Marinerds, etc.

In a measure of solidarity to my friends in Tokyo who can only go to afternoon games, I also went to an afternoon game today at Safeco Field.

(Just kidding. Actually, I went to it because it happened to be convenient. But, for the record, as I write this post, I'm watching the Swallows-Dragons game over the internet, which is happening in the afternoon in Tokyo, and a bunch of my friends are there, and I can't tell you how wholly homesick I am for Jingu.)

Anyway, I got there about an hour and a half early, which gave me a lot of time to just look around. I'm amazed by "The Pen", the new bullpen area, mostly in that they have such wacky food now (a creperie? REALLY?) and they've taken down the screen between players and fans at the bullpen itself, so you're just that much closer to the guys warming up or hanging out in there. I was surprised that despite the "no autographs" sign, several fans got autographs from Aardsma and Pineda out there, and probably others. I do have to wonder whether anyone considers it dangerous not to have a barrier between fans and players -- I suppose they're operating on the Reasonable Person Principle, and if anyone DOES try to throw something at an opposing pitcher or something, there'll be a huge smackdown? Who knows.

I'm also amazed by how they've still managed to raise the prices of food even more around Safeco. It's like... $15 as a "combo" for a hotdog, popcorn, and soda? Really? I think that'd still only run you like $8 in Japan without a "discount".

So in the pre-game time, I watched the Tigers take BP, I watched Pineda throw in the bullpen, I got my ticket signed by Phil Coke and Brandon Inge (he's so delightfully dorky!), and then I watched Rick Porcello and Erik Bedard do their pre-game bullpens as well.

One surprising thing that happened was another fan stopped me in the bullpen like "Hey, were you allowed to bring in your dSLR? I was under the impression we can't anymore -- they say any camera with switchable lenses..." and I'm like "I have no clue. I haven't really been around here much in the last few years; the policy used to just be 'don't piss off the fans around you with your big clicky camera, or stick your big lens in their faces'..." So we talked for a bit and it sounds like basically, it's possible I wasn't supposed to have it, but since I didn't piss anyone off and this was a low-attendance afternoon game (there were apparently 13,339 people there), I guess I got away with it. I didn't really take many photos during the game, anyway, just beforehand, for the most part. Though the idea of not being able to bring my big camera makes me pretty sad.

Also, this entire bullpen thing makes me wonder: does anyone know where Brandon Buckley is now? The old A's bullpen catcher from a few years ago? He was a riot.

We got to see Carlos Peguero's first MLB at-bat in this game. Unfortunately, as I realized later, the reason why is because he was called up to replace Justin Smoak, who is on bereavement leave since his father just died of lung cancer yesterday. There was a moment of silence before the game today for him. I know from personal experience that having your dad die of lung cancer really truly sucks, and so my heart goes out to Justin and his family. It's not an easy thing to deal with by any means, even when you're prepared for it.

This game was pretty boring overall, to be honest, though. I think that part of it is just that I don't know what to do during MLB games anymore, since there's no organized cheering, so I just keep score and watch. Erik Bedard started for the Mariners and kind of sucked (LOTS of walks, plus giving up a homerun in the 2nd AB of the game). Rick Porcello started for Detroit and did not suck. I was already intrigued by Porcello as being a young up-and-coming star type of player (the Tigers seem to always have a few of those around), and so he didn't disappoint, at least.

Ryan Raburn hit a homer off Bedard as mentioned, to make it 1-0, and in the 3rd inning Austin Jackson walked and was batted in by Miguel Cabrera to make it 2-0. The Mariners halved that lead in the bottom of the 3rd when Jack Wilson singled and moved up on a groundout, and then Ichiro singled to right to bring Wilson in (and made it to 3rd base himself on a throwing error from right field), 2-1. Raburn walked in the 5th and came in on a Brennan Boesch single, 3-1.

Actually, the odd thing about the 5th inning was that it was the Chone Figgins Blooper Reel. I'm still not sure how he didn't get charged with any errors given that he did things like drop grounders, not throw the ball, etc. As if the shoddy fielding wasn't enough, the booing around me definitely hammered in that I wasn't in Japan anymore.

