Happy Opening Day!

I love everything about Opening Day. The excitement, games all day long (in years when the early don’t get rained out at least), the festiveness. I love that if a player hits a home run he’s on pace for 162 home runs. I love that if your team wins a perfect season is in play. You get unlikely players at the top of statistical leaderboards and a forever place in the record book if you just happen to do a certain thing on this day, and not the next day.

It’s so beautiful and chaotic and hopeful. A day to feel joy. A fresh start.

In other baseball openings, our Little League practices got under way earlier this week. We’ve got a couple more weeks to go until games start, but it was so nice to be out at a baseball field, watching baseball things happening.

And in other news, I’ll be speaking at the May 18 PNW SABR Chapter Meeting in Tacoma. I’ll have more to share on that later as I get it sorted out!

For now, before you flip on your tv/pull up streaming games on your work computer or make your way to the ballpark, I’ve got a couple quick stories for you.

Grand Opening, Grand Closing

This week marked some synchronicity for the Kingdome. The ‘Dome was officially opened on March 27, 1976 for a Grand Opening Celebration. One day short of the opening’s 24th anniversary, the Kingdome was imploded 24 years ago. And the most prolific player of any sport to call the Kingdome home? Ken Griffey Jr., who wore #24.

The opening ceremonies for the Kingdome were a Bicentennial celebration that featured remarks by various politicians, bands and choirs directed by Meredith Wilson (best known for writing the Broadway musical The Music Man), a performance of the best moments in American history, and sports demonstrations. Future Mariners owner Danny Kaye performed in the finale, a rendition of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

While I was looking up stuff about the Kingdome opener, I came across something I’d never heard of before: King Dum Dum.

You will not be surprised to learn the King Dum Dum was named by a literal 5 year old. He was designed to be a mascot for the Kingdome, and would introduce videos on the big screen. Despite the newspapers gushing about him (the Seattle P-I wrote that he was “sure to be an instant hit”1 and the Seattle Times predicted he would “become as familiar to Kingdome visitors as any of the players on the stadium’s field”2), the mascot faded away after the ‘Dome’s first year.3 Turns out the Mariners and Seahawks wanted to create their own identities (such that they were in those days). It’s hard to believe a mascot named Dum Dum didn’t last as long as his Kingdome.

As you know, the Kingdome was either hated or loved-to-be-hated and almost immediately after spending 17 years trying to get it built, the work began to get it replaced. It was brought down in a controlled demolition on March 26, 2000:

I still get sad watching that.

I also ran across a video of the King-5 broadcast of the implosion. They called it “From Dome to Dust”. Absolutely perfect local news coverage. No notes.

Even after 48 years and two new stadiums, it’s still as much of a journey to get to that area as it was in 1976. Take, for example, this newspaper cartoon:

It’s the rail one that really makes me lose my mind! Although that situation is a little better with the light rail.

I loved the Kingdome and I still miss it. A few years ago, I wrote about the last game at the Kingdome and how much I loved that stupid Dome.

Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning’s End

The Mariners opened their new ballpark in the middle of the 1999 season, as one does. So, their first season opener was the following spring, a week and a half after the Kingdome was imploded, on April 4, 2000. It was the last time the Mariners opened the season at home against the Boston Red Sox until today. (And if enough games get rained out today and you want to watch one from 24 years ago, the whole ESPN broadcast is available!)

2000 was a transition year for the Mariners, leaving behind the Kingdome and the good old days of the power hitting Mariner teams in the 90s. It was their first season opener without Ken Griffey Jr. and their second without Randy Johnson; Alex Rodriguez’s free agency at the end of the year hung in the marine layer above the new stadium. The team was switching from an emphasis on power (that pesky marine layer again) to one on pitching, defense, and small ball.

We quickly became used to outdoor baseball games in April, but it was something of a novelty in the year 2000. For 24 years the Kingdome had provided shelter from the dark, dank, and dreary April evenings. Now, we were promised that being at Safeco Field would feel like we were outside, even when the roof was closed. Remember kids, cotton kills.

And so, the Mariners opened in temperatures that dipped into the 40s, and were introduced to their wind tunnel of a ballpark that felt nice in the summer and practically arctic when it wasn’t at least 75 degrees outside. The roof opened for the pregame ceremonies, then closed again before the game began (or as my pedantic dad would rant, “it’s a retractable roof, it expands and retracts, because when it’s open it’s closed!”).

The first Opening Day traditions took place that evening; the ceremonial running of the bases by a kid with a serious illness, the introduction of the teams, and the bunting that was hung from the railings with care.

Commissioner Bud Selig threw out the first pitch, certainly a choice when you remember that the last time Seattle held an outdoor Opening Day it was the 1969 Pilots, the team the Kingdome was originally approved for and the team Selig whisked away literally right before they would have held their home opener for the 1970 season outdoors in Seattle. Needless to say, the erstwhile car salesman and acting-commissioner-for-life was booed heartily by all in attendance.

When the players took the field, for the first time in 11 years, someone not named Ken Griffey Jr. ran out to centerfield. As you may recall, Ken Griffey Jr. demanded, and was given, a trade to his home town Cincinnati Reds. At the time, the return on the trade felt pretty underwhelming; the centerpiece was center fielder Mike Cameron, who was given the task of replacing a future first-ballot Hall of Famer.

People were MAD about the Griffey trade. All the stages of grief were happening all at once on the radio airwaves of call-in sports radio shows and in the Letter to the Editor sections of newspapers. I remember worrying that fans would be mean to Mike Cameron, who certainly didn’t choose to be in that situation. I underestimated Mariners fans, and the way they/we get really attached to players just because they/we want to.

Mike Cameron was cheered during the pre-game introductions, cheered when he was announced in center field, and given a standing ovation when he stepped out for his first plate appearance. He became one of the most beloved Mariners of that era and it all started that night. It was a great warm and fuzzy baseball moment.

The Mariners were facing Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martínez, so it won’t surprise you to hear that the offense was wasn’t firing on many cylinders. Only Interlake High School (Bellevue) graduate John Olerud, in his Mariners debut, and Carlos Guillen, acquired in the Randy Johnson Trade of 1998, had hits. For the Mariners, Jamie Moyer only allowed two runs, but in a scenario that would become very familiar in the early days of each baseball season at Safeco Field, that was all the visitors needed.

The first Opening Day at Safeco Field had a lot of hype leading up to it. You could say the game itself didn’t live up to it. But that’s another really great thing about Opening Day. It’s only one game out of 162. You can always get ‘em tomorrow!