asset."

It has since hosted soccer, college football, hockey, political rallies, and even Wrestlemania.

In 2018, the King County Council voted to allocate another $180 million in tax revenue for upgrades, in return for a Mariners lease extension through the 2040s. The M’s agreed to pay hundreds of millions more in upgrades and maintenance to the retractable roof, and have invested more on the outside of the ballpark.

“We've executed on that work, ranging from roof maintenance to the wheel bearings to seat replacement and a number of other things that are outlined in the report," Rivera said. "We work with the PFD on a regular basis to make sure that the report is being followed."

Rivera said there are 500 events a year at the ballpark, ranging from small meetings and fundraisers to the 47,000 people that fill it for an M’s game.

“It certainly doesn’t look 25 years old," said Rivera.

The artwork from artist Patrick Sanford, of Hutchinson, can still be seen on the armrests at the end of each row—and a shrine to Gorton is prominently displayed inside team offices.

Locke would later become governor, U.S. commerce secretary, ambassador to China and Bellevue College president. But he still looks back on that July day 25 years ago and smiles.

“It was just a beautiful sight," Locke said. "That deep green grass, luscious grass, outdoors, perfect weather, people enjoying the sun."

“It was worth it, most definitely worth it,” Locke said.