Tour 2024: T-Mobile Park Renovation

All photos of Seattle and T-Mobile Park available on Flickr.

Erik and I just returned from our whirlwind trip to the greater Seattle/Olympic Peninsula area, and what an amazing trip it was!  I was going through all our years of ball trips in my mind at the SeaTac Airport on the way home, and this was probably my favorite trip of ours since New York way back in 2009.  Not only did we see some great games and cool ballparks, but the scenery in that region is unmatched to anywhere else in the country, and the perfect 70° weather was a welcome change to most of our trips that are unbearably hot.  Seattle was also a super fun city to get to explore for a couple of days, and still one of my favorite spots in the US.  I landed about 3 hours before Erik on Friday morning, and after unsuccessfully trying to find a sit-down coffee shop near the airport, I resorted to reading my book in our rental car at a Safeway until I picked him up at around 1:30pm.  We exchanged pleasantries and got our usual "wow being a Dad is hard" conversation out of the way at Perihelion Brewery in the North Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle.  We were both starving from the time zone change, and our long days of travel did not stop us from tossing back a couple flights and the first of our many delicious meals there.  We then took a quick drive-by snapshot of the site where the former Sick's Stadium stood (now sadly a Lowe's) enroute to our hotel, the Arctic Club.  This hotel was one of the nicest and fanciest (i.e. expensive) we've ever stayed at in all our travels, and was truly a defining moment for us in how far we've come in our careers and lives that we can afford to (or even want to) stay at a place like this now.  It's been quite the transition from staying in the most dirt-cheap option we could find as recently as 5 years ago, to now staying in hotels with things like valet parking and balconies and a bar that served smoked old fashioneds.  I will say that staying in such a dense city as Seattle certainly played into that, and it was nice that we were downtown and could walk everywhere.  It was only about a 15 minute walk to T-Mobile Park for our first game of the weekend.

We arrived in what we thought would be plenty of time to get in line for a 4:40pm opening, but I guess I had forgotten how popular bobbleheads are since I stopped collecting them.  This would be just the first of many long lines and crowds we would stand in at this park and it became a common theme for the evening.  It also did not help that the Mariners only open one gate 2 hours prior to first pitch and they seem to have so few gates in general.  Having to wait an extra half hour to start drinking was not the end of the world and we got in eventually, and made our way down to the T-Mobile Pen for happy hour.  This is a large bar area/gathering space in center field near the bullpens (hence the name) that has happy hour pricing and apps for a certain period of time prior to the game starting.  It is also nearest to the one gate that opens prior to the rest of the stadium, and it is all that is open for awhile, so you truly do feel like you're at an exclusive happy hour if you're there early enough.  We took down a couple of ice cold Rainiers in the 'Pen and then walked around the lower level a bit more.  The obvious thing anyone will notice when visiting T-Mobile Park is the large and diverse food selection, almost to the point of being overwhelming.  Seattle itself is a very cosmopolitan city with a heavy Asian influence, and the food scene at the ballpark certainly reflects that.  There were several grab-and-go "Walk-Off Markets" added since our last visit in 2007, and also a Japanese establishment called the Tamari Bar at section 133.  This was right above our seats and the line there was so insanely long that we knew it must be good and made it a point to return there in the 7th inning when it finally died down.  It's not hyperbole when I say the Katsu Curry Rice was probably the best food I have ever eaten at any ballpark in my entire life.  So, if you're a fan of Asian cuisine and/or curry, do not be deterred by the line and just go there, you will not be disappointed.  I also appreciated the "value menu" sections that have been added since our last visit.  The Mariners are conscious that it is not super affordable for a family to go to a game together these days, and do their best to counteract this by lowering the cost of their "traditional" ballpark fare at some stands - dogs, popcorn, soda, 12oz cans of macro beer, etc. - as well certain "value" seating areas.

The main reason we chose Seattle for this year's trip, besides the fact that it's just a beautiful and awesome city, was to see the $50+ million renovations that were set in place leading up to hosting the All-Star Game last year.  There are aspects of this renovation that we didn't see and will likely never see (expanding the Diamond Club, updated press box), and aspects that aren't particularly sexy but needed (ADA upgrades, sound system upgrades), but the main improvements we were there to see were the fan upgrades.  A new area called the "Trident Deck" in the left field corner was installed, in a common move by teams nowadays to blow out a section of seats that doesn't sell and make it a social space.  They do rent this space out to groups for some games including the night we were there, but we managed to sneak in for the last inning, and it was very reminiscent of The Rooftop at Coors Field on a smaller scale.  There is also now a very popular gathering space above the rotunda gate, which is the main entry of the ballpark at the southwest corner.  This area reminded me of the fan space that Wrigley used to have above the marquee, in that you're looking outward to the city from up here and not able to actually see the field.  Staring at Puget Sound and the Seattle skyline was certainly a nice consolation prize and it was a prime spot for photos, selfies, and crushing our curry dinners.  It is called the Rooftop Boardwalk and it is generally closed to private groups before games, but then open to all fans after first pitch.  The Mariners also gutted part of their Terrace Club level on the first base side and turned it into more of a social area with an open floor plan and view of the field, sort of like the ones in Cleveland and Minnesota that offer a variety of seating options, instead of regular seats that happen to have a bar like the Milwaukee club level.  This area did require a special ticket so we were unfortunately not able to access it, but it does look super cool from the renderings and photos.  I think the next logical step for the Mariners would be to blow out some of the 3rd deck in right field and turn that into a Rooftop/Trident Deck type of area.  Friday happened to be a sellout for J.P. Crawford Bobblehead Night as well as Filipino Heritage Night, but I can't imagine at most games that many people are clamoring to sit 500+ feet away directly facing the sun.

