SECTION 331

And I cannot say that I blame them.

The Ballard Beavers baseball team is currently selling tickets for a Seattle Mariners game on Thursday, April 11th against the Rangers. They will either sell you single game tickets, or a 20-ticket bundle for $200. These tickets are for the 300-level along the first baseline, and frankly, $200 for 20 tickets is not a bad price at all, if you’ve got 20 friends who want to spend an evening at Safeco for $10 a pop. The goal is 1,000 tickets sold total, and the prize is the team getting to play a game at Safeco against the defending 4A State Champions, the Kentwood Conquerors. You can get the full info at the link above, or contact their coach at ballardbeaversbasebal@gmail.com. The game the Beavers would get to play is on April 6th, is free admission, and $5 gets you a parking space in the Safeco Field garage, and that is not too shabby. So give some kids a great opportunity, and drop Coach Doug a line at the email above.

OK, first things first; I did not go down the zipline. By the time Jessica and I got to the field, there was already a ridiculously long line (all the way up from the foul line to the main concourse), and there was just no way I could have stood for that long, even with comfortable shoes, even with all my coats on. I can walk for hours, but standing is just too much for my sad back. I do not have misgivings about it, however, as when we got there we discovered that the zipline was not as terrifying heights-wise as I would have thought by looking at the pictures that were posted the previous day. If they do it next year, I will make more of an effort to get there as early as possible in order to parttake. It didn’t look scary, and it wasn’t too fast and I think I could totally do it.

We didn’t do the whole two hours of the STH FanFest, but I was happy to be there before the main gates opened to the public. I have already done and seen pretty much all there is to do and see there in previous years, so I think my main joy in it is merely being in the stadium so early in the year. It was nice to be inside “first”, especially since the morning was raining off and on, but it looked like the lines went fairly quickly once the gates opened, and nobody had to wait outside for too very long (other than the intrepid souls who were there already around 8 or 9 already).

I wanted to take some pictures of the future home of Edgar’s Cantina, to try and get a better understanding of how it was all going to look after it is finished. It’s still in the building stage, so I honestly have no clue how it will look when it’s done, but you can see how they’re building it, right next to the King’s Court seating:

I got the chance to say hi and talk to Gregg Greene to try and suss out what exactly is going on here, and the upper deck is going to be an open air porch, with the manual scoreboard in front of it, where the “BNB” signs are currently. The lower part with the concrete walls is where the Cantina will be, and I am assuming that Edgar’s will be taking over the old Flying Tortoise space entirely. I didn’t get much time to talk with him further about it (he’s a busy guy), but I did get out of him that there is no stairway or other method of getting up to the deck from Edgar’s. So while it would be nice to be able to go back and forth, I think I see what they’re meaning to do here.

As Jessica and I were continuing around the concourse, we ran into the Everett Aquasox booth and both of us signed up to try and win 4 tickets to the All Star game that is being played in Everett this year. I don’t win anything, but Jessica does sometimes frighteningly well, so I guess we’ll find out when it’s announced.  Over the King’s Court area, they had items that I assume will eventually be taken to Cooperstown; memorabilia from Felix’s perfect game, and the six-pitcher no-hitter:

And then, because I’ve always wanted to do it but just haven’t because it has been crowded and I am not one to be in the way, a rarely-posted-to-the-blog-ever picture of me sitting in this crazy chair:

One of the few pictures you will see of me here. Enjoy. Eventually I will get one with the Dave Niehaus statue, but that is never as easy as just sitting down. Also, I feel like I should look nicer to take a picture with the Niehaus statue. I know that concept sort of thumbs its nose at reality, but maybe in the summer when it’s nice and warm and I don’t have to dress like a gothic yeti.

Some more shots of the Edgar’s area:

This last one is from below, as I’m standing next to the visitor’s bullpen. To the lower leftish-middle there, you can see the railing of the manual scoreboard, from where it is currently residing in the ‘pen as they get everything constructed.

Probably a lot of people have seen all of this, but I wanted a shot of my own. The new future-LED board. You can kind of see the blocks of lights there and how it’s all going to be put together. There are what appear to be small catwalks behind where the lighting banks will be. It will be interesting to see it in action. We stopped here and had a beer and just sort of took in the scenery. Jessica had her phone with her and took some panoramic shots:

And around then it was 11AM, the gates were starting to open, and we both had friends to meet, so we meandered back upstairs towards the first base dugout.

