Bygone Domes

Home Sweet Dome and so on...

I could have picked a photo from it’s prime, but this shot from 2004 is closer to the Astrodome’s current state of neglect. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

The stadium issue is still a hot debate where I live in Kansas City, and I imagine it will remain so for quite some time, regardless of how it moves forward. I don’t want to get too in the weeds with it. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably picked up hints on how I feel about it. I love Kauffman Stadium and I’m in no rush to say goodbye, but I also have no say in the matter whatsoever, so I’m not going to get bogged down in the discussion.

That said, one thing did strike me as kind of dumb when they released their renderings of what a new stadium would look like at both of the proposed sites. Neither one of them had a retractable roof in the design.

If I can be allowed to get on my soapbox for a minute— and since I’m the writer and editor of this newsletter, I’m going to give myself the green light— I don’t know how you build a new baseball stadium in 2023 and beyond without a retractable roof.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for indoor baseball. Baseball is a summer sport and there’s something right about playing the game in the great outdoors, even if we all have to sweat sometimes. Although, if you’re in Houston or Phoenix and regularly playing in triple digits, air conditioning isn’t the worst idea. But you don’t have to go that route. You can just do what Milwaukee did and install it for rainy days or when the temperature drops below a certain mark.

I like makeup doubleheaders as much as the next guy, but when you have the technology to experience the best of both worlds and eliminate rainouts forever, it just seems foolish not to roll with it. Plus, the baseball season is only getting longer. Snowouts are not unheard of in Kansas City early in the season, and if we ever make the postseason again, it could come in handy for playing into November. Add in that you can also use the stadium year-round for other events, and since alternative income streams seem to be a primary motivation for the team’s proposed entertainment district, it just makes too much sense.

Perhaps it’s an indictment of how MLB usually operates on such matters that I wasn’t surprised in the least when they swung and missed on this meatball across the plate. Actually, they didn’t even swing. They just stood at the plate with the bat on their shoulder and watched it go by. But that’s not the point. I’m going to step down from my soapbox now and get to what I wanted to talk about from the start.

The stadium issue got me thinking about the memorable domes from my youth that are no longer around. I wrote an article a while back on some of the stadiums from my childhood that have since disappeared, but none of them were domes. And even though I’m not necessarily a dome guy, as stated above, that doesn’t mean I don’t have some fond memories.

Of course, I never actually visited any of these places. All of my memories are from television, and maybe articles and books I read along the way. That was enough to leave an impression. And that’s mostly what I’m going to share with you today. You can check out their Wikipedia pages if you want their seating capacities and vital stats and all that.

The Astrodome is probably the dome I came closest to visiting as a kid, and since it was generally considered the king of the domed sports arenas, that seems appropriate enough. I had relatives in Houston who regularly brought me souvenirs from games they attended there, and there was always talk of me going down to take in a game with them, but the plans just never came together.

I guess I could still go and see the place. I was surprised to discover when I started researching this article that it’s still standing. I incorrectly believed it had been demolished in the last twenty years. That wasn’t the case, but it has been closed since 2008 due to its dilapidated condition. On the plus side, it was deemed a historical landmark and there are plans to renovate it. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has proposed refurbishing it, so who knows if it will come to pass.

Most of my exposure to the Astrodome came from TV, though it was also mentioned in the Neil Young song “Pocahontas.” Perhaps not the most complimentary reference, but I like Neil Young, so I’ll allow it. All the rest was due to Mel Allen and the NBC Game of the Week.

It seemed like the Astros were featured a lot on This Week in Baseball, and I always thought it was cool how their stadium contrasted against most open-air ballparks. And occasionally, they also played on the national Saturday afternoon game, and that was appointment viewing for me. I loved watching Nolan Ryan pitch, and outside of the Royals’ run in the ’85 postseason, the Astros-Mets NLCS in 1986 (along with NY-BOS World Series that followed) provided some of my earliest baseball memories.

To jump sports for just a second, I also loved watching the Oilers play there too, although they were to blame for the Astrodome losing one of its signature attractions. The Astrolite, the first animated scoreboard in any sport, which regularly featured lots of firing pistols, charging bulls, and fireworks, was removed in 1988 so the Oilers could add more seating. How did the Oilers repay this favor? By jumping ship to Nashville in 1996 after they failed to get a new stadium.

