On Codas
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| SAFECO Field, 2008 |
Detroit Tigers vs. Seattle Mariners
SAFECO Field
Major League Baseball, American League
Seattle, WA
7:10 PM
Outside the Game:
Another day, another flight. Several weeks before I left for the trip, I got a lovely little notice from Orbitz that the flight I was taking to Seattle had been moved several hours later by the airline, which would have me landing just about at the scheduled first pitch. This, of course, was a problem for me, unreasonable as I am. I eventually called and got a free transfer to an earlier flight, but something felt... incomplete about the transaction.
I was to find out what that was on this morning, when I was unable to get my boarding pass at a packed LAX because my "travel itinerary" or some such was not changed correctly. To their credit, someone on the courtesy phone from United was able to move the necessary bits, but not before visions of being stuck in LA danced through my head.
As our plane was a little late getting into the terminal, we got to play a little game. Upon boarding, our flight crew told us that we had about ten minutes to finish boarding, or we would lose our departure slot on the runway. I don't know if it was true or not, but it did ensure a quick and orderly boarding process, and, perhaps to make up for the situation on the way out, I got an exit row seat with extra legroom.
On landing, I was able to get a quick shuttle ride to the hotel, where I quickly made friends with the counter woman, who apparently had never been introduced to the concept of sarcasm (which seems odd for someone working in the service industry in a major metropolitan area of the country).
I actually had a very nice corner room for my last hotel stay on the trip. After calling all the requisite parties with whom I would be meeting up, I took a very vigorous nap before getting a cab ride down to the stadium.
After the game, our group all met up, and we were treated to an interactive exhibition on the impossibilities of parking in Seattle on a Saturday night before giving into sleepiness and retreating to our respective places of slumber.
At the Game with Oogie:
As mentioned previously, on this last stop on the trip, I was actually meeting with two groups of friends. Two of them were late additions to the festivities, and were sitting separately from us, in box seats behind home plate. The other two of us were sitting in the exclusive "Club Level" area by third base, with access to waitress service for food and beer selections not available elsewhere in the stadium. We were worried about getting together at the game because of the usual security blocking that prevents walking to the seating area behind home plate, but we found the ushers pleasantly uninterested in our comings and goings.
The Stadium & Fans:
The stadium is a very nice new generation park. Perhaps most noteworthy is the fact that the Jumbotron is black and white (or tan and white, whatever the correct designation for that display color is), and may perhaps be the only one left in the majors, certainly in the new parks. The other object of immediate note is the large retractable roof that is no doubt a necessity in the Pacific Northwest. As eager as I was to see rain again after wandering SoCal for a week, the roof was opened for the game, and the mechanism that opens it is gloriously Victorian. The entire stadium reminds one of some steampunk puzzlebox for some long-forgotten giant race.
The stadium itself is nicely done, with a central promenade and accents that include an insane bat chandelier and a bullpen area separated from fans by just a chain-link fence. There was one element that immediately became a parody of itself: Mariner's customer service representatives puttering around on Segway scooters. Really.
The Hot Dog:
The "Major League" dog was an impressively massive sausage in a bun.
The Game:
All the scoring this game was done with home runs. The Tigers jumped out to an early two-run lead with solo shots in the first and fourth, but the Marines came back with a solo homer in the 6th and a two-run shot in the 8th to put them up for good. Both Seattle home runs were by the rookie catcher Clement, who doubled his hit total for the year with the blasts.
Also of note was the man with the largest strike zone on the Mariners, 6'8" Richie Sexton, managed three walks.
The Scorecard:
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| Tigers vs. Mariners, 07/05/08. Mariners win, 3-2. |
Oogie's East Coast Connection of the Day:
See "At The Stadium With Oogie."
The Accommodations:
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| Holiday Inn Seattle Airport, Seattle, WA |
On Endings
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| Newark Liberty Bald Eagle God-Bless-America Airport, 07/06/08 |
Hoboken, NJ
Outside the Game:
Having had a mildly decent night's sleep, I was only partially staggering to the airport yet again the next morning. I gained an extra half hour of sleep by printing out my boarding pass the night before, so I was relatively together, although apparently very hungry, as I had at least three breakfasts by my best count.
My flight delay out was a relatively minor half hour. The Continental flight home was the good twin of my flight out. The seat was about as comfortable and spacious as could be expected, I was kept constantly fed and beveraged, and I even could see the entertainment screen (though the movie was, inexplicably, also Penelope).
The large group that was sitting around me was apparently a choir group going to Wells, which is right next to Bath, where I spent a year in college. I gave them some tips on the area and tried to do some trigonometric geography in my head for them during the approach to Newark so they could get a view of New York. Sadly, they mostly saw the majestic swamps of the Meadowlands and the scenic scrap yards right outside the airport.
The Accommodations:
Perhaps moreso than any of the other trips, I found myself very disoriented at home, and not just because I couldn't get to sleep before 2 AM. I woke up in the night wondering where I was and desperately searching for a travel alarm that wasn't there.
Postscript:
All that remains is random teams scattered around the country: Oakland, Texas, Houston, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore, Toronto, and Boston. Picking up the spares is going to be challenging, and I may have to take some weekend trips to grab some of them before July 4th next year. But I do know which will be last: the oldest stadium left on my list, Boston.
2008 The West Coast
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