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The Seattle Pilots were the city's first major league baseball team, but were in the city for only one season before relocating to Milwaukee and becoming the Brewers. The team played in Sick's Stadium, which was a minor league park built in 1938. The stadium had to be extensively renovated to accommodate the team, and construction work continued right up to the first home game on April 11, 1969. Less than two months later, the American League declared the facility to be "inadequate" for a major league team.

Complaints about the stadium, coupled with low attendance and finances in the red, led to threats by the Pilots' owners to leave Seattle. When the state of Washington obtained a temporary injunction to stop the move, the team's parent company, Pacific Northwest Sports Inc., declared bankruptcy. However, Bud Selig had already worked out a deal to buy the team and move them to Wisconsin, a change that the American League approved. The team went to spring training as the Seattle Pilots but were the Milwaukee Brewers by the time the season started - a move so sudden they didn't even have uniforms made in time.

The city, the state, and King County joined together in a lawsuit against the American League in 1970, seeking $32 million in damages. The suit was delayed while the league floated proposals to move various other teams to Seattle, but in 1976 the case finally came to court in Snohomish County. Eventually the league offered to locate another franchise in Seattle in exchange for the plaintiffs dropping the lawsuit. By this time the Kingdome was nearing completion, so a new team would have a suitable home without the headaches of Sick's Stadium. The plaintiffs agreed to this settlement, and the Seattle Mariners debuted in 1977.