Two Seattles on display as thousands attend MLB All-Star festivities

SEATTLE — For just a few days a year, the frenetic pace of this sports-obsessed nation slows down.

On Monday, there are no games. On Tuesday, there’s pretty much just one — the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. There is only one city, one locale, to focus on. And so, sports fans will turn their eyes to Seattle.

What will they see?

A sparkling city, sunny and 75, mountains and water in every direction, Rainier cherries and summer Chinook in markets and on menus, secluded parks and crowded beaches, thrumming nightlife, vibrant arts, a world-class research university and a cutting-edge tech capital.

A baseball team with some of the game’s brightest young stars that finally broke through last year after decades of disappointment. A team that offered the briefest glimpse of hope before lurching back to the disappointment that’s defined it for decades.

A city tagged with graffiti and litter, cloudy and rainy most of the year; gridlocked traffic; cascading crises of homelessness, drug addiction and mental health made vivid by brutal human suffering on downtown streets; ever-rising rents forcing the young, the old, the creative to look for lives elsewhere.

A city that is large and contains multitudes.

As Seattle hosts its first MLB All-Star Game in two decades, its virtues remain bright and its problems intractable.

The game will bring tens of thousands of visitors, millions of dollars, the national spotlight and the best players in the world.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, who has made downtown recovery a cornerstone of his administration, sees the event through two lenses: an opportunity for local residents and a national showcase for the city.

“It’s going to be so exciting for us here in the region to have an opportunity to enjoy Seattle, to realize that we’ve gone through some very tough times,” Harrell said. “Externally, it gives us time for this country and for tourists and visitors to come in and see how Seattle is recovering, our culture, our arts, our small businesses.”

More than a single game

It is, as its promoters are quick to remind you, more than a game. It is close to a week of events, most with a separate entry fee, each brought to you by a corporate sponsor.

There’s the All-Star Game itself on Tuesday (thank you, Mastercard). But the official rollout of events began Friday with the HBCU Swingman Classic, which featured Ken Griffey Jr. and all-stars from historically Black colleges and universities (thanks, T-Mobile). Saturday featured a minor league All-Star Futures Game (blessings to SiriusXM) and a celebrity softball game (gracias, Corona). Sunday, Lumen Field hosts the MLB draft (tip of the hat to Nike). The Home Run Derby is Monday (T-Mobile, you again). There’s a red carpet event Tuesday afternoon (third time’s the charm, T-Mobile) before the All-Star Game, and there are free outdoor baseball movie screenings Monday and Tuesday night at Seattle Center.

Throughout the week, Lumen Field will play the role of Play Ball Park, a carnival of games, food, music, autographs and memorabilia (courtesy of Capital One).

There is a roller skating rink at Occidental Square, a special baseball exhibition at the Museum of History & Industry, a Sunday night drone show at Seattle Center and a Monday Home Run Hangout at Uwajimaya.

Visit Seattle, the city’s tourism bureau, estimates the game and related events will generate at least $50 million in local economic activity, an estimate based on the more than 100,000 fans they expect at the week’s events. Officials in Denver — a similar-sized city with a similar-sized stadium, which hosted the 2021 All-Star Game — predicted a $100 million economic impact.

It is worth taking these estimates with a grain of salt.

“An All-Star Game has never made a municipality richer. That’s a ridiculous claim,” said Robert Baumann, a professor of economics at College of the Holy Cross.

A few years ago, when Major League Baseball pulled the All-Star Game from Atlanta after Georgia passed new restrictions on voting, there were claims the city lost out on $100 million.

Baumann, who has long studied the economics of professional sports, looked into the claim and estimated Atlanta likely lost out on a direct increase in tourist spending of between $4 million and $10 million.

He cites three reasons why economic impacts of mega-events are usually overblown: First, even for national events, most attendees are still locals. Many at the All-Star events will be from the Seattle area, and they’ll be spending money at those events rather than elsewhere in the local economy.

Second, All-Star events can crowd out regular tourist events, displacing other tourists with All-Star ones. And third, the money spent on things like tickets doesn’t stay in Seattle; it goes to Major League Baseball.

“You can’t look at this as all brand-new spending because when the All-Star Game isn’t in Seattle, I’m guessing people spend money anyway,” Baumann said. “We don’t dispute that hotels are going to do well, but a lot of spending is redistributed when something like this happens.”

Visit Seattle is, in fact, estimating the city could break its hotel revenue and occupancy record for a single weekend. But not for All-Star weekend. The bigger weekend is two weeks from now when the Mariners have a regular homestand, six cruise ships are in town and the number of people seeing Taylor Swift at Lumen Field will far exceed the number who go to the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game.

There are, of course, loads of out-of-town visitors here for MLB festivities.

Catie Griggs, the Mariners’ president of business operations, compared it to the Super Bowl or the Final Four in terms of the number of people and ancillary events it draws.

T-Mobile Park holds about 48,000, a number that doesn’t budge much whether it’s a sleepy summer night, a once-every-two-decades playoff game or the All-Star Game.

“It’s not just about the fans who are going to be in the ballpark,” Griggs said. “The ballpark size does not change. It really is about all of the different touch points, both public events as well as a lot of private events and hospitality, that goes alongside this.”

That means panel discussions, receptions of all sorts, sponsors renting out restaurants and even a baseball-themed Zumba class on the waterfront.