David Pauley pitched a fine final 4 innings after Bedard, though, aside from a few wild pitches.

Jose Valverde came in to close out the game in the bottom of the 9th and the most improbable thing ever happened: Adam Kennedy (!) hit a home run off of him, a neat little 354-foot shot into right field. 3-2. But that's pretty much all the Mariners got -- well, Michael Saunders hit a double, but everyone else that faced Valverde, including a pinch-hitting Milton Bradley (!?) struck out.

I still don't quite get how people think this is more exciting than Japanese baseball, but that's neither here nor there. You know what else was ridiculous? I saw a little boy get a baseball from a ball girl, which he came back up and showed off to his family like he was the hottest thing on earth for getting it. And then the ball girls changed in the 5th inning, and would you believe it, that same little boy went up there and got a SECOND ball from the other ball girl, edging out a bunch of other little kids who wanted them. How selfish is that? I realize that all's fair in love and ballhawking, but seriously, WTF? Half of me wonders if the kid decided to do it or if his parents told him to.

I stopped in at the team store after the game and bought an Ichiro birthday card that I'm going to send to my Hosei birthday doppleganger Kazuki Mishima, and tell him he better come play at the Japan-USA collegiate tourney this summer because I miss him and everyone else so much.

Anyway, photos...




Michael Pineda




David Aardsma, who I thought was supposed to be in Tacoma. Apparently not...




Erik Bedard






Rick Porcello


Thanks to commenters for pointing out that this is Tom Wilhelmsen. I'd actually read about him a little but just didn't know the face yet... I don't know the Mariners bullpen very well anymore now that they don't have cool former Fighters players.


More bullpen guys.


Brandon Inge signing for people.


My ticket. Whee.


Seriously, these prices! I was amazed when I asked a vendor walking by how much it was for a soft pretzel and he told me $4.75. Really? Shishkaberries are apparently up to $7 or $8 now, too? I'd give anything for a 1000-yen bento at this point.


Raburn's Tale of the Tape.


Peguero's "First MLB at-bat!"


Kennedy's Tale of the Tape.


Ichiro at 3rd base.


Jose Valverde.


Final score.


Well, the Swallows beat the Dragons 2-0 as Shohei Tateyama pitched a complete-game win because HE IS THE MAN! Apparently the Tsubamegun guys were up at the top of section D, but I didn't see them on TV. It's nice that I can watch some NPB games during the evening here, since they're going on during the daytime there. I'm annoyed, however, that the Pacific League TV thingy still won't let me pay them money so that I can watch games over their service.

I've also been following my normal college ball and high school ball circuits and keep meaning to write some posts about those; maybe I'll get to those soon. I had a whopping Nichidai San post in the works and the Spring Taikai finals are this coming weekend too.

Three weeks of glorious vacation in Seattle, where it's 72 degrees every day and not humid, and I have no set schedule of things to take up my time. Sounds great, right?

I had delusions of grandeur that I was going to spend my weekdays while Mike's at work just working on my backlog of baseball stuff to do, like going through and writing about all the high school games I attended before I came here, cropping tons of pictures, and planning out the trip I'm taking when I do go back to Japan next week.

Obviously, that didn't happen. I got pulled back into working on some stuff for a completely non-baseball-related event some friends are holding, and then also spent a lot of time going off and meeting friends for lunch, or doing some shopping for things I can't buy in Japan, such as clothes not intended for toothpick midget women. I find it amusing how I'm average here, but a huge tall pile of Amerikajin when I'm over there.

