So Long Dan, Rick, Randy, and 2026
Had family in town, so split the attention on this homestand between hosting and being a fan. Prior to these games, I took my family to a concert at the Crocodile and to the Kraken's first preseason game (a W but my macros don't support NHL records so you'll have to trust me on that without a pretty card graphic).
2026-09-22: HOU vs SEA
Astros
7
2026-09-23: HOU vs SEA
Astros
5
We sat just inside the 1B foul pole for this one, my dad had found a baseball glove at Goodwill a couple days before and was quite optimistic that he would catch a homer.
2026-09-24: LAA vs SEA
Angels
6
We sat in the terrace club. We got the Jimothy from Trattoria for dinner, it rocked, some sort of garlic cream pasta with slices of brisket.
Shame about the game, but it was a nice night with my parents.
2026-09-25: LAA vs SEA
Angels
7
This was a fireworks night! We sat in the high 300s on the 1B side, and two friends came along. My dad has a bad hip, so after the 3rd he went down to the usher and asked if any lower seats were available, they helped him to find a seat near the concourse level, total heroes.
Fireworks were great, friends were great, night was great.
2026-09-26: LAA vs SEA
Angels
4
Dad asked to sit in the front row of right field for this one, convinced that he was going to catch that homer this time. Having exhausted my season ticket credit, I turned to the resale markets to find him one. Checking out on Gametime was easy right up until my payment was never run because it turned out the seat was not actually available. They then proceeded to tell me I should look at all these other options, including the one I was trying to buy that was unavailable. I hate TicketMaster but I hate everyone else more.
We ended up in the second row of 106, and the family in front of us left in the 3rd so my extremely opportunistic dad slid down to hold the seats.
Randy was playing Center tonight, which was weird, but it was cool to see him interacting with the J-Rod Squad in his second-to-last game.
Good game, nice night.
2026-09-27: LAA vs SEA
Angels
3
Rizzs' last game, my parents and I sat on the first base line and listened to the radio on our phones.
In what may be the most Mariners thing that could happen to the man, the local AM radio station reverted away from carrying sports and over to carrying hyperconservative talk radio during Rick's final called inning, so consequently I still have only heard one out's worth of it from a few internet videos.
Good to see a win for the boys on their way out the door, will miss Randy and Rick and Dan.
Postseason Report
This sabbatical I attended 38 games, the Mariners held a 19-19 record in those games. There were 6269 gameplay minutes (104:29) in those games alone, although some I left early. That said, I usually showed up to the park about 2 hours prior to first pitch, so add in half of that (38h) for conservatism to estimate approx 8549 ballpark minutes this season total, north of 142 hours or more than 5 days in my happy place.
These stats are only from during my sabbatical, I went to many games on the weekends prior to my time off as well.
Food Winners
- Best Meals: smokehouse double burger from Big League Burger in the 300s, any of the pasta at Trattoria.
- Best Snacks: mac 'n cheese curry, popcorn.
- Best Drink: batch mule from 300 or the pen.
- Best Value: souvenir soda cup (easily over fifty coke zeroes this season).
Seat Winners
Every seat was great but these were my top this year:
- Front row of 106, right of center field.
- Terrace club, 3B side.
- First 5-ish rows, 300 level, infield.
Additional MVPs
- BelRed station free parking.
- Lax street parking enforcement by Bellevue near the BelRed station lot when it was full.
- No-stop security lines.
- Andrés Muñoz with 4 wins and 5 saves during my games.
- My new Crawford Steelheads jersey.