“There are events going on at large scale throughout our city every single night at the event,” Griggs said.

There are also die-hards like Andrea Falk who is embarking on a nine-day road trip from Florida with her husband for the game.

They have tickets to the game, the Home Run Derby and a brunch with Edgar Martinez. Falk, whose family is originally from Seattle, is a Mariners fan, her husband is a Tigers fan, and they love the All-Star Game for the chance “to root for the same team together.”

Falk had two atypical answers as to what she’s most looking forward to about Seattle: the weather and the commute. It was 102 in Florida the day before they left, and they’re staying on Bainbridge Island.

“I love when we go to Mariners games and take the ferry and walk to the stadium,” she said. “When we go to baseball in Florida, it’s a two-hour drive. The way you just get to experience life in the city in Seattle is one of my favorite things.”

The events are coming to a downtown Seattle buzzing with tourists and cruise passengers. But it’s also one where downtown foot traffic, among workers, is still only half what it was pre-pandemic.

Visitors walking from downtown hotels to the ballpark could visit Pike Place Market with its world-class produce and atmosphere, or they could stroll by Third Avenue and its plywood-covered storefronts and open-air drug bazaars.

“I expect people to realize what’s happening in this country as we have had unprecedented levels of fentanyl use and opioid addiction and even income inequality,” Harrell said. “So, when they walk past visible signs of that, even in Seattle, I think that they will look at the context of other major cities, and I don’t think any major cities escape these unfortunate circumstances.”

The city has increased cleaning efforts in areas including downtown, the Chinatown International District and Sodo.

Harrell said the city is continuing to address and try to clear tent and RV encampments around the stadiums, but he tried to walk a delicate line: There are no encampment clearances as a “direct result of the All-Star Game.”

“But having said that, our policies are flexible enough for us to look at, you know, increased intensity in certain areas where there’s high foot traffic,” he said. “We’d be ill-advised not to recognize that we’re going to have literally hundreds of thousands of people for a week.”

On Thursday morning, the day before the festivities began, city crews and contractors cleared out the last of an encampment on South Holgate Street, a couple of blocks south of the stadium.

The week before there had been a dozen RVs and a handful of tents; now, only remnants.

“Hey, amigo, todo?” a city worker asked Jesus White as he took down the tent White had been living in for the last month.

“Yeah,” White said, gesturing to throw it all away.

White, who’s been living on the streets of Seattle for five years, was heading to a tiny house village, although he didn’t know where. (A city worker said it was Lake Union Village.)

“I feel good about going to a house,” he said.

A man named Thomas, who declined to give his last name, sat in the shade, two grocery carts of belongings at his side. City crews had given him three or four days’ notice that he had to pack up, which he appreciated. They’d offered him a bed at the city’s Navigation Center, which he declined. It was only a temporary bed, and he said they limited him to just one duffel bag.

He planned on setting a tent up elsewhere and, eventually, returning to Holgate Street.

“I’ll be back up here within two weeks,” he said. “I’m just playing the game.”

“Once every 20 to 30 years”

This is not Seattle’s first All-Star Game.

In fact, you can practically set your watch to Seattle’s Midsummer Classics.

Every 22 years since just after the Mariners came into existence, Seattle hosts the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

It’s happened three times at three different stadiums. 1979 in the Kingdome. 2001 at Safeco Field. Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park. Well, actually, those last two are the same stadium. A stadium by any other corporate-branded name would smell as sweet.

Chris Moedritzer attended that 2001 game as a high school junior.

The stadium was packed, the grass freshly shorn, a buzz in the air.

“You see fans representing every team there, just happy to be in the ballpark,” Moedritzer said.

Now a baseball coach at Garfield High School, he sees the same excitement in his players, the once-in-a-generation chance to see, up close, the game’s best players all at once.

“They’re old enough to realize this only happens once every 20 to 30 years,” Moedritzer said. “Everyone’s excited.”

Bookie Gates — the founder of Baseball Beyond Borders, a Seattle-area youth baseball organization — said his players are equally excited, even if most of them won’t be able to sniff the inside of T-Mobile for the game.

“Wait ‘til we see Shohei,” his players have been saying. “Or Mookie Betts!” Ronald Acuña Jr. is also a favorite.

“They just hope to see someone,” Gates said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment to get to experience the Midsummer Classic in person.”

The moment doesn’t come cheap. Nosebleeds were priced at $250, face value. Standing-room-only tickets are going for well over $300 on resale sites. Want to sit in the lower level? You’re looking at least $500 a pop.

“Tickets are not accessible for youth,” Gates said. “That’s going to be the only thing that doesn’t sit well with the broader community.”

It wasn’t always thus.

At Seattle’s first All-Star Game in 1979, tickets maxed out at $17. That’s about $71 in today’s money or about one-quarter of what the cheapest tickets were priced at this year.

The Mariners emphasize this is a Major League Baseball production, so MLB set the ticket prices and allocated how many would be available for season-ticket holders and the general public.

“We did not control pricing,” Griggs said, noting that all tickets for the Swingman Classic were only $10.

And if you can’t swing the three- and four-digit ticket prices, there’s always the roller rink, or the outdoor movies, or the drone show or Pike Place Market for the red carpet.

You can still watch the game on TV. It is, for a few days, the only game around.