This is a horribly out of focus picture (which I didn’t realize until just now), but it at least gives a bit of an idea of where the fences are going as opposed to where they were. It’ll take some getting used to, and it does seem like the field is really far from the bullpens now – and I will be curious to see how that plays out, with guys getting on to the field from the ‘pens now – but the fences being moved seems to have made the hitters a little happier; and, if not happier, it at least gave them something to joke about during the Dugout Dialogue.

Rick Rizzs was hosting the DD this year again, this time with newly-hired announcer Aaron Goldsmith. Goldsmith, by the way, fits in like a glove here. Outside of a few remarks made here and there about him being new to Seattle, you wouldn’t know it. He made everything look flawless, and he and Rizzs look like a good team; banter comes easily to the both of them. I am looking forward to kayaking around the Sound and listening to them on the radio this summer, because I have the feeling that a lot of games will be taken in while on a boat this year, either fishing, kayaking, or both. Almost makes me wish that Safeco was closer to the water like AT&T.

Due to starting to walk around the stadium right about at 11, we missed Franklin Gutierrez and Jesus Montero speaking, but got there just in time to catch the tail end of Nick Franklin and James Paxton.

There was a bit of distraction while Jess went to find her friend Dana, and I was trying to get my friend Su’s attention, so I didn’t hear much of what the guys said, and the session was over seemingly sooner than it started.

The next group was Blake Beavan, Carter Capps, and Tom Wilhelmsen, and Wilhelmsen came out wearing that beard hat mentioned on the promotional schedule, and sure enough, it’s pretty much what I figured it would be:

He kept it on for a majority of the time they were up there, too.

His answers were slightly muffled, and the hat came off about 3/4 of the way through, but Wilhelmsen and his antics make me long for the days of the gladiator helmets and 2009. He would have fit in so well with that bullpen.

I didn’t take any notes, though I probably should have. A lot of the audience questions are the same from year to year, and these guys are not going to give us any deep insight into what we can expect for the season, because they don’t know any more than we do. Still, this is my favorite part of the whole FanFest, to just go and listen to people talk to the players and vice versa, like you’re in your own living room. Your own massive, open air living room.

Hisashi Iwakuma, Brendan Ryan and Casper Wells came up to the “stage” next, and after Brad Adam’s warm-up questions, some woman in the crowd asked Wells about something to do with a friend of hers. It was possibly one of the most awkward things ever, because it is always awkward when people don’t have boundaries with other people, especially people they don’t know. Wells explained to the woman that he had a girlfriend, and the rest of us sort of laughed the whole thing off. There is always at least one of these questions whenever I go to something like this, and while I understand that they are questions that are important to the asker, what exactly did she think was going to happen? Wells apparently understood the question enough to respond to it, I’m still not sure exactly what the situation was, but it’s not my issue to concern myself with; it just started things off on a really bizarre note.

Another crowd member requested that Brendan Ryan do his Robert DeNiro impression, and he happily obliged, of course. We do have some fun guys on this team and while it can be difficult to remember that when all you’re seeing is win/loss numbers, I am going to try more diligently to remind myself that I really do want to see these guys – these guys specifically – win.

A small child I couldn’t see somewhere in the crowd asked the players what team the players were most looking forward to playing most this year. Iwakuma started in in Japanese while interpreter Antony Suzuki listened in. Suzuki then started to speak and said that he didn’t have much experience, and Ryan interupted saying that he had to have an answer. Iwakuma laughed, said a few words in Japanese, and then one the crowd understood, “Yankees”. That’s going to be a crowd pleaser every time, I think, but Iwakuma was of course looking forward to getting Ichiro to strike out. Brendan Ryan also asked Iwakuma how he feels about having to bat so much more this season because of the increased interleague play. His response: “I have confidence!” My transcript is out of order, so for your convenience, the whole interview and others like it from both Saturday and Sunday are located here on the Mariners website.

Jay Buhner and Eric Wedge were the following segments for the Dialogue, and I have seen and heard the two of them speak quite a few times, so Su and I decided to wander the stadium again. We encountered Beavan and Capps being interviewed by some of the local ESPN radio broadcasting team, including Shannon Drayer.

We went back to The Pen to grab a beer, and ran into S331 frequent flier Eric Norse and his lady, who I always have such a lovely time talking to, but I can never remember her name! Seeing each other once a year will do that to you, I guess, pesky Olympia residents! It was of course delightful to see you both on the yearly pilgrimage. Perhaps we will have cause to be at the same game this year, and hopefully by that time will have some baseball to celebrate.

