25 years ago, Ken Griffey Jr., Mariners gave Kingdome fitting farewell
The Kingdome officially was the home to 1,755 Mariners games, 303 Sonics games, 184 Seahawks games, three seasons of the Sounders, three Final Fours and one of the most famous concerts ever – that of Paul McCartney in June 1976 with his new band Wings, during what was his first and only American tour in the decade following the breakup of the Beatles.
But mostly, it was the home of Ken Griffey Jr.
Griffey didn’t play his first game at the Kingdome until roughly 13 years after it opened.
By the time it closed in early 2000, though, it was hard to imagine the place had ever existed without him.
True, there were others who could stake at least some claim to a piece of ownership of the Kingdome. Seahawks receiver Steve Largent caught 52 touchdown passes there, part of a then-NFL record 100 career touchdown receptions overall, on his way to a first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Fame election. And Jack Sikma played the heart of his Hall of Fame basketball career there, including leading the Sonics to the first major pro sports title in the city’s history in 1979.
But memories of the Kingdome that linger in the minds of Seattle sports fans usually begin and end with Griffey.
Griffey played 715 of his 2,671 games in a career that would end in him getting what was at the time the highest percentage of votes for the Hall of Fame (99.3%) at the Kingdome, as well as clubbing 198 of his 630 home runs (seventh all-time) and 828 of his 2,781 hits there.
And in what proved perfectly poetic, he hit a home run in his first game (and at-bat) in the Kingdome on April 10, 1989, and another in his last game there on June 27, 1999.
That was also the final game the Mariners played at the Kingdome 25 years ago this summer before moving into what is now known as T-Mobile Park.
While last games in stadiums can often drift into maudlin nostalgia, the Mariners’ finale at the Kingdome felt more like a celebration.
True, the Kingdome will always hold a firm place in the hearts of those who saw their first NFL, MLB or NBA games there – and without its construction and eventual opening in 1976, who knows exactly how Seattle’s pro sports future would have unfolded.
But by 1999, it was not only time for something new, but the demolition of the Kingdome and building of new stadiums for the Mariners and Seahawks were necessary to keep each team in town.
So, while the Mariners brought back a few of the team’s legendary players for the final game against Texas along with a little other pomp and circumstance – with a crowd of 56,530 on hand, the first sellout of the season – there was a mostly festive feel at a turning of the page in the team’s history.
It was a future everyone hoped would turn out better than the 852-903 record the team compiled there in regular-season games.
But before saying goodbye to the place for good, Griffey gave everyone two last Kingdome moments to remember – fittingly, one on defense and one on offense, each showcasing the gifts that may forever stamp him as the best player in team history.
First came a three-run homer on a 3-1 pitch in the bottom of the first inning from Aaron Sele that erased a 2-0 lead the Rangers had built in the top of the frame.
“I wasn’t trying to hit it out of the park,” Griffey told reporters later of what would fittingly turn out to be the last home run hit in the Kingdome. “I just got lucky.”
Then in the fourth, with the Mariners now up 4-2, Texas slugger Juan Gonzalez – the reigning AL MVP – came up to face Freddy Garcia with two men on and two outs.
On a 1-0 changeup, Gonzalez launched one deep into the gap in left-center field, the ball appearing set to clear the fence and give Texas the lead and potentially spoil not only the day, but further dampen a season that saw Seattle already sitting at 37-37 and five games back of the Rangers.
Only then, as he’d done so many times before with the cavernous concrete roof looming overhead, Griffey somehow not only tracked down the ball but followed with a perfect leap to rob Gonzalez of the homer – and Texas of the win in what would end as a 5-2 Seattle victory.
“I hit it hard,” Gonzalez said later. “But he’s the best center fielder in the game. He just had good timing over the wall.”
Griffey predictably downplayed it all later.
“Just doing my job,’’ he said. “How many times (have) you seen me hit home runs and make catches over the fence?”
Well, the home runs were easy to count – the 198 he hit at the Kingdome are still tied for 28th all-time on the list of most home runs by one player in any ballpark. Mel Ott holds the record, hitting 323 home runs in 1,367 games at the Polo Grounds from 1926-47, almost twice as many games as Griffey played at the Kingdome.
By way of comparison, Kyle Seager has the most home runs in the history of T-Mobile Park with 94.
As for the catches, well, there may have been even more given the state of Seattle’s pitching during most of that era.
“He’s a big-game player – what can I tell you?” Mariners manager Lou Piniella told reporters after the game. “And today he just stole the show.”
Just as he’d done so many times before.
The memories Griffey left in the Kingdome include a half dozen or so that will forever be among the most indelible in the team’s history. Some include hitting the final two homers of his 1993 record streak of eight in eight straight games, and smashing two home runs off David Cone of the Yankees on opening day in 1997 in his first two at-bats of what would be a 56-homer MVP season. And of course, there was the signature play in team history – Edgar Martinez’s double against the Yankees in Game Five of the 1995 ALDS – with Griffey’s slide into home the winning run.
“He’s created a lot of magical moments in this place,” Piniella said later. “And it’s fitting that he ends this chapter this way. The great players rise up.”
Griffey, who would turn 30 that November, seemed to realize that maybe a chapter in his story was ending, too, lingering on the field until the very end of a postgame celebration.
While no one could know it at the time, his Kingdome finale came in the middle of what would turn out to be his last season in Seattle during the prime of his career, with Griffey initiating a trade to Cincinnati the following offseason.
He finished the 1999 season split between the Kingdome and T-Mobile with 48 home runs – his fourth straight year hitting 48 or more.
Griffey would never do it again, hitting 40 only once more, in his debut season with the Reds in 2000.
He would come back to put a happier ending on his Seattle career with a triumphant return in 2009, and he would finish with 29 home runs at T-Mobile Park.
But the Kingdome was where Griffey always seemed most at home in Seattle.
“Junior’s game was simply fitting to the occasion here on the field, where he has created so many magical moments,” Piniella told reporters later. “He just keeps piling up great performances, great achievements. Words sometimes may not be enough, and this may be one of those times.”