Losing A Legend- RIP Yogi

In the morning I always wake up to see what is going on in the world of news. Sadly the first thing that came up was that legendary catcher Yogi Berra had passed away.

 Interestingly his Wikipedia page has already been updated, and says he died on the same day he made his MLB debut.

While I have never been a fan of the Yankees. I have always been a fan of his quotes, and thus came to like the man. It's truly a sad day when a legend the likes of Yogi passes away.

"If you come to a fork in the road, take it."

Going On A BROcation- Saturday

When the plans were coming together for Saturday it had shaped up to become our busiest day. You had a college football game hopefully followed by our second baseball game. I say hopefully as we figured the game would end around two, and then dealing with traffic would kill us. Throw in the start time for our baseball game was six, and it could go either way.

Going in we were undecided on taking the park and ride to the game, or driving up there. Still undecided until Saturday morning when we went with driving up, and paying the crazy parking prices. I personally liked the idea of keeping the car close, and was willing to pay the high fee to make it happen. In the end we both felt it was the best choice.

As we made the drive I had done some research on the parking situation in the area. A habit that the wife has gotten me into by her analyzing every part of any vacation we take together. By doing all that research I thought I had it all figured out, but would come to find out differently. As we made the turn towards the stadium I learned after paying to park that we had turned early. Instead of taking the planned street we turned blocks before I had originally planned. From there a series of football game parking signs distracted me, and next thing I knew we were nowhere near where I wanted.

After the game on Friday, and just thrilled about doing this game we brushed the parking thing off. Making the walk to the stadium we were met with these impressive sights.

Upon our arrival I had the plan to walk around, and enjoy some of the tailgate stuff going on before entering the stadium. JJ doesn't have the adventurer in him that I do so it took a little persuading to get him to walk around. Finally getting him to head in the direction I was pointing we came across some pretty sweet views. Out of everything I would have to say this was my favorite.

Not a fan of Oregon, Oregon Sate, Washington, or Washington State I thought it was classic, and shared it with the wife who is an Oregon State Beavers fan. Besides the one above there were a few that had both the Huskies, and Seattle Seahawks logo's intertwined. I should have taken a few pics of them, but for some stupid reason passed. After walking around for a bit I was still missing the Husky that I'd seen on the college's website. Doing a full walk around we finally came across the statue.

At this time the stream of fans was starting, and it was time to head to our seats.

From seeing the picture you'd never know it, but they were entering at this time. Mostly why it looked like this is most the fans were either on the concourse, or at the pep rally thing they had going on. Thinking it looked cool I had to go, and check it out. While there, and before heading to our seats a cheerleader picture seemed cool.

JJ is the one on her right, and I am the one on her left. Afterwards it was time to head in, and watch a classic blowout.

In the end it was Washington 49, and Sacramento State 0. When we bought our tickets this is what we expected to happen. We went because JJ grew up in Seattle, and had never seen Husky Stadium. I'd only seen one college game in my life, and it wasn't very memorable.

Leaving the game we went straight to the car, and found out our luck was still running strong as ever. By being in the parking garage we were in we avoided the entire game traffic problem. Making a right hand turn out of the garage we saw that the game traffic ended on our street. Moving forward instead of turning again we were on our way much faster than both of us ever expected.

An unexpected route, or also known as lost. We somehow went in the right direction though, and arrived at Safeco Field soon than either of us ever imagined possible.

Buying our tickets at the stadium once again we came away with great seats that were seven rows behind the Rockies dugout.

Nothing as thrilling as the Friday night game. Adding to it was the Rockies lost 7-2, and were never in the game. Despite the bad showing by the Rockies it was another fantastic day.

Going For A BROcation- Friday

Before getting to close to the big day came time to make the hotel reservations. Things changed though when right before making them I made an executive decision. Getting off work then leaving around five we had decided to go halfway, and stay in Kelso. Giving it more thought, I didn't want to arrive around eight, and then stay up til eleven. Only to wake up the next morning to leave around six, or seven for a two hour drive to Seattle. It didn't make sense in my mind when we could just arrive in Seattle close to ten. This would allow us to sleep in, and enjoy the day more than the whole early wake up. So, rather than ask I decided to add Friday to what was our current hotel choice. As the magical day came it would pay off in a huge way.

(From here on out I will refer to my friend as JJ) 

When I made the decision JJ was on another vacation. Upon his return we had talked, and agreed not only that my idea was our best option. We talked, and decided to put our names on the vacation calendar. Giving it alot of thought as the calendar was full so we were on the back up. Our best option was to both attempt half-day to hopefully increase our odds if something happened. We weren't very optimistic, but it was worth a try.

Fate stepped in, and set what we learned would be the tone for this entire trip. One of our coworkers canceled his time off, and set us up to get atleast four hours off apiece. Asked by our boss if we would both accept four hours instead of our requested five, it was a no brainer. Leaving early if even an hour was a treat for both of us. Thrilled at getting off, and leaving four hours early we were pumped beyond belief. That day things changed as our boss gave us 4 3/4 hours since staying through lunch to work forty-five minutes seemed stupid to him. When the announcement was made we couldn't get out the door fast enough, and were on our way.