Next up was Mike Morse, Michael Saunders and Kyle Seager. I was eager to see Morse because I hadn’t in a while, and was curious as to what he might have to say. It was then that I discovered that Morse’s at-bat song is A-Ha’s “Take On Me”, which I find funny and wonderful at the same time. I don’t remember this being the case when he was here last, though I don’t think it was this, as being a child of the new wave 80s, I believe that would have made a bit of an impression on me. Morse looks healthy and happy to be here, so I hope that it translates into a good year for him. And us. He says in his interview at the link above that Seattle was one of the places he wanted to go to if he had to leave Washington, so bonus.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I should have stayed for the Eric Wedge part of the program to ask him about Michael Saunders’ rubber band training from last season. As it was, we decided that we were going to try and leave around this time anyway. I missed both Stefan Romero and Mike Zunino’s Q&A, but I can watch them at the link (and so can you!) I had been up since 3.30AM due to a very wonky sleep schedule, so I was pretty tired at that point ( and truth be told I wound up falling asleep after dinner around 9PM later that evening), and Su and I had originally planned to go to Pyramid for a bite to eat and to meet Shannon and others for a post-Fest unwind. Unfortunately, some of the people we wanted to hang out with were either not feeling well enough to attend Saturday, or had other situations that kept them from coming up from Portland to attend the event. So it wound up being just me and Su and Shannon around some fries, a pizza and some beer, chattering about baseball and whatever else before going our separate ways. And my phone dying a quick, pitiful death because it’s a 3GS and I desperately need a replacement. Oi.

All in all, it was a fun day packed with a great lineup giving interviews, a lot of happy little kids running around, and a not-too-terribly-cold day at the ballpark. Next year, zipline. Next year.

Deep breaths. How hard could it be?

You can find it here!

I was going to try to get to this before it was formally released, and I talked a little about it on Twitter earlier, but I got busy and thus was forced to wait until I could clock out for lunch to discuss it here.

The one glaring omission,  I have to say, is the lack of a Fleece Blanket Night. I don’t know why there isn’t one this year, but it was my absolute favorite giveaway, and I am sad to see that it only lasted a few years. I would have loved to see it at the beginning of the season, though, when it is still cold in our Seattle spring, and such a thing might come in handy around, say, the 5th inning when gloves, five jackets and hot cocoa just aren’t working anymore. September was just too warm for something like that. I will continue to enjoy the ones I was able to get while it lasted, and hope that it is a temporary setback, and that Fleece Blanket Night comes back to us like the glorious unicorn it is in 2014.

Tom Wilhelmsen Train Engine Night! Yes, I already have it written down on my calendar, in the event that one of my tickets doesn’t cover it already. I am planning on eventually doing something with the cars I have collected so far, finding out the cars I lack, and obtaining them to fill the gaps in my collection. This will make a nice addition to the set, and maybe some day I can put them on display somewhere in the house. It will probably require glue.

Felix’s Perfect Game Bobblehead Night. I find it funny for some reason that this is being done during a game against the Rangers, who will undoubtedly drill us into the ground, but never mind that; it may be another addition to my very sparse, very specical bobble group. My bobblehead “collection” is a very elite thing, and not many bobbles have gotten in to that particular club. I am not normally a fan of the things, so it takes very special and particular bobbles to make it. I think this one might.

And we have fireworks nights! Two or three, at least. Those are on the calendar too. I am under the assumption that they will be set off over the north wall – right where I normally sit. I like sparkly things and things that explode, so this is a no-brainer. I am not going to miss this, it should make for some stellar photos, and will be cause for celebration if we win, or a pick me up if we lose. Explosions!

Dustin Ackley Gnome Night. The jury’s still out on this one. I do have a garden, and I work in it frequently during the spring and summer months, but I am not a fan of the garden gnome as a general thing. I will have to see it before I can make up my mind. The final design has not yet been settled on according to Ms marketing king Kevin Martinez, but hopefully there will be pictures in links up in the schedule soon enough.

The other unusual thing they are doing this year is something called a “beard hat”. Since I haven’t seen any pictures of this either, I have to assume that there is some sort of balaclava thing going on. I am mystified, though, because we just lost our “beard” to Oakland. This seems something that would be better suited for the Giants and Brian Wilson. But I’m just the fan and not one that is terribly involved in popular culture today, so perhaps this is just some thing that the kids find super entertaining that I am unaware of?

Most of the other promotions are things that I am either too old for (boo!), or they simply don’t apply to me (since I am neither a mother or a father). The one thing I would love to be young enough for is the Bat Night. I asked myself briefly this morning why that was limited to kids 14 and under, and then I flashed back to your average Saturday night down in The Pen and realized that arming soon-to-be drunk mostly college-aged adults with free truncheons might not be the best idea. Well played, Mariners. Well played. If I promise not to use it on anyone, might an exception be made? I’ll sign a waiver!

