 Main entrance to Olympic Stadium, Aug-2004. |
 From an end zone, you can see the odd configuration for baseball. |
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Main entrance to Olympic Stadium, Aug-2004. |
From an end zone, you can see the odd configuration for baseball. |
Olympic Stadium – which draws its name from the location of Hoquiam on Washington’s Olympic peninsula – is truly a multi-purpose stadium. The covered grandstand runs along one football sideline, and then swings around along one end zone and finally bends back to form a baseball grandstand with limited seating behind the plate.
The park’s design is such that one might not even recognize it as a stadium from the outside, depending on which street you use to approach it. Fortunately, the name is emblazoned above the main entrance, which would be down the right-field line for baseball.
The Grays Harbor Gulls of the independent Western League played a few seasons here. That name was revived in 2015 for the Mount Rainier Professional Baseball League, another independent loop.
Previously on this page, I had a reference that Hoquiam was pronounced Hoe-kwum. Recently, I received an e-mail from a site visitor who said that it’s pronounced (more logically) with three syllables, Hoe-quee-um. The only problem is that I got my pronunciation from someone at a fast-food restaurant right there in Hoquiam. None of that, of course, changes the uniqueness of this old stadium nestled between Grays Harbor and the Olympic Mountains.