By LEAH WEATHERSBY

The Seattle Mariners professional baseball team has agreed to donate $1 million to help pay for a proposed project to renovate the Seattle Parks Department's baseball and softball fields at Lower Woodland Park.

The renovation of the athletic fields would include everything from 300 new bleacher seats to a digital scoreboard to batting cages and bullpens to field lights. (The lights would be paid for with a separate $150,000 grant from the state and $197,000 from the City's cumulative reserve fund.)

While that's good news for recreational sports enthusiasts, neighbors of the playfields are concerned that the Seattle Parks & Recreation Department's proposed improvements to Lower Woodland will result in late night games that will create increased traffic and parking congestion, noise and intrusive glare from the field lights.

"Loud and bright late night sports fields are no different from loud and bright music clubs and drinking bars in their impact on a residential neighborhood, said Therese Day, a homeowner who lives south of Green Lake, not far from Lower Woodland. "These are not family activities. Another Lower Woodland neighbor, Patricia Day (no relation to Therese Day), said: "You don't think of Seattle as being a place where major lights are on in a neighborhood until 11 o'clock. This must be the 'new Seattle' where sports are more important than concern for neighborhoods."

However, not all neighbors oppose lights at Lower Woodland.

Ref Lindmark, a member of the Green Lake Community Council, said he thinks that lighting fields for baseball will carry less of an impact than it would for other sports because baseball is only played in the summer. He added that unlike other local fields, Lower Woodland can better accommodate big crowds.

"(Lower Woodland) has long been a regional athletic field," said Lindmark.

Instillation of field lights will begin this spring. The project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2003.

The $1 million dollar donation from the Mariners is part of Major League Baseball's All-Star Legacy program, which provides gifts to communities where All-Star Week events are held. As part of an agreement with the Mariners, the City will name the large baseball field at Lower Woodland Park the "Mariners All-Star Field at Woodland Park."

However, the name of the four-field Little League/softball complex is still up for grabs. Suggestions must be submitted in writing by June 21.

Criteria considered in naming parks include: geographic location, historic or cultural significance, and natural or geological features. A park may be named for a person no longer living (deceased a minimum of two years) who made a significant contribution to parks and/or recreation.

Ideas for a park name should include an explanation of how the suggestion matches the naming criteria. Send it to: Seattle Parks and Recreation, ATTN: Paula Hoff, Parks Naming Committee, 100 Dexter Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109. For more info., call 615-0568.