Sodo Oh No

Leftover post from Sunday's game that both Mike and I went to with respective family groups. He, being a much braver soul than I, brought his daughter, a friend and his 15 month old over on the ferry. I brought my soon to be 12 year old daughter.

Mike:

It’s 12:20 and we’re on the ferry! We won't make first pitch but I'm happy I'm here at all. I really started to have second thoughts last night about taking the baby. It's a good thing I started this topic or I might have chickened out.

We made it to the stadium and we’re standing to watch Ichiro hit. Looks like a great day - and Ichiro punches up the middle for a single!

Well, we're supposed to be in the first row in the left field bleachers but the folks up there are spread out pretty good and I don't feel like fighting wedge us in. We'll just walk for now. The kids are starting their sugar frenzy the Dippin’ Dots. Tough second for Joel. So what's the problem this year? I haven't watching closely enough to see if there anything obvious wrong with his mechanics. He's just having a hard time getting outs. Ah, Enter Sandman for Sand Frog...very clever.

Third inning. Are you kidding me? My first game and it's a Willie start! Hey, I thought this was a MAJOR League baseball game...OK, I guess I'll take the single :-)

Oh my, Ichiro's OPS must be about 650. .315 OBP with 2 doubles...ack look at Winn's .300 OBP with 5 doubles. Is his OPS even .600? What a top of the order!

Whoa, look at Nix. .400 OBP with power – and batting seventh. It's not looking to good for Joel with another walk. We took a seat in the top row of 147 down the first base line. I like these seats since there's usually not many people around. I'm getting more and more like my Dad as I get older. He just could not handle full stadiums. The worst thing was that he started planning our exit strategy pretty much as soon as we got there. We would drive two hours to see a game in Baltimore (Memorial Stadium) and he'd want to leave in the seventh to "beat the traffic." I've already told my daughter to just start making fun of me if I ever do that to her. Wow, three quick outs for Joel and now the M's have some real hitters coming up. Uh, so much for that with a Boone first pitch double-play.

John:

Yesterday I parked farther away from the stadium than I ever did, brought in my own food, bought no souvenirs and 1 drink.

Do you think the M's even bother to see if lowering prices would bring in more revenue? I don't think they are smart enough to try it. The North Seahawks stadium lot used to charge $10 to park for M's games and the lot was always around 3/4 full about 10 minutes before game time on Sundays. Last year they went up to $15. Walking through the lot yesterday (no, we didn't park there) my 12 year old daughter, who attends with me 2 or 3 times a year noticed that the lot was barely 1/4 full. We then had a nice discussion on microeconomics and the laws of supply and demand. She quickly understood that there is no way this lot makes the money it used to make and the business wasn't running at anything close to maximizing it's revenue.

I also took some perverse pleasure in seeing the most sparsely attended 35,000 person crowd (announced) that I've ever seen. My guess was around 27 - 28k in actual attendance.

I did enjoy the pop up Ben & Jerry's segment on the score board. I also enjoyed Spezio contributing more offense in 2 days than Cirillo did in 2 years.

Other things I noticed...

Randy Winn has a limp noodle that rivals Bernie Williams attached to his shoulder.
John Olerud will earn his keep just scooping up wayward throws from SS and 3rd this year.
Spezio will field 3rd just fine. He'll make all the plays he should make. He won't be Greg Nettles.
Bloomquist is not adequate for a backup SS. Even to spell Aurilla occasionally.
Ben Davis now has at least an OBP, even if his average is still .000
Texas has a lot of hitters that can rake, and they are patient.
Joel needs to find the plate if he's going to take it to the next level. 110 pitches in 6&2/3rd, only 68 strikes. At the end of the 3rd he had as many balls as strikes thrown.
Ryan Drese has a nice compact wind up and delivery.
Winn should not be batting 2nd.
Boone is still a joy to watch in the field.
Michael Young is a heck of a SS, especially and a second baseman playing out of position.
Alphonso Soriano still swings at any breaking ball in the dirt once you get ahead in the count.

Mike:
It was good seeing you at the game...and good seeing two homeruns in an inning!

And Sand Frog provides an insurance run with another homer. Wow, we have to go to games more often! They just about doubled their season homer output in one inning!

And we made it to the end of the game! My kids were good and we had a good time.

John:
Katie was very happy that the M's won. She and her sisters have running commentary over the course of the season as to who is a good luck charm and who is a bad luck one. Life is much easier on Dad when all the kids are good luck charms. After watching the first 2 weeks of the season I don't think life is going to be easy for Dad this year :-)

Even after a win the walk back to the car is a lot longer than the walk to the stadium.

posted by John @ 9:38 AM