Mariners go peanut-free to give allergic kids shot at Safeco Field

Pounding his glove as he sits on the edge of his seat, 11-year-old Abram Stanhope can barely contain his excitement as he awaits his first Mariners game to get underway.

“It’s awesome,” he shouts as he looks over the railing onto a sun-drenched Safeco Field.

The Woodinville youngster has wanted to come to Safeco Field for years, but it just hasn’t been safe. Abram is one of millions of Americans with serious allergies to peanuts.

“I either get very sick or I die,” he said, suddenly turning serious when asked about what happens if he’s exposed to peanuts.

Even touching or breathing peanut residue can trigger a terrifying reaction.

“It’s always on our minds,” said Abram’s father Brian. “You’ve got to look at everything, you’ve got make sure you’re on it. Otherwise you could endanger the life of your child.”

But for one early summer evening this week, several dozen families that gathered high up in Safeco Field didn’t have to worry about it.

They were sitting in a special peanut-free section offered four times a year.

Michael Laird, 8, was among them. He tells me he’s felt sad and left out as his family and friends have attended Mariners games while he had to stay home watching on TV.

His mom, Carly, says she was thrilled to bring Michael and the rest of the family more than 60 miles from Eatonville for his first game.

“It’s absolutely amazing. It’s actually the first thing I thought about when I found out he had peanut allergies &#8212 that I could never take him to a Mariners game. And I’ve always just loved the Mariners,” she said.

The Mariners started offering the peanut-free sections several years ago. It took a particularly heart-wrenching plea from a Tacoma dad and die-hard fan desperate to take his son to a game to convince former President Chuck Armstrong to give it a shot, said Mariners spokesperson Rebecca Hale.

“We’d had requests in the past, but this letter really touched Chuck’s heart as a father and a grandfather. And Chuck agreed. He said, ‘Let’s do it,” Hale said.

It was a hit and the Mariners expanded it to four games each season.

Before each peanut-free game, crews pressure wash the section in the upper deck in the right field corner, then a team of volunteers follows up with towels to scour every surface.

“They’re making double sure that our cleaning crew has gone through and done all the proper washing and making sure that there aren’t even any little tiny bits of peanut shells,” Hale said.

It’s a huge relief for parents like Melissa Kirkeby of Olympia, who was thrilled to bring her peanut-allergic son Hunter to his first game.

She says many people simply don’t realize how hard it is to constantly worry about their kids.

“He had an exposure last summer where he took a bite of a candy bar that had peanuts in it, chewed it and spit it out. Within five minutes, he was in full anaphylactic shock,” Kirkeby said. “It doesn’t take very much.”

Even with the peanut-free section, they still have to be extremely careful.

But once they get to their seat, luckily, the only thing they have to worry about for at least one game is eating too many Red Vines and Oreos and getting jacked up on sugar.

“Go Mariners!” Hunter shouts as he jumps out of his seat, the joy evident on his face, as well as his parents’.

The Mariners will offer the peanut-controlled sections at two more games this season: Friday, July 10 against the Anaheim Angels and Tuesday, August 11 against the Baltimore Orioles. You can get more information and buy tickets here.