Wayback: The Kingdome

Dialing up April 1993 and my one and only visit to the Kingdome.  One of the more maligned examples of early domed design, the Mariners' former home was, in a word, dark...  A grim concrete exterior matched with a poorly lit playing field and seating bowl.
The multi-purpose stadium opened for the NFL's Seahawks in 1976 and welcomed the Mariners a year later.  Big baseball crowds weren't the rule -- unless the Yankees were in town.  Over 52,000 fans were on hand Saturday night April 22nd, 1993 when the Yankees won 1-0 in 11 innings (on a Kevin Maas sacrifice fly).
To give you a different sense of the space, I snapped this before the game from the upper deck above deep right field.
While a flawed venue for baseball, the Mariners began to pack the place with their "refuse to lose" 1995 run to the AL West title, followed by a division series win over the Yankees -- which was credited with saving baseball in Seattle and convincing the public to approve the funding for the city's more modern, retractable domed T-Mobile Park.




 


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