American League baseball team. They entered the league in 1977 along with the
Toronto Blue Jays and played their home games until mid-1999 at the
Kingdome, which was a typical loud, indoor,
astroturf park which had little charm. Their new park,
Safeco Field is a lot more cozy, with a
retractable roof and offers the interesting spectacle of a
Burlington Northern train passing by every now and then. Although the Mariners have been
sporadically successful, they have had a hard time holding onto such players as
Ken Griffey Jr.,
Randy Johnson and
Alex Rodriguez, thus hurting their long term competitiveness.
As of this writing, the Mariners have yet to retire any uniform numbers.