Anyway, there you go. I am getting very excited for FanFest this weekend, and am even more impatient for the 2013 season to start than I was yesterday.

So I was on Twitter just a few moments ago, and the Mariners account had just then posted a link to the list of activities at FanFest this coming weekend. I have done or seen pretty much everything on that list already, but ziplining across the field?! You have to be joking!

I should preface this with the fact that I have a ridiculous fear of heights and non-car-or-boat-accompanied speed. I have never ziplined or been in a place where that activity was even an option. I am also skeptical of day- or weeklong carnival situations like the Rose Festival down in Portland, where rides or massive machinery are set up for a short period of time and have been set up and broken down multiple times over the course of any given year. You hear about injuries in those situations all the time; in fact the last time I actually went to the Rose Festival waterfront carnival, a girl fell her death out of the Zipper, that crazy machine that looks like a giant chain saw and flips people all over the place while rotating. It happened later in the day after I was long gone from the festivities, but it happened nonetheless.

Because of this and stories like it, I am always hesitant to take such risks. I’m also not a huge fan of carnival rides in the first place; it’s not that I hate them, it’s just that they don’t do a whole lot for me in general. But this? I am going to have to give this a lot of thought. It is kind of a unique opportunity, in spite of my deal with heights. Now I just need to figure out if the opportunity trumps my fear.

If you hear a scream and litany of swears and see someone with pink hair having an aneurism while flying across the sky this Saturday, chances are super high it’s going to be me.

I will of course be bringing a lot of photos back from FanFest this next Saturday, but if you’re not following the Mariners on FaceBook, they recently posted a photo of the progress construction crews are making on building Edgar’s Cantina:

My seats are again this year, as I mention to everyone, “over the N in ESPN”. So I imagine that I will spend entire games being tortured by the smell of delicious food. As if the Kidd Valley stand under section 180 wasn’t torture enough. I am trying but cannot quite see how this is going to work; are there going to be stairs to get up to the upper deck area? Will that be a place you can enter from both The Pen and the 100-level concourse? Will the upper deck be divided from the main concourse with some sort of wall, or will it be open? And how will this placement affect the visitor’s bullpen? Will we be able to see into that area better than in the past? So many questions! Very exciting, though, and I am looking forward to being able to go to FanFest on Saturday.

I don’t have anything else to add to this fray that the other blogs haven’t already said (and I am sure that I could find more links if I wanted to or had time). It’s just strange and headscratching, and I really don’t know what to make of any of it.

At first, I was happy because home runs and familiarity; then I found out that we sent John Jaso to the Oakland A’s, and I was not so happy anymore. Mike Morse projects alright, and that is great, but it would have been better, as everyone else is saying, if we had kept Jaso. I liked Jaso; I wanted him to stay, and I hate that he is going to a direct competitor, a team we play so very many times a year, no less! This just seems like a bad move, and now we have a catcher problem; so unless the Mariners are planning to go after a more effective power hitting catcher, or Mike Zunino is just amazing in the spring, well…I just don’t know.

This seems like a super out of character move for our front office, and it is a move that is losing some fans’ loyalty, and making many more nervous. Bill Bavasi will probably  be the GM that all other GMs will have to deal with being compared to for quite some time to come, and I hate thinking of Jack Zduriencik in those terms.  While I wasn’t really “around” for it back then, this feels like Richie Sexson to me, and while I would love to defer to my regular argument of they must know what they’re doing, it seems like there is a level of desperation in this move that we might not have had to deal with had sooner and more aggressive choices been made. But like with everything else the Mariners do and have done, none of us have a choice or say in the matter.

The Seattle Mariners need a winning season, more than anything else right now, or they’re going to lose fans; regardless of where the money is coming from, a larger screen and new restaurant (even though I am excited for both of those things, don’t get me wrong) are only going to go so far.  So yeah, I hope they know what they’re doing. I really do.

I have been posting maybe too much to Twitter about recent baseball goings-on; it’s easier, and unlike blogging I can do it quickly at work, on the bus, or while I’m walking. Unfortunately this may be one of the reasons I’m not writing as much anymore, because I’ve already got my opinion out in the ether in a bite-sized chunk. Some things need to be talked about in larger-than-bite-sized pieces, though, and Justin Upton’s refusal to come to Seattle might be one of those things. I think it is. Shall we?

In the big scheme of things, Upton is a Diamondback and thus I am predisposed to like him (outside of