The Sidelines : Mariners Would Alter Ariz. Stadium

The Seattle Mariners want wholesale changes at Tempe Diablo Stadium and have started preliminary negotiations with city officials for a new contract after the 1990 spring training season.

Lee Pelekoudas, the Mariners’ director of baseball administration, wrote in a June 1 letter to the city that the American League team would like improvements completed by the February start of spring training, including two more practice fields, expansion and renovation of the minor-league clubhouse and more stadium seating.

The letter said the Mariners also have long-term goals, which include replacing the stadium with a larger facility on the same site; reconfiguration of four practice fields in a cloverleaf and construction of two half-fields, one natural turf and the other artificial; a new clubhouse between the fields in the cloverleaf configuration, and batting tunnels, pitching mounds and an expanded parking lot.