Cheney Stadium

• Name: Cheney Stadium
• GPS-able Address: 2502 S. Tyler St., Tacoma, WA 98405
• Ballpark Owner: Pierce County
• Architects: Populous
• Groundbreaking: 9/14/2010
• Minor League Baseball/Professional Development League Teams: Tacoma Rainiers (AAA) 2011-present
• Pro Baseball Class/League History: AAA/Pacific Coast League 2022-present; AAA/Triple-A West 2021; AAA/Pacific Coast League 2011-2020
• First Pro Baseball Game: 4/15/2011; stadium debut of Class AAA Rainiers
• Others Playing or Operating Here: None
• Previous Ballpark Names: None
• LF: 325 CF: 425 RF: 325
• Seats: 6,500
• Stated Capacity: 6,500
• House Baseball/Softball Record Attendance (as currently configured): 7,666, 8/8/2017

Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, WA, is the home of the Tacoma Rainiers, the Seattle Mariners' Triple-A Pacific Coast League farm team. It was also the Mariners' 2020 Coronavirus pandemic alternate training site.

Opened in 1960, the "100-Day Wonder" - so called because it was built in 3 months and 14 days - brought the Phoenix Giants north. Seals Stadium in San Francisco, CA, had been demolished in late 1959, and its seats and light towers were used in building Cheney. A statue of two-by-four developer Ben Cheney, who keyed its construction, has one of its best seats.

"The house that Ben built" later underwent a renovation that took nearly twice as long - 210 days of 2010-2011 - and reduced seating to 6,500 with a practical capacity of about 7,500. While this was billed as a renovation, the playpen is visually unrecognizable and much of the contemporary and subsequent media coverage refers to it as a rebuild. The team says, "We absolutely refer to Cheney Stadium as one continuous ballpark since 1960, but also acknowledge the significant renovation in 2010. We understand that it was robust enough that some consider it a new ballpark."

The largest crowd ever to squeeze into the post-renovation playpen - 7,666 on August 8, 2017 - is the smallest house record among the 30 current Triple-A stadiums.

Another renovation is ahead. MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization greatly expanded existing standards for stadiums hosting affiliated teams, and the 2010-2011 one - extensive as it was - did not predict specifics MLB now requires. In April 2023, the Washington State Legislature approved and Gov. Jay Inslee signed a capital construction budget that includes money for several Washington baseball stadiums, including $3 million toward renovating Cheney.

The original playpen clearly changed Tacoma's professional-baseball fortunes: The first city to lose a PCL team ended the Affiliated Era as the league's dean. There was a seamless franchise switch in 1966, when the San Francisco Giants' farm franchise that had moved from Phoenix returned and the former Salt Lake City Bees moved into Cheney.

Its teams fed a total of six parent clubs before the M's in 1995, the longest their 1981-1994 affiliation with the Oakland Athletics - when they played as the Tacoma Tigers.

Related Sites

• Cheney Stadium (Tacoma, WA) at the SABR Bio Project