I have been watching bits and pieces of Koshien when I have time; I really wanted to see Kanto Daiichi and Waseda Jitsugyo (aka Soujitsu) since I actually saw them in the regional qualifiers, but so far only managed to see KD1. They crushed Sano Nichidai 9-2. Bizarrely, their foreign English teacher was interviewed over Asahi's TV feed -- I was super-jealous, I've always wished I knew how to get a job teaching at one of the powerhouse baseball schools. And as for Soujitsu, I had to miss their game last night, but they beat Kurashiki Shogyo 2-0 (and Yasuda-kun got two hits, yay). Their next game is against Chukyodai Chukyo, who I did make a point of watching because I wanted to see Isomura-kun again because I am a big dork, and they won 2-1 over Nanyo in a really close game.

If you want to read English recaps of all the Koshien games with play-by-play, as usual, the place to go is Edwin's blog. He's crazier than the rest of us, and was even up until 4am Pacific time for the end of the Asahikawa vs. Saga game yesterday. I've been trying to hang out a bit in the japanesebaseball.com Koshien chat room too, and trying to be more on-topic than I have been in the past.

So anyway, I went to a Mariners game last Wednesday, and am finally getting around to putting up any kind of post about it. I wasn't even going to bother watching the Mariners at all this trip, but I had something really really really important to do, which was to visit Brian Sweeney in the bullpen. When Brian first got called up by the Mariners, I sent out email to a bunch of my Fighters friends, and they pretty much all said "You have to go tell him a good 'GANBARE!!' for us when you go to Seattle!"

Of course, I nearly had a heart attack that morning when I checked the Mariners' website and it had a headline of "Mariners trade Sweeney to Phils". Fortunately, thank god, they meant MIKE Sweeney.

So, this game had the "Family Pack" ticket deal, so I ended up going with 6 other friends, as one guy figured out that if you had at least 4 people, it was cheaper to buy a ticket and voucher for a hot dog and drink than it was to just buy a ticket, so we did.

I wore a Chiba Lotte Marines t-shirt specifically because nobody in Seattle can ever tell that it doesn't actually say "Mariners" on it. Naturally, right outside the gate I ran into a Japanese dude from Chiba wearing a Kuroki #54 ticketholder neckstrap who immediately recognized my t-shirt, and we chatted in Japanese for a few minutes, much to the bewilderment of my friends, who couldn't figure out why someone would just come up and start talking to me like that.

Anyway, I went in earlier than the rest of our group, around 5:30, but Mariners batting practice was already over. And Rangers batting practice ALSO finished before 6pm, which is crazy early. The reason for this was that there was a Special Olympics softball game going on, which is kind of cool, but I spent most of that time still just wandering around the stadium -- it'd been a while since I'd gotten to just walk around the park and see what's there. I bought a few souvenirs for friends back in Japan, and I got my picture with the Moose again:



And I saw on the big screen coverage that Brian was being one of the batboys for the Special Olympics softball game -- a couple of Mariners and Rangers players were -- but by the time it was over, the ushers were being strict about who could go down and stand near the dugouts. Doh.

So I went to the bullpen and just hung out there until the pitchers came out. One of the coolest things ever was that the Mariners battery for the day was Doug Fister and Adam Moore. I had seen them as a battery once before... in Everett in 2006. I saw Fister's first pro game, and he pitched 5 perfect innings, and Moore was 2-for-4, and they were the two guys I was most impressed with that day, so it's really neat to see them in the bigs together again 4 years later.


Adam Moore, strapping on his catcher's gear


Doug Fister is still super-tall, but no high socks.

Actually, if you want to see some better bullpen shots, go look at Megan from Section 331's. It was funny, I saw her standing on the OF concourse with her camera aimed at the bullpen but didn't think she'd hear me or recognize me if I yelled up, so I didn't. Either way, I only had my pocket camera with me rather than my big one.


I was also happy to see that JJ Putz's pink backpack or a descendant thereof is still being used to bring out snacks and whatever to the bullpen, and of course, provide some mild rookie hazing. I have happy memories of watching Brandon Morrow walk across the field carrying it.


Looking into the bullpen during the top of the first inning. John Wetteland seems like a really good bullpen leader guy.

So anyway...