Our seats were 5 rows behind the visitor dugout, which happened to be our hometown Twins on this night.  The Twinkies lost 3-2 in 10 innings, which was of course the only game they lost in the series.  Seattle got on the board first with a Josh Rojas double in the 5th, but Minnesota came right back in top of 6 with a 2-run homerun by the reviled Carlos Correa.  Fan favorite Julio Rodriguez beat out an infield grounder in the 8th, which allowed Luke Raley to score from 2nd on a throwing error to tie the game.  After the Twins embarrassingly came up empty in their half of the 10th, Cal Raleigh walked it off in the bottom half on a fielder's choice to the pitcher.  Cole Sands would have thrown the slow-footed Raleigh out by a mile, but he had no choice but to throw home due to the ghost runner, and the Mariners were able to steal the victory.  It ended up being a fantastic pitching matchup that lived up to its billing.  Bailey Ober gave up one run and struck out 9 over 6 innings of work, and Logan Gilbert gave up just 2 over 6.  Following the game, we had a night cap at our hotel bar, and I tried the aforementioned smoked old fashioned.  I was not prepared to inhale a campfire at a bar, but it was a wonderful experience and a great end to our first night in The Emerald City.

I had T-Mobile Park as 3rd best on my list before this visit, but I had to drop it a couple notches due to the exacerbating lines we experienced the entire evening.  Crowds are a good thing at a ballpark, but it just seemed more like a failure of traffic management.  I know that the M's recognize this because they overhauled their POS system as a part of the remodel, as well as added a ton more small concession stands and grab-and-go stands, but the food variety is so diverse that almost nothing is duplicative, so you end up with a situation where people stand in line for an hour for that one item they want.  They also need to figure out the entry situation by adding another gate or changing how they admit fans.  However, despite these issues, I still have this park in my top 5.  It's just too cool of a city and such a unique baseball experience that it would take a complete catastrophe for me to ever lower it much more than that.  Baseball in the Pacific Northwest is just so chill and a different vibe than anywhere else in the country, and it's something that every fan needs to experience.

Day 2 began with dominating the complimentary hotel breakfast and then hitting the two quintessential Seattle tourist spots: the Space Needle and Pike Place Market.  We decided against going to the Space Needle in 2007 for cost and time reasons, and even though those two things have only gotten worse in the 17 years since, it was so worth it and I'm glad we went.  We took the monorail north (another tourist trap) to the Seattle Center and spent a couple hours walking around there before our 11:45 admittance to the Needle.  This area contains a lot of the buildings and structures that date back to the 1962 World's Fair, including Climate Pledge Arena.  When it was finally our turn, we took the 520-foot elevator ride up to the observation deck, and it was simply stunning.  I could have spent hours up there, but instead settled for one lap around the revolving bar with a $20 cocktail enjoying the panorama.  We had our first of many delicious seafood meals at Pike Market for a late lunch and stopped at nearby Cloudburst Brewing, then headed to Everett for our Saturday evening game.

updated park rankings and statistics

(see original post from 8/2/07): 

aesthetics - 6
views from park – 9
view to field - 5
surrounding area – improves to 9 (the team now own bars across the street)
food variety - improves to 10
nachos - n/a (still have not had nachos there and did not see any!)
beer - improves to 8
vendor price - 7 ("standard" fare and beer is reasonable but specialty stuff is pricy)
ticket price - 3
atmosphere - improves to 8
walk to park – improves to 9 (not sure why I ever had it that low)
parking price/proximity - decreases to 6 (area has built up considerably since 2007)
concourses - decreases to 4 (this is the category i'll account for the long lines)
team shop - 10
kids area - 7 (new category - appears to be multiple areas geared towards different ages)

best food – Katsu Curry Rice!
most unique stadium feature – Rooftop Boardwalk, barn door roof
best jumbotron feature – "Hey Computer" game
best between-inning feature – Salmon Race

field dimensions – 331/401/326

starters – Bailey Ober (MIN) v. Logan Gilbert (SEA)
opponent – Minnesota Twins
time of game – 2:38
attendance – 44924
score – 3-2 W
Brewers score that day – 4-2 W