Mariners’ All-Star Game week: Seattle’s 1st of huge international sports events upcoming
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2023 All-Star Game in Seattle
Seattle’s T-Mobile Park is the focus of the baseball world this week as MLB’s top players gather for the 2023 All-Star Game. The TNT sports staff brings you all the action.
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Beth Knox sees this All-Star Game week as something bigger than it already is.
The president of the Seattle Sports Commission has been an organizer of large-scale, special events in sports and live entertainment for 35 years. She appreciates the three-plus years of planning, coordination and cooperation across so many civic and business entities — from traffic to public transportation to youth baseball and softball to the arts community, all with inclusiveness as the arching theme — that has gone into Seattle hosting the baseball world with the 93rd MLB All-Star Game.
“It is so exciting to finally be at launch week for this great event,” Knox said Wednesday.
Yet, to Knox, Mariners chairman and managing partner John Stanton, Mayor Bruce Harrell, King County executive Dow Constantine, the police and fire department chiefs and many more that run and lead the city, this All-Star week isn’t an ending.
“The All-Star week of activities is just the tipping point,” Knox said. “We intend to continue this revitalization through the planning and preparation and work that will continue for the next three years.”
This All-Star Game and week is the first in a series of mega, international sports events that will come to Seattle and Pacific Northwest by 2026.
- Less than six months after Tuesday’s “Midsummer Classic,” the NHL’s series of outdoor regular-season hockey games across North America continues Jan. 1. The Kraken will host the Stanley Cup-champion Vegas Golden Knights in Seattle’s first Winter Classic at T-Mobile Park.
- The Kraken’s Climate Pledge Arena at Seattle Center will host the first and second rounds of the 2025 NCAA men’s basketball “March Madness.”
- Then the most popular and watched sporting event in the world comes to Lumen Field in 2026. Soccer’s World Cup will be in Seattle for the first time. It’s part of the United States, Canada and Mexico co-hosting the world’s biggest and most prestigious tournament.
The MLB All-Star Game week that began Friday is the payoff for work led during the pandemic in 2020 by Randy Adamack. The Mariners executive for 44 years, first in public and media relations, got MLB to grant Seattle it’s third baseball All-Star Game.
It is the first standard-setter for these back-to-back-to-back-to-almost-back mega sports events in Seattle.
“This is going to be an exciting time for our city and our region,” Harrell said.
“We’ll bring hundreds of thousands of people, individuals and their families, to our downtown area, to our waterfront area, to our neighborhoods.”
As Stanton, the Mariners owner, said: “Now, we have the opportunity to show off.
“We believe this is the most inclusive All-Star event ever, because there are so many free events. There are so many opportunities to participate.”
A most inclusive All-Star week
Inclusiveness has been Seattle’s guide word for this All-Star Game.
The MLB Legacy programs say they are going to put over $2 million into Seattle’s community intended to lessen inequity gaps and increasing access points to baseball for all. The Legacy programs seek to emphasize students who are at or below the poverty line to finish community colleges around Seattle for degrees.
Jeremiah Yolkut, Major League Baseball Vice President for Global Events, said this Seattle All-Star Game week is going to be the most inclusive fan event perhaps in sports history.
“Seattle will be changed forever,” Yolkut said.
“Fans from all ages can come to enjoy our game in the most accessible way possible.”
He called “Play Ball Park the most fan-engaging activity any sport has to offer.”
“I can’t remember a recent host market that was so adamant to bringing more public events that were free and open to the fans than this market,” Yolkut said.
Harrell was beaming at what this All-Star Game is about to do for Seattle.
The mayor said his city leaders expect the All-Star Game and five days of events surrounding it to add “around” $50 million to Seattle’s economy.
“What I’ll said (is) good money coming into our local economy,” Harrell said. “What do I mean by that? That’s all the money that comes from other places.
“Spends a little better sometimes when we bring it out like that.”
All-Star week public events
This is a downtown Seattle that won’t look familiar from recent years of crime and barrenness.
The city has cleaned up Seattle’s much-derided downtown. It has removed graffiti. It has fixed city street lighting and signing for this All-Star Game week.
