Requiem for a Ballpark

Derek Zumsteg

The Mariners have played their final ballgame in the Kingdome, and unlike competing sports sites, we're not going to wane rhapsodic on its great moments (not today, anyway). The Kingdome was a hole, a bad place to see a game in, yet it had a certain pride to it. The Kingdome, to me, was a lot like Tom Brunansky.

I heard that "huh."

Baseball's a great sport in part because of the character of its stadiums. Coors Field is like Tropicana Field only in that it has lines drawn on the field and the same distance between its bases. I've been sunburned and happy in Candlestick and the next day cold through my joints with my drink blown out across the rest of the top deck, watching foul balls do corkscrews. There's a bloody perseverance on the part of fans at inhospitable places like that -- I at once wanted to use tactical nuclear weapons to clear the point, and to yell in pride that I'd survived and that domers were weaklings.

The Kingdome didn't have a personality. It's a gray dome with ramps, devoid of personality. It reminds me more of one of the thousands of high schools built in the 70s, that square box of concrete with semi-exposed pipes. The Kingdome is as devoid of charm as it is of malice. There's nothing really wrong with it besides its revenue stream. The sight lines are bad but not that bad, and okay if you know where to sit. The seats are uncomfortable but not horrendously so. Of course, the team sucks, but that's Lou's fault.

For years growing up, I went to games with my dad on off nights, when we joined 5,000 other scattered fans to cheer for players dying to get off this loser team. I watched all kinds of crazy baseball go on, and the Mariners won sometimes. Part of the fun of the low attendance was that you could actually figure out which fans were causing the wins and which the losses if you stuck around long enough.

But I've never passed on a game because I didn't want to see a game there, and I didn't ever press for one because it was a good place to see a game. I've never liked the Kingdome, and I'll be glad to see it blown up, but it suffers only in comparison to any other ballpark. If I never went anywhere else, I'd figure all sight lines were imperfect, and all the decor as bad.

Tom Brunansky had a 14-year career, but when I got to know him was in 1993, when I could look in the McWeekly and see him winning every category: worst batting average (home), worst average (road), worst average (runners on)...I mocked him for a month or so, and then I realized he was more or less playing with one shattered shoulder (or something -- I forget), and I started to cheer for him. And in 1994, he got traded to the Red Sox, where he'd been for a unspectacular stint once before, and for a couple weeks he tore into the ball, lining doubles and bounding around the bases, and I was happy for him.

Over the course of his career, Brunansky had some good seasons and some bad ones, on some champion teams and some terrible ones, and he stuck it out through the strike and then retired gracefully. I've always had a weird affection for Tom: he played as hard as he could, even when he was a laughingstock, and in the time I followed him he never had an ill word, always played up his teammates with ready quotes, and I respect him for that.

Which is why, despite not caring about the fate of the Kingdome despite my anticipation of seeing a game in Griffey House, I feel the same kind of respect for it: the Kingdome was built by Seattle to be a multi-purpose stadium on the cheap, and it tried its best. There were good seasons of baseball and a lot of forgettable ones, and the Kingdome stuck it out way past its useful lifetime, even when it lost tiles and sent its team on the road in disgrace, to return to limp to the handoff to two new specialized ballparks, and now it will retire in grace, courtesy of Ken Griffey Jr., and if there's anything else we can expect out of a $60M multi-purpose stadium, I don't know what it would be.

I think there's a place for the stadium you don't think about, and it's the demolition roster. The Kingdome served its time, let it go to stadium limbo, where it will be envied by the Polo Grounds and soon mocked by Tiger Stadium.

about the author

Derek Zumsteg made national headlines on Sunday when he streaked across the Kingdome turf wearing only a smile and Red Hot Chili Peppers-brand undies. Tell him "nice cartwheel, dude!" at dmz@strikethree.com.