Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (128 page)

Josh:
That’s a net loss of 1.5 million fans—per year!

Kevin:
I believe the proper term is hemorrhaging.

Josh:
That’s more fans lost than the Marlins, Pirates, or Athletics drew last year.

Kevin:
Thanks for putting that in perspective for me.

The M’s nosedive after their glory years is on par with that of Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen. When GM Bill Bavasi took control of the team in 2003, a steady decline in the team’s on-field performance began and persisted until the end of his tenure in 2008. Though it may not have been entirely his fault, the Bavasi years for the Mariners were dark, characterized by high payrolls (above $100 million) and high loss totals.

Josh:
That’s not a good combination.

Kevin:
Sure as heck ain’t ketchup and mustard.

Seattle fans did what techie hipsters always do and circulated Internet flyers crying for Bavasi’s removal from his post. After a while, the signing of overpriced and under-performing free agents (Carlos Silva, anyone?) began to boggle the mind, along with the trading away of young talent (Adam Jones, anyone?). Upper management had to let Bavasi go.

But the damage was done and the team will no doubt be reeling from the impact of the Bavasi years for some time. As a result fan attendance and season tickets are down again, with even the area surrounding the ballpark feeling the negative impact. Woefully, Seattle seems to have sailed the USS
Mariner
back into the doldrums once again.

The M’s are currently owned by Hiroshi Yamauchi, a Japanese businessman who is also president of Nintendo. Though he’s owned the team since 1996, Yamauchi has never seen a Mariners game in person. He was hoping to catch one on March 25, 2003, when Seattle and Oakland were supposed to travel to Tokyo to kick off the big league season in Japan. But because of the outbreak of war with Iraq, MLB canceled the games.

And yet there is still a glimmer of hope on the horizon in Seattle. GM Jack Zduriencik has seemingly righted the ship. The M’s have stopped making boneheaded trades (this is not a reference to Jay Buhner) and have begun to restock the cupboards of their farm system. Time will tell if they can bring back the fans lost during the Bavasi years, and if the team will ever fulfill the promise of the 1995 season, and finally get to its first World Series.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” said a
New York Times
article about Safeco a while back. Well, maybe the
Times
didn’t use the word “ain’t,” but you get the idea. This ballpark, though not tiny, continues be among the league’s best. Tickets are difficult to come by when Seattle is competitive—which hasn’t been a consistent threat. When the team is not making a run, the ballpark has enough empty seats in it to rival a Bangles reunion tour. Most all the seats have clear sight lines, but some are much preferable to others.

We still call these the “screw you” seats, because if you can afford the Diamond Club, which is made up of the 370 box seats located directly behind home plate, you have enough dough to say “screw you” to just about anybody. Not only do these $100-plus seats provide their elite holders with Safeco’s sweetest views but they also furnish complimentary food and beverage refills all game long. Ticket holders are allowed access to both the Diamond Club Lounge and a special parking lot that comes complete with its own private entrance to the park.

Without exception, these seats provide great views of the action, and we recommend them highly if you have the means. As an added attraction, the vendors are very attentive in the Lower Boxes. They’re no fools; they know where the money’s at.

Located between where the infield dirt meets the outfield grass and extending to the foul poles on either side of the diamond, this seating section offers a number of quality viewing points. The first few sections (116–118, 142–144) are a good deal but beyond these, we recommend saving your money and sitting in the Lower Outfield Reserved. The foul poles have been designed to run down the aisles, thus eliminating much of the blockage of views, but there are still some seats that suffer infield obstructions. Section 150 is one to avoid, but if you must, be sure to get close to the Section 149 side for the better view. On the right-field side, avoid Section 110 if a foul-pole obstruction bothers you. Or, Section 109 provides cheaper seats without the obstruction.

We should mention that the Mariners unveiled a pretty neat promotion during the 2011 season. On days when reigning Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernandez was scheduled to pitch they dubbed Section 150 the “King’s Court,” and sold tickets to sit in it at a steep discount. Not only did purchasers of Section 150 seats get cheaper than usual tickets, but they also got complimentary Felix Hernandez T-shirts, and yellow and blue “K” placards to hold up en masse after each strikeout recorded by the Mariners’ ace. They also received the rare privilege of sitting in a seating section alongside one fellow fan who showed up to the park in full court jester regalia for each and every one of the discounted games. Yes, the discount attracted a slightly motley crew. But in a good way. The reduced-price King’s Court tickets generally went on sale about five days before each of Hernandez’s home starts.

For a great view at a decent price, we highly recommend Sections 105–109. These sections are in home run territory along the right-field wall, and get better as you approach the wall. Plus, you’ll increase your chances of catching a homerun and winding up on Sports Center—that is provided you actually catch it. Section 103 is an alcohol-free family section. Sections 151 and 152 beside the bullpens in left field are much better than Section 150, which is pricier. Sections 151 and 152 are close in price to the View Boxes on the 300 Level and they’re much closer to field level.