“They have just done so much work that has contributed to the revitalization of our city here,” Knox said.
Acknowledging how difficult driving is around Seattle and on Interstate 5 is on normal summer weekdays, let alone this big All-Star week, Harrell and city leaders are trying to entice fans and visitors to use mass transit, bike or walk to All-Star events.
Monday and Tuesday through the All-Star Game, King County Metro transit and Kitsap Transit (which provides service to ferries across Puget Sound into downtown Seattle) have free ridership to all passengers, in all areas of service.
The city has established a new “All-Star Green Walking & Biking Path” with the Mariners and MLB for biking and walking through the city to and from T-Mobile Park and the fan-fest “Play Ball Park.” The paths will feature local musicians performing. There will be a bike valet available for fans to use Monday for the home run derby and Tuesday for the All-Star Game.
“Folks can use a map curated by Visit Seattle,” Harrell said, “and the intention is to highlight our BIPOC-, women- and LGBTQ-owned small businesses along the route.
“This is very intentional in making sure people see why Seattle is so special.”
The city has established new, no-right-turn-on-red traffic intersections, to better facilitate visitors walking in crosswalks downtown.
“Play Ball Park” opened Saturday. It is a fan-fest zone that encompasses the area around neighboring Lumen Field just to the north of the Mariners’ home park. Much of the area is free to enter, interact and enjoy, including samples of ethic foods representing the cultures of MLB players.
“Play Ball Park will host an All-Star Challenger game. It’s an opportunity for children with special needs from the Little League Challenger Division to be part of an engaging game.
Five young fans across the country wished to be part of All-Star week, including all events at T-Mobile Park. So they will be special guests in Seattle of Major League Baseball through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They get a welcome reception plus VIP treatment at Play Ball Park, the Major League draft and all events and games at T-Mobile Park, in a donated suite.
All-Star baseball events
The MLB All-Star week began Friday at the Mariners’ T-Mobile Park with Ken Griffey Jr.’s HBCU Swingman Classic game for players Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
The Mariners’ icon from their first playoff team in 1995 and well beyond is more than a team figurehead or memory of its glorious past.
Griffey, now 53, has become one of the Mariners’ “17 or 18” team part-owners, Stanton said.
“We have Mariners owners meetings every two months. He is always on,” Stanton said. “Those are usually by Zoom. ...
“I’ll take as much Griffey as I can get.”
He’s not alone there.
“I talk to him regularly, outside the meetings,” Stanton said of Griffey. “I see him some in New York at MLB meetings.
“He’s really very niched.”
Seattle’s All-Star week continued Saturday with the All-Star Futures Game for top minor-league prospects and MLB All-Star celebrity softball game. Both were at T-Mobile Park.
Former Mariners six-time All-Star and 2010 Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernandez returned to T-Mobile Park to be the pitching coach for the Futures Game. Then Hernandez played in the celebrity softball game.
Sunday is MLB’s annual player draft inside the Seahawks’ Lumen Field. The Mariners are the first team in 15 years to have three choices in the draft’s first round.
At the All-Star Game fan fest outside the Seahawks’ stadium Sunday, the first 3,000 fans into Play Ball Park will receive a limited-edition miniature bobblehead of Mariners All-Star outfielder Julio Rodríguez.
The major league’s annual, popular Home Run Derby is Monday evening. Rodriguez will be in that again, one summer after his wowing HR show (81 homers, the second-most hit in the event) as a rookie.
As of Thursday morning, online outlets were asking $235 per ticket to get into the home run derby. And that’s for seats high in the 300 level down the foul lines, not exactly prime viewing locations of the nationally televised spectacle.
A seat behind home plate for the home run derby, section 131, was going for $4,050 online Thursday.
The week concludes with the All-Star Game Tuesday.
The players and their families will be part of a pregame, red-carpet show on national television at Pike Place Market. Then Rodriguez will join Mariners pitchers Luis Castillo and George Kirby as Seattle’s All-Stars who will play in their home park in Tuesday’s 5 p.m. showcase game.
Online re-sellers Thursday were asking $313 and up for tickets to the All-Star Game. That’s for a standing-room ticket at the top of the stadium.
A single ticket in the ninth row behind the home, American League dugout? That was going for $1,530.
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Seattle’s All-Star Game history
Seattle first got Major League Baseball in 1969 with the short-lived, expansion Pilots playing at Sicks Stadium. The Triple-A ballpark along Rainier Avenue so lacked water pressure in its clubhouse that visiting teams showered at their hotels. The Pilots declared bankruptcy after one season. They moved to Milwaukee, to become the Brewers.
The Mariners became Seattle’s second MLB expansion team, beginning play in 1976.
The city hosted the 50th MLB All-Star Game, inside the Mariners’ Kingdome, in 1979. First baseman Bruce Bochte was the only Mariners All-Star player from a team that finished in sixth place 28 games out in the AL West that season.
Stanton, born in the Seattle area and raised in Bellevue, was at that first Seattle All-Star Game.
“I was actually in the 300 level, way high up in the 300 level, in ‘79 in the Kingdome,” the Mariners owner said.
He’d won a lottery for All-Star tickets that year. He then put $10 in the mail — in cash, he thinks — and got tickets back from the Mariners for that 1979 All-Star Game. Stanton saw game MVP and Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Dave Parker make a laser throw home from right field that July night 44 years ago to cut down an American League run.
People still talk about that play.
In 2001, with the Mariners en route to an AL-record 116 wins that season, still-new Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) hosted the All-Star Game. Eight Mariners were All-Stars that summer: eventual Rookie of the Year Ichiro Suzuki, Edgar Martinez, Bret Boone, Mike Cameron, John Olerud, Freddy Garcia and Jeff Nelson.
Baltimore Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. homered in his final of 19 All-Star games that early Seattle evening.
Yes, Stanton and his then-young sons had better seats than the 300 level for that 2001 Seattle All-Star Game. He’d become a pioneer in wireless communications. By 2006, Forbes estimated his net worth at $1 billion.
“But this is nothing like those games,” Stanton said. “Because this is an entire week of activities that’s going to make a huge difference in lives of so many people in town.
“We’ve made it inclusive, including many free events, movies, Play Ball Park, opportunities to participate.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
All-Star events schedule
SUNDAY, JULY 9
8 a.m.-5 p.m.: Commissioner’s Cup & Jennie Finch Classic Games (Lower Woodland Park, Seattle University, Husky Ballpark – University of Washington)
9:30 a.m.: All-Star Legacy: Rainier Playfield Groundbreaking & H9 Activation (Rainier Playfield)
11 a.m.: All-Star Challenger Game (PLAY BALL Park, “Field of Dreams” Diamond)
Noon: UNFILTERED Panel – “Women in Sports” (PLAY BALL Park, “Clubhouse”)
1:30 p.m.: TAPS & Roberto Clemente Foundation PLAY BALL Clinic (PLAY BALL Park, “Field of Dreams” Diamond)
4 p.m.: First two rounds of the MLB player draft (Lumen Field, PLAY BALL Park)
Tickets available for free on the MLB All-Star Experience pass app.
MONDAY, JULY 10
9 a.m.: Championship Games of the Commissioner’s Cup & Jennie Finch Classic Games (University of Washington)
Noon: UNFILTERED Panel – “Mariners Legends” (PLAY BALL Park, “Clubhouse”)
1:15 p.m.: All-Star Legacy: Access Innovation Fund Panel (PLAY BALL Park, “Clubhouse”)
2 p.m. Gates Open (T-Mobile Park)
2-4:30 p.m.: All-Star workout (T-Mobile Park)
5 p.m.: MLB Home Run Derby (T-Mobile Park)
TUESDAY, JULY 11
5 p.m.: 93rd MLB All-Star Game (T-Mobile Park)
- Stand Up To Cancer Moment: Between innings, MLB, Stand Up To Cancer, Mastercard and FOX television will continue the extraordinary All-Star Game tradition of players, coaches, manages, umpires and fans in attendance at T-Mobile Park standing together in the fight against cancer.
This story was originally published July 6, 2023 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Mariners’ All-Star Game week: Seattle’s 1st of huge international sports events upcoming."
