Well, maybe not. But it was really exciting. They were playing the Angels, who, if you are not keeping up with baseball, are currently 2nd in the AL West and up for the Wild Card playoff slot. If the Mariners win the rest of their games and the Angels lose the rest of their games, the Mariners will end up in the playoffs. It's not likely, but it was still cool that this weekend did not have the loss for the Mariners that would have given the Angels their place.
At any rate, we got to see a lot of cool things. Willie Bloomquist came up to bat as second player of the game, after Ichiro, with a .000 batting average. Willie Bloomquist went 4 for 4 and had a .500 batting average at the end of the game. It was awesome, Ichiro led off with a double and Bloomquist doubled after him and it was 1-0 Mariners from the get-go. It was a really close game, and the Angels are REALLY good, but the Mariners are really good too, so there were a lot of exciting moments, mostly the Angels looking dumb. The shortstop Eckstein accidentally fell on his face while trying to bunt during one inning. Then there was this really funny part where one of the Angels, I think Fullmer, was running between 2nd and 3rd, and it became a game of Tag... the Mariners 2B and 3B fielders basically chased him down and tagged him out as he kept running back and forth trying to get to a base. Ichiro made some AMAZING plays. One was really a shame, too - there was this ball that looked like it would be impossible for him to get to, but he sped towards it, CAUGHT it, and threw it towards home plate (where a guy was running to). It even got there on time to beat the runner, but the catcher fucked up the play. The entire stadium was sort of quiet for a second like "oooooooooooh," but then everyone started applauding for Ichiro and shouting things like "Nice throw!". Oh yeah, and we also got to see Ichiro get his 200th hit of the year, which makes him like the 7th player in the major leagues to ever get 200+ hits his first two years. (It really shouldn't count since he played for so long in Japan, but...) John Olerud also got his 100th RBI for the year, and fielded really well (I have to mention this because I am wearing my Olerud 5 shirt). It was really exciting to be there. The best thing is, even though most people in Seattle probably realize there is next to no chance the Mariners will make it to the playoffs this year, the stadium was still packed full. Apparently the Mariners and the Yankees were the only baseball teams to achieve 3 million people attending the games this year. That's just cool.
Yay Mariners! Yay Josh for giving us tickets to the game! Yay!
Un-yay for the traffic coming home, but what do you expect? I was thinking how lucky
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aquatwo is to be able to walk home after the game :) Next year I should try to get my hands on some evening game tickets... then I could just go there after work, not have to find parking, and bus home.
