With a plan of arriving on Friday, and getting tickets for Saturday, and Sunday's games. We would then go out for lunch before heading to the hotel, and relaxing for the evening. As I said, that was the plan.
Before heading to the coast I had done the research on who I guessed would be the starters for our days in Seattle. Doing the math I had Felix on Thursday which meant we miss baseball's King Felix. It was a small bummer as we've seen Felix a few times over the years, and wouldn't mind seeing him again. The Friday's started would be Iwakuma which was another bummer being Saturday was his day. What this would leave us is Chris Young, and I believe Tijuan Walker. Both have been doing decent, but they weren't Felix or Iwakuma.
During the week everything changed as McClendon announced he was pushing Felix, and Iwakuma back to Friday, and Saturday. The idea being his best two pitchers would face the division leading A's. What this meant for us is our plans changed to Friday, and Saturday being game days now. Sunday we would just relax, and take our time on the four to five hour drive homeward.
Rather than bore you with all the details on driving up, and tickets stuff. Once in Seattle we headed for tickets before going out for the originally planned lunch stop at Rainforest Cafe. Once finished there was still time to make the short drive south, and check-in at the hotel. A short refresher nap followed, and then off to Safeco Field.
The first thing I had to do was take a picture from our seats with my close range lens. These were the best seats we have ever had in all our years of going to Mariners games. We were a few feet to the inside of first base, and in row 35. We could have sat closer, but we prefer the aisle seats, and in the shade. Actually the wife wants shade, I could sit in full sun, but gotta have the aisle. From there I did what has become a tradition with me, and ran around the stadium gathering up brochures, schedules, and other goodies.
Sometimes I look back, and am kind of bummed that I didn't start picking up the brochures when we first started going to games. These have become some of my favorite things the team puts out. Wish I was able to do a collection of these for the Rockies. Until then I'm building a pretty cool looking Mariners collection of these.
After making the tour it was game-time, and time for King Felix.
Not only was Felix ready to go, but the Kings Court was in full force.
According to the radio this was the largest Kings Court ever. There were eleven sections of the stadium that were turned in the Kings Court. Four of them were below, and are in the picture. The remaining sections were in the upper level of the stadium.
For those that don't know about this Kings Court thing. What the team does is sell seats for the farthest section along the third baseline. The seats come with a Kings Court t-shirt, and K card.
As for the game things didn't start well as the A's took a quick 2-0 lead in the first. From there Seattle took over by scoring one in the second, and another in the third to tie the score at 2-2. Going strong after the weak start Felix got more help in the sixth as James Jones doubled, and was then hit in by Cano with another double. Despite taking the loss Samardzija pitched just as strong as Felix, and only giving up five hits.
Another of the cool things we got to see was Fernando Rodney getting to come out, and close the game. Seattle has always done a great job of getting the crowd pumped when the teams closer comes into the game.
The music blaring, and the screens all flashing just get your blood flowing as a fan. I can't even begin to imagine what this all does for Rodney who is actually pitching.
Above everything the atmosphere during the game was amazing. The crowd was at almost 33,000, and were really into the game. Having such a strong crowd, and game really showed on television. I'll write more about that in my next post.
After the game we decided to hit the team store at the stadium. While in there the wife picked up two Disney hat pins. She plans on wearing both on a lanyard when we go to Disneyland later this year. As for me I managed to snag
I always like the hats that not everyone is wearing. This fit that bill, and is the one out of the two all-star game related hats that I liked the best. Not my first choice as I wanted the 4th of July cap, but they were all out. Looking at it now I think I prefer this cap anyways so it's all good.
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