Sick's Stadium, also known as Sick's Seattle Stadium and later as Sicks' Stadium, was a baseball park in the northwest United States in Seattle, Washington. It was located in Rainier Valley, on the NE corner of S. McClellan Street and Rainier Avenue S (currently the site of a Lowe's hardware store). The longtime home of the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), it hosted the expansion Seattle Pilots during their only major league season in 1969.
The site was previously the location of Dugdale Field, a 1913 ballpark that was the home of the Rainiers' forerunners, the Seattle Indians. That park burned down in an Independence Day arson fire in 1932, caused by serial arsonist Robert Driscoll. Authorities would later claim that Driscoll was one of the most dangerous arsonists in the United States during the Great Depression. Until a new stadium could be built on the Dugdale site, the team played at Civic Field, a converted football stadium at the current location of Seattle Center's Memorial Stadium.
Baseball
Minor league years
Sick's Stadium first opened on June 15, 1938, as the home field of the Seattle Rainiers (formerly the Seattle Indians) of the Pacific Coast League (PCL). It was named after Emil Sick, owner of the team and of the Rainier Brewing Company. The stadium was constructed five years after a previous ballpark at the location, named Dugdale Field, was destroyed in an arson fire. The Rainiers played at the stadium through 1968, though they changed their name to the Seattle Angels in 1964. In 1946, the stadium was briefly the home of the Negro league Seattle Steelheads of the short-lived West Coast Negro Baseball Association, who played at the stadium while the Rainiers were on the road.
After Emil Sick died in 1964, and various members of his family shared ownership, the name of the park was changed to reflect that fact, from the singular possessive form "Sick's Stadium" to the plural possessive form "Sicks' Stadium".
The city bought the stadium in 1965, in anticipation that part of the property was needed for a proposed freeway.
The field alignment was southeast, home plate to center field, which results in difficult visibility conditions for the left side of the defense in the early evening hours. The recommended alignment is east-northeast.
Seattle Pilots
On April 11, 1969, Major League Baseball came to Seattle with the American League expansion Seattle Pilots debuting at Sick's Stadium. Seattle had been mentioned earlier in the decade as a possible major league city. However, Sick's Stadium had not aged gracefully. While it had once been considered one of the best stadiums in the minors, it had not been well maintained in the four years since the city bought it. The park's rapid deterioration was obvious by the time the Cleveland Indians considered moving to Seattle in the early part of the decade. Owner William Daley dispatched general manager Gabe Paul to scout out the city. When city officials balked at paying for the upgrades necessary to bring Sick's Stadium up to something approaching major league standards, Paul advised Daley against moving to Seattle. Charlie Finley considered moving the Kansas City Athletics to Seattle in 1967, but when he came to scout out Sick's Stadium, he quipped that it was a "pigsty" and refused to even consider playing there even on a temporary basis.
When the American League finally granted the franchise in October 1967, it explicitly stated that Sick's Stadium was not suitable as a major league facility, and was only to be used on a temporary basis until a domed stadium could be completed.