After making what I thought was incredible time on our trip north. Going through Portland took an hour, but we somehow avoided the 'Tacoma Crawl' slow down. We arrived in Seattle close to four, and headed straight to the local big box store for some Saturday attire. Next came the hotel check in, and a surprise that we both never imagined possible. On the way up we talked about catching the opening game for the series if all the chips fell perfectly. Everything had fallen right, and we were on our way to an extra previously unplanned game.

Buying tickets at the stadium, and arriving after the gates had opened. (This was new to me as I've always made the wife go an hour before the gates open). We still ended up with some awesome seats.

Sitting on the third row in the section just over from the Rockies dugout. Going into the game these were the best seats I had ever sat in at an MLB game. We would do better later on when we sat in the exact same section, and row. Only that game we would be on the side closer to the dugout.

Best of all was the fact that there were tons of Rockies fans so I didn't feel alone cheering for them to win. What I did learn from seeing them all is that I need to re-bulk up on my Rockies knowledge. I can currently name most the Mariners by seeing their face. Not only can't I do this with most of the Rockies roster. I am not even able to tell you who's even on the roster.

How about some game pictures now without commentary.

The Rockies would go on to win the game 4-2. Seeing the Rockies go off on a hitfest, and score some runs against Iwakuma was a sweet way to start the weekend. Besides all this fun we would learn an interesting tidbit on Sunday while at the hotel.

I can't recall when they showed up, but I believe it was right before game time. The man in what looks to me like a brand spanking new Rockies hat. He came with a friend, and a chair that was empty between the two of them. It was in one of the first two innings that another man came to sit in that empty seat. Wearing the same hat, and sporting the exact same requested by the visiting team badge around his neck. I couldn't help sitting there, and mentioning to JJ numerous times that they were somebody important.

The man pictured engaged the women you see in the picture, and talked a little about how they were going to get a foul ball. Their moment came as a slow foul trickled in their direction while they looked at the scoreboard for other game scores. Focused on the board, and discussing the Phillies game their ball bounced off the wall in front of them, and rolled away. Despite being a Rockies fan I couldn't help, but harass them a little as it was just a fun moment. They engaged back which only added to the fun that I think they enjoyed as much as we did.

Sunday came, and while playing around on the Rockies twitter feed I came across a small video that showed the three men.

I guess the middle guy is Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. JJ had to explain to me who he is as the only part that made any sense is Pearl Jam. Overall it wasn't a bad way to start this entire weekend. Get to see an extra game, and a celebrity on that same night. The greatest thing is we didn't bother him, but hopefully added to their experience with our little banter.

Going For A BROcation- The Game-Changer

As I mentioned yesterday in the first of this set of posts. While still fine tuning the plans for the trip a game-changer was about to turn this trip upside down. Originally the trip was trending towards being a solo trip as the wife wasn't as interested in seeing the Rockies as I was. I was fine with doing things solo, but the wife thought it would be better if someone went along. This where my friend at work was going to come into play.

The wife mentioned that not only would she feel better if someone came along, but it'd add to the trip. Her idea was my friend at work who we've taken to Mariners games in the past. With all he has done for me in the past I couldn't say no to making him the offer.

For regular readers you have heard of this friend before. He is the same guy that goes to Colorado to visit family. On these trips he always hooks this cat up with schedules, magnets, or any other goodies from the local team. Even better is I convince him to pick me up a shirt on each trip. Not a bad deal for him though as how can you not enjoy getting to shop using someone else's money?

At first he wasn't so sure about coming along on the trip, but after talking to a few people he was all in. Those conversations basically equaled a simple "What is there to even think about?", and "How could you make him go up there alone for something you know will be a blast?" So after these little pep talks he decided that we needed to make this a guy's weekend of sports.

Adding him into the mix was about to become a game-changer that I had never imagined when inviting him to come along. Within the first couple days his brain was clicking, and it wanted to do something other than baseball. Realizing that football season was coming he asked if football would be going, and if the Seahawks were home. A quick search revealed that they were in St. Louis for their first game. Next was soccer, and the Sounders, which were on the road. Our last hope was the Washington Huskies for some college football... JACKPOT!!

Now we had a new plan that resembled something like this.

FRIDAY

 After work leave town, and head halfway to Seattle to stay the night. 

(This would change to go all the way to Seattle so we could sleep in a little before heading to the game Saturday.)

SATURDAY

This was going to be a bit tricky as we weren't sure how long it would take to get from the football stadium to Safeco for the Mariners game. Being we've never done any of this before we didn't know how bad traffic for the game would be.

8:00- Either drive to parking near stadium, or ride bus from nearby location.

11:00- Watch Washington vs. Sacramento State game.

2:00-3:00- Hopefully get out of game early enough to head over to Safeco Field for baseball game. 

6:05- Hopefully be watching a baseball game.

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were keeping the same plans that I originally had. Without giving too much away one of those days went in a totally different direction. Something that we decided to do a couple days before leaving was a strong possibility.

Everything was set, and all that was missing was the date of this weekend arriving.