The loss of the Oilers was hit for all American sports. Not only were their uniforms magnificent (powder blue!), but they were one of the most entertaining teams in the NFL in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The Tennessee Titans have never matched them in either regard. But they left Houston so the Astros could live. Sadly though, this meant the Astrodome had to die. The Astros moved to what is now called Minute Maid Park after the 1999 season.

At least they were smart enough to install a retractable roof on the new park. The Minnesota Twins, on the other hand, not so bright. Sure, Target Field is a lot more picturesque than the old Metrodome, and I’m sure it’s a great place to play from May to September, but players and fans alike probably don’t enjoy it much to open the season. The Twins make the postseason a fair amount as well, but they never advance so the weather isn’t much of an issue. Sorry, Twins fans, but you know it’s true.

The Metrodome, however, was a different story. Yes, it was known as “The Baggie” or the “The Big Hefty” because of the unsightly plastic extensions to the right field wall that made it look like a giant garbage bag, but the Twins had a ton of success there.

The Twins won both of their championships in the Metrodome, in 1987 and 1991, and the 1991 World Series is still objectively the best World Series of my lifetime. It also featured one of the greatest plays in Worlds Series history, Kirby Puckett’s iconic Game 6 walk-off homerun, along with the numerous other highlights of that series. The Metrodome hosted three players’ 3,000-hit milestone in my lifetime: Eddie Murray, Dave Winfield, and Cal Ripken Jr. Those are the moments that made it stand out to me.

But the Kingdome in Seattle might actually be the dome I view most favorably. This is somewhat ironic because, by all accounts, the place was kind of a dump. During the last decade of its use— the Mariners and Seahawks departed after the 1999 seasons— it was literally falling apart, sometimes forcing both teams to find other places to play. I loved it though, for a number of reasons.

My favorite memory of the Kingdome isn’t just one thing. It comes from when I was a little kid, and only the Royals’ road games were shown on TV. Naturally, when they played on the West Coast, this meant a later start time. They played in Oakland and Anaheim, but for some reason, possibly because of the dome, it’s the Seattle games that stand out to me.

It probably also didn’t hurt that I saw my share of highlights in those games, headlined by Bo Jackson throwing out Harold Reynolds at the plate in one of the greatest plays in MLB history. Bo also trucked Brian Bosworth on Monday Night Football at the Kingdome as a member of the Raiders, but those aren’t the memories that stick out most to me.

This photo gives you an accurate peek into the state of the Kingdome during its final days. (Photo by David Madison/Getty Images)

I remember the excitement I felt when the Royals were playing in Seattle and my parents waved my usual bedtime because there was no school in the morning. (That should give you some idea of how young I was. I still had a bedtime even in the summer.) Sometimes they even pulled out the hide-a-bed and let me sleep in the living room with the TV on. I rarely made it to the end of a game without dozing off, but that didn’t matter at all.

As I got older, I watched Ken Griffey Jr. excel in the Kingdome. The Mariners had their greatest postseason success there, walking off the Yankees in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS, and it is forever immortalized in my all-time favorite video game, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball for the SNES. It is also the site, by association, of one of my first and most humiliating sports blunders. Fortunately, it had nothing to do with baseball.

Sometime in the mid-80’s, I was watching the Seahawks host the Chiefs on TV at my grandparents house. Keep in mind that I was young. Seahawks WR Darryl Turner, who is at the heart of this story, only played until 1987, which was probably about the time that I started watching the sport. I turned eight in 1987. And as my cousins arrived with their mom, I had to run out and share with them this astounding discovery I had made.

I’ve made many mistakes with my sports takes over the years, but this was definitely one of my most embarrassing. “Guys, guys!” I ran outside to catch them. “You’ll never guess what. The Seahawks have a wide receiver named Darryl Turd!”

Apparently, I’d misheard the announcer after Turner made a catch, and it stuck in my head. Of course, my cousins looked at each other and burst out laughing. Both of them knew more about football than I did at the time, and one of them is actually a Seahawks fan. He’s never let me forget it, and throws it back in my face to this day.

If only they could have imploded the Kingdome on that day and buried me underneath it.

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Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. Got any good dome stories to share? Or embarrassing anecdotes like my Darryl Turd story? Leave ‘em in the comments below.