The good people at Washington FEAST were kind enough to pass the following news on to Food Allergy Buzz. A special thanks to Michael San Soucie for this info, and thanks to the individuals and groups responsible for arranging the peanut-free zone baseball games in Seattle and Tacoma this season.
"The Seattle Mariners are doubling their efforts this year to provide baseball in a safer environment for those with peanut allergies. We thought we had fun last year going to two Mariner games. For the 2009 season, they will be offering FOUR games during the season with a peanut free zone. And due to your requests I received and passed on to the Mariners, the first one is a Sunday day game! Play Ball!
Here are the dates, times, and opponents for the games being offered this upcoming season. Keep your eyes out for more information at a later date regarding ticket pricing and how to purchase tickets.
Game #1 - Sunday, May 3rd, 1:10pm vs. Oakland A's (this is Little League Day so kids may have the opportunity to go on the field before the game if you are comfortable doing that - more details on that later)
Game #2 - Wednesday, June 24th, 7:10pm vs. San Diego Padres (a little interleague play for the National League fans)
Game #3 - Tuesday, July 7th, 7:10pm vs. Baltimore Orioles
Game #4 - Monday, August 10th, 7:10pm vs. Chicago White Sox
The Mariners are also moving our group a bit closer to home plate this season. Our seating area will be sections 313 to 315 which provides somewhere between 200 and 250 seats per game depending on how we establish the safety buffer zones. Last seasons sections accommodated right around 150 per game with the buffer zones.
Also remember that Seattle Children's Hospital is sponsoring another baseball event on Sunday, May 24th at the Tacoma Rainiers game. This event will be held on one of the party decks at Cheney Stadium. The party decks provide a great atmosphere for watching the game and mingling at the same time."
6 comments:
What do they do to ensure the safety of these zones and what precautions do they take? My girls aren't big baseball fans at this point, but we'd like to go to a game sometime. What's been your experience with nut-free zones at a ball game?
I have not attended one of these peanut-free zone games yet. My PA son is still too young. I have, however, spoken to various individuals involved at different stadiums/teams and most have mentioned power-washing the seating areas, extra ushers, and one mentioned dry cleaning the mascot's costume because of residue on the costume! I'm sure some readers have been to some of these games--what's your experience? Anyone?
Michael San Soucie did an amazing job communicating the desires of peanut allergic fans to both these ball clubs: face-to-face meetings, e-mails, phone calls etc. I went to the first game they did at Safeco last year - they invited a couple of us to come in early the day of the game to see how they did preparing for us. They pressure washed at least twice, provided a buffer zone between the peanut-free zone and the other sections, had ushers (that were built like bouncers!) stationed at the entrance to the section, and removed cracker jacks and peanuts from the nearest concession stand.
There is definitely no guarantee that you will not be exposed to peanuts at a baseball stadium but I thought the Mariners went above and beyond for reducing the risk.
It's totally up to an individual family if this is appropriate for them.
Hey Jana, thanks so much for shedding some light on the precautions the Mariners took at the peanut-free games. That's really helpful! So much with food allergies is determined by personal comfort levels. It's wonderful that so many ball clubs make this effort to accommodate their PA fans.
Here are some photos from last year:
http://picasaweb.google.com/treeclimber4/MarinerSPeanutControlledZoneNightAugust52008#
Jana, thanks SO much for sharing that link and the photos. They're great photos. I especially enjoyed seeing the peanut-control signs. Looks like a beautiful night and sounds like it was a lot of fun.
After the post about the upcoming peanut-free Mariners games went online, Food Allergy Buzz was inundated with visitors from Padres fans following news of the inter-league peanut-free Padres game that will take place. The Padres will hopefully have a game with a peanut-free zone again this summer too.
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