When the pitchers came into the bullpen, I was still stuck at the top half of the area because there had been a private party in the CF patio before the game, and the guards wouldn't let me down there. But, I yelled out to Brian, and he waved, and after the national anthem and after the bullpen had their meeting to high-five Doug Fister heading out to pitch and so on, Brian had me tap the guard and they let me come down to the lower fence.

First thing he says to me, of course: "What the heck are you doing wearing a Chiba Lotte Marines t-shirt? I would have thought you'd show up in a Fighters Morimoto shirt or something! I saw that 'Satozaki' on the back during the anthem..."

"Brian, you're the ONLY non-Japanese person in this entire stadium that can even tell that this shirt is missing an R. I think they all have 'Satozaki' confused with Kazuhiro Sasaki, who also wore #22..."

"Oh, you've got this all figured out, huh?"

But I put on my Mariners jersey anyway, and hung out for a while down by the bullpen until the middle of the first inning (fans aren't allowed to talk during innings, but before the game and between innings is okay). It was just really great to catch up with Brian for a bit, he's just as nice and funny as he was in Japan, and I did get to tell him that everyone in Japan wishes him good luck, and so on. And he was asking how I'm doing, how stuff is going back in Japan, etc. Seriously, I was really sad when he left the Fighters and I think it's beyond cool that he's pitching for the Mariners again.

And it was funny to hear about how they have a lot of the same pre-game stuff here as they do in Japan, at least the pre-game meetings and bullpen huddles and whatnot. It's just so unbelievably cool. I was tripping over words a lot, I think, because it was actually pretty crazy to be out by the bullpen chatting with an actual major league pitcher. I mean, Brian's still Brian, but now he's wearing an MLB uniform and there are a bazillion fans who speak English around, so the fact that he'll still come chat with me is really awesome :)

Anyway, I convinced him to take a silly photo so that I can relay back to the Fighters fans (and maybe players) that he returns their greetings...



I dunno, I figured this was a photo that nobody except me could take -- who else would have a Fighters mascot doll keychain on their bag?

But Brian was a pretty good sport about it. Seriously, he's got to be one of the nicest guys in baseball ever. Maybe it's a Sweeney thing, as a quick websearch on the string "nicest guys in baseball" uniformly comes up with Mike Sweeney.

I didn't want to bother him too much, so I went to my seat to catch up with my friends in the bottom of the first inning. None of them are huge baseball fans or anything, so when they asked where I was, I just said I'd been chatting with someone I knew from baseball in Japan.

And so there was a game. You can see the box score and wrapup on the Mariners site, really. The Rangers won 11-6. I took a few photos of events along the way...


Adam Moore hits a 2-run homer in the 3rd! This made the score 4-2 -- the first few innings actually were pretty close and it seemed like the Mariners might actually win the game.

Funnier, the guys behind me showed up in the 2nd inning, so one's like "Who hit the first home run of the game?" because they thought the #2 referred to the evening, not to the number of HRs Moore hit this year.


Immediately after that, Michael Saunders gets caught stealing second in a rundown. I start writing down "CS 2-6..." and trying to count who had it afterwards, and they helpfully put up the fielders on the board. Also, "Jumpin Jack Flash" Wilson lists his last read book as the Bible. I am not sure what that indicates.


See this thing in the wall? Can you guess what it is? It is what happens when Franklin Gutierrez makes a RIDICULOUS catch to steal a homer from Vladimir Guerrero. You can see a video of it from this article.

It's kinda funny that it happened on the same day that everyone was asking me about Masato Akamatsu's catch out in Hiroshima, I guess.


Guerrero lost his HR, but Murphy hit one shortly afterwards, to make it 6-5.


And this grand slam by Michael Young pretty much put the final nails in the win for Texas here, bringing the score to 11-6.


BUT I WAS REALLY HAPPY BECAUSE BRIAN SWEENEY PITCHED THE 8TH INNING!!!!!

No, really -- it was funny because I turn to one of my friends like "That's the guy I was talking to before the game!"

"What? You're kidding."