These second-level boxes are pricey and exclusive. They’re not bad seats, but we’ve noticed that high fly balls disappear because of the overhang of the View Level.

In order to draw interest from groups, and by “draw interest” we mean make things less expensive, the club has taken a few suites along the first-base line and combined them into one “new” larger seating area. They dub the area a 140-member luxury lounge, but don’t be fooled. Unless you’re taking your entire graduating class out to the ballpark for ten games in a row to show them how you’ve “made the big time,” these seats will remain exactly what they are—big corporate luxury boxes for people who want to seem more important than everyone else.

At this altitude we don’t see much reason to shell out the extra money for View Box seats, which are just a few feet closer to the action than the first row of the View Reserved. Of course, if you’re left with a choice between the first row of the View Boxes and the very last row of the View Reserved, then that’s a different story.

This upper deck is called the View level for a reason. Its exterior walkway extends from foul pole to foul pole, offering sweeping views of Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains, and downtown Seattle. Above the highest seats are windowed panels offering more impressive views and also protection from the wind. Fans seated on the third-base side (Sections 337–347) are treated to a view of downtown and of the football stadium, while on the first-base side (Sections 315–323) the Cascade Mountains in the east form the backdrop.

Steer clear of Sections 306–314 in right field, if possible, as there is significant underhang in these sections. If you’re relegated to the upper deck, the cheaper bleacher seats in straightaway center are preferable. If the roof is open, Sections 306–310 face directly into sunlight for the first half of evening games, or for the full game during afternoon affairs—which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how warm it is outside. Luckily, it’s usually not too oppressive in Seattle.

Josh:
Do I see shirtless men, tanning at the ballpark?

Kevin:
Any excuse for a few rays in this town.

You’ll find the best View seats in Sections 318–342, which provide a nice overview of the infield. The architects did an excellent job of protecting sight lines in these sections, and they are not significantly diminished as the row numbers increase. Beware of Section 342, as it is a “family” section. That means no beer is allowed, not even for dad.

Sections 346–349 in the upper left-field corner also suffer a bit of a loss of the left-field corner from the dreaded underhang, so avoid them if possible.

If you’re getting your tickets on game day, we highly recommend these. Despite their dirt-cheap price, they offer a surprisingly decent second-deck view of the action directly facing the plate. These seats are highly preferable to the 300 Level seats in the right-field corner, and they’re cheaper.

The warning track is missing from view in these high bleacher seats, but that is the only loss. All the grass is in full view, and there shouldn’t be much of the actual game missed from these sections—except dramatic catches at the wall (which are kinda nice to see in person, we admit). Be sure to sit in the lower rows of these sections, as the lighting stanchions block views in the top rows. These aren’t bad for cheap seats, but we prefer the view from the center-field bleachers.

Just outside the centerfield fence and across from The ’Pen eating area, is
the
location to be for singles, people who want to get closer to the action than their seats allow, or anyone else wanting a break from the experience of walking around the ballpark. Since Safeco opened, this area across from the high-end foodie restaurants has always been a singles party. When the restaurants were called “The Bullpen Market,” we affectionately dubbed the area the “Meet Market.”

An important change to note in recent years is that the Beer Garden is usually re-purposed during premium games and converted into bleacher seating in order to sell more tickets. If you’re visiting when tickets are a tough draw and/or the team is playing a playoff game, there is no guarantee that this area will be open to the public.

When the M’s are not competitive, you don’t need to find the scalpers, they’ll find you. And when business isn’t good for scalpers, it’s likely good for you. We observed a regional peculiarity on the scalper scene. Maybe it’s a Northwest thing, or perhaps it’s the general courtesy of folks who refuse to even jaywalk, but fans seeking tickets say nothing. They simply raise their arms extending fingers displaying the number of tickets they need. Then the scalpers approach them. Quietly and without much posturing, tickets and money change hands. Leave it to Seattle to find a civilized way to navigate the illicit (and illegal) ticket black market.

If you’re like Josh and want to go the more traditional, (legal) route, try the season ticket trade-in plan, where season-ticket holders trade in tickets for games they won’t use for future games. Take a chance on game day and hit the box office asking for “best available,” and you may well get a top-notch seat that a season-ticket holder has traded in. But know this: Season-ticket holders get a discount at concession stands by having the bar code scanned on their tickets—but not tickets purchased through the trade-in program. You have to get your tickets straight from a season-ticket holder for the discount. If you do the math here, and you can get an actual season ticket for a weekend game, the concession credit cancels out the premium cost.