Safeco Field

Home of the Seattle Mariners, Seattle’s major league baseball team, Safeco Field is one of two stadiums (along with Qwest Field) in Seattle’s SoDo (South of Downtown) neighborhood.

The stadium replaced Seattle’s less modern and less luxurious Kingdome (which was imploded, much to residents’ delight and excitement in 2000). Safeco offers fans good sightline to the natural grass field from nearly every seat (even the nosebleeds).

If you’re a fan (or just a fan for a day), you can pick up gear at the huge Mariners shop on the west side of the stadium, which sells both licensed merchandise and equipment used in actual games—in case you have your heart set on a game ball, but are without luck. Not a game fan? That’s fine.

The people watching is fine; the Mariners have notoriously loyal fans who crowd the park at every home game, although whether they are there to see the game or to chow down the Safeco’s famous, greasy garlic fries is anyone’s guess (get the fries).

If you go, expect a generally familiar game experience, only with infinitely more traffic. SoDo wasn’t designed to handle the number of fans, and clogs up streets north through Pioneer Square. Your best bet is to avoid the traffic and exorbitant parking fees and take public transportation down to the field.

 

- by Caren Gussoff Sumption, Seattle Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)

Caren Gussoff Sumption

Caren Gussoff Sumption is a freelance writer and editor from Seattle, WA. She's written for USA Today, the Seattle Times/NW Source, MSN and AOL, and her fiction has been published worldwide. She received her MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.