"Not kidding. He pitched for the Nippon Ham Fighters for 3 years in Japan. I used to cheer for him all the time in Japan too. But now I feel like if I get up and yell a good luck cheer and clap my hands, I'm going to get punched."


Brian pitched one inning and didn't give up any runs. He walked Nelson Cruz and gave up a single to David Murphy, but that was it! Very cool.

I applauded, but I think everyone around me thought I was crazy.


Anyway, yeah, the game ended around 10:30pm, which was pretty late.

I always have a tough time explaining the "Eighth Inning Exodus" to people in Japan, since beating the traffic isn't really an issue there, but this game went late enough that I could kind of understand it. The funny part is, if you wait long enough, you also end up beating the traffic as there's nobody left!

I was also able to wander into the "Mariners Wall of Fame" area behind the food court near home plate, and take some photos with stuff, since almost nobody was around:


Here's something they have set up so you can pretend to be Ichiro, which is exactly what a bunch of Japanese tourists were doing. Do I count as a Japanese tourist now?


One of the exhibits is a bunch of bats and gloves from former Mariners players. Since I was wearing a Johjima jersey, I got Mike to take this photo since I thought it'd be kind of cool.

Yeah.

Being at an MLB game is weird. I don't really know what to do most of the time without the organized cheering. I think I've been brainwashed.

On the other hand, it's a reasonable enough way to hang out with some friends for an evening, and it was really, really awesome to see Brian, and even luckier that I got to see him actually pitch! Hooray.

Or more like, a rant. Whatever, it's my birthday and I'll rant if I want to.

So, I went to Seattle for about a week as part of the Japanese holiday season known as Golden Week. Under normal circumstances, I spend Golden Week hiding in my house and/or going to college ballgames and other local stuff, and trying to avoid travelling or anything involving crowds, but this year I wanted to come spend some time with my boyfriend, who was crazy enough to take me to the Mariners game on Saturday. Which they lost 6-3:



I've been wanting to talk about the game for a few days, but it's really difficult. And really, it's not like anyone would be reading this blog to find out about a Mariners game any more at this point, so I can just rant without feeling any obligation to rant in a timely fashion.

There were two big things that were driving me nuts about being at this game:

1) No sense of being involved in the game, like a reason to actually BE there. I'm so used to Japan, where almost everyone who comes to the game has some emotional investment in either team, and I'm used to sitting in the outfield with a whole ton of people who are cheering and singing for each batter and hanging on every single pitch of the game. Without the ouendan, it's so quiet, relatively; all you can hear is booing, the murmur of people talking, occasional clapping, and uh, the cries of "BIG HUMONGOUS BEERS!" from certain beer vendors:



But seriously. I felt like I wasn't sure what to DO while watching the game. I used to say that baseball was a sport where it really was better to go to the stadium than to watch at home, but now I'm not so sure that it's quite so far apart as I once thought, at least, without cheering groups. Obviously there's a big difference between a full stadium and an empty stadium, and I'm sure players prefer being in the former, but for the most part, how exactly do people "support" a team in the US, really? I'm pretty sure that buying a jersey and showing up and yelling obscenities at the opposing team is not really the way to go.

I've been told that I should probably consider becoming a Sounders fan when I move back to Seattle, if I want to continue cheering and yelling and singing with a big group of people during sports events.

2) Do any of these players actually give a shit about the game? Do they actually PRACTICE fielding? At ALL?

I mean, in Japan, if a player isn't giving their all, if they're not running out a grounder or hustling towards a fly ball, or throwing it in with all their might, or whatever, they'll probably get taken out of the game and berated by the manager, possibly sent down to the farm team, and you might even see them apologize to the fans for their lack of effort. (Actually, I guess that doesn't happen all that often anymore, but I also don't usually see players goofing off in the field in Japan.)

I was astounded by how many miscues happened in this game on both sides. Some were hard plays, but some were just guys being dumb or lazy. It started with Milton Bradley in the 2nd inning basically letting a ball just fall for a single in left field -- like he had briefly forgotten he was actually playing baseball or something. I mean, there was this ball, and it was landing in front