Major-league fun at minor-league parks

TACOMA — Beneath the warmth of a setting sun, at a ballpark where the most expensive seats in the house are a mere $12, Tacoma Rainiers starter and Seattle Mariners pitching prospect Jeff Heaverlo is getting shelled by the Tucson Sidewinders in the top of the fourth.

The call is made to warm up a reliever. Players in the bullpen scramble to remove the green plastic lawn chairs they had placed atop the mound — their seats for watching the game. They reposition them along the short fence that separates, just barely, the field from the bleachers, giving Aaron Looper enough room, just barely, to loosen up his right arm.

At the same time, a couple hundred giddy children march through the bleachers toward a holding area behind the outfield fence. And there, they wait.

Heaverlo survives the inning, just barely, and then the fun begins. It's time to Run with Rhubarb.

As Looper continues tossing in the pen, the most eager among the kids lead a charge down the foul line, screaming at the top of their lungs, arms raised over their heads. Near the front of the pack is Rhubarb, a svelte furry reindeer dressed in the home-team uniform.

Team staffers stand guard along the foul line, holding their arms out to prevent the tykes from crossing. The threat isn't so much that Looper might hurl a ball toward the kids, but that the stampede might trample the poor pitcher onto the disabled list.

Energetic kids keep pouring out of right field. When will it end?

The bottom of the fourth inning is delayed until all of the children are safely off the field.

The perfect baby-sitter

A way's away from the high-priced comforts of Safeco Field, 35 miles to the south to be exact, sits old reliable Cheney Stadium, home to the Mariners' Class AAA farm team. Up Interstate 5 is another minor-league ballpark, Everett Memorial Stadium, where the Mariners' Class-A affiliate AquaSox play. Combined, the two venues provide plenty of opportunities this summer for Puget Sound-area baseball fans to take in the sport's more subtle nuances. With plenty of distractions to keep young fans occupied, the games also reward haggard parents with some sought-after summer relief.

"Minor-league baseball is the perfect baby-sitter," says Nathan Kelley, the Rainiers' promotions director.

Minor-league baseball can be a shock to the system for spectators hardened to the stuffy protocols of the major leagues. The game on the field is often secondary to the extracurricular commotion surrounding it. Yet for students of the game, the minor-league ballparks offer an intimacy where the "pop" of fastball hitting catcher's mitt can actually be heard.

"You're so close to everything," says Stafford Stubbs, of Bonney Lake, who is sitting about 15 rows up from first base with his wife Colleen and their three children, ages 4, 8 and 13. "How much would these seats be at Safeco?"

They cost $6 at Cheney Stadium.

A family playground

For double that price, you can sit in the first two rows between the first- and third-base lines and experience the rhythm, speed and power of the sport that can only be truly appreciated up close and personal. You also will get waitress service at your seats, just like the big shots who pay a premium at Safeco for their seats.

In a section of box seats behind home plate, well-tanned baseball scouts aim radar guns at the pitcher on the mound. Once in a while, Mariners General Manager Pat Gillick sits there, checking on the progress of the organization's top prospects.

And yet team officials say the most popular seats at Cheney are farther up the lines in areas not protected by netting and therefore prime territory for catching — and chasing — foul balls.

Willie Sutherland stands behind the bleachers along the left-field line, hand in mitt, a perfect view of Mount Rainier beginning to disappear behind the opposite-side bleachers as dusk arrives.

"I've been coming to Cheney Stadium since I was 9 years old," says Sutherland, 49.

But this is his son's first game. Five-year-old Tucker ran with Rhubarb and now is just simply running — through the rows of bleachers and up and down the aisles.

"I can bring him and not have to worry about him," Sutherland says.

At this open-air Gymboree, parents can take comfort knowing that their children have more than a tinker's chance of retrieving a foul ball. And even if they don't get one, the kidlets still have a great chance of going home with some kind of pacifier.

"They're constantly throwing free stuff at us in the stands," Colleen Stubbs says. At Rainiers games, the bombardment includes mini-frisbees, foam-filled baseballs and T-shirts.

Everything is sponsored by something. At Cheney, 26 billboards cover the outfield fences. Memorial Stadium has 62 signs within line-of-sight of home plate.

A rich history

Cheney's simplicity sucks you back to the days when packs of baseball cards still had bubble gum. Concessions are sold from wooden shacks in the concourse. Lineups for both teams are written in black marker on a white eraseboard near the entrance gate. The visiting clubhouse is a triple-wide trailer reached through a door in the Carl Buddig sign painted on the left-field fence.

The 43-year legacy of Tacoma baseball is on display at several areas within the ballpark. A mural depicts the colors of previous Tacoma uniforms. A wall of plaques honors several former Tacoma players who made it big in the bigs, such as pitchers Gaylord Perry and Juan Marichal. A bronze statue of stadium namesake Ben Cheney fills one of the best seats in the park behind home plate. At his feet is a replica of the game program when Cheney Stadium was dedicated. And bronzed peanut shells.

But like the Montreal Expos, minor-league baseball in Tacoma may not be long for this world. The team has been for sale since August 2000.

The future is more optimistic in Everett, which is celebrating 20 years of minor-league baseball this season with special souvenirs and promotions. The heritage in Everett may not be as rich as Tacoma's, but the franchise does have one whopper of a bragging right.

Former Mariners superstar Ken Griffey Jr. got his first professional hit — a 387-foot opposite-field home run — at Memorial Stadium on June 17, 1987, in front of 3,122 fans. The 17-year-old phenom was playing for the Bellingham Mariners against Everett, which was a farm team for the San Francisco Giants at the time.

The spot where that historic blast cleared the fence is marked on the scoreboard in left field. The place where the ball is believed to have landed across the street is cast in bronze within a diamond-shaped plaque inlaid into the sidewalk.

What game?

But like Tacoma, the emphasis in Everett is less on the game and more on family fun.

"Every half-inning, we have something going on on the field," said Brian Sloan, corporate sales director for the AquaSox. "Our fans tend to leave their seats to go get something to eat while the game is going on because they want to be back in time to watch what happens between half-innings."

After the fourth inning, one lucky young fan wins a chance to race the team's two mascots, Webbly the frog and Frank the hot dog, around the bases. The kid always wins, which is par for the course around here.

One of Memorial Stadium's biggest assets is a huge grass field behind the grandstands where kids are free to romp, under stadium staff supervision, while the game is going on. All children in the stands are escorted onto the field during the seventh inning stretch to lead the fans in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." After the seventh, kids help clean up the stadium by going up and down the aisles with trash bags in hand. They redeem each full bag for a dollar coupon they can exchange for souvenirs and concessions at the stadium.

After all games in Everett and weekend games in Tacoma, kids are allowed to run the bases — one last blast of energy to burn up before their parents can put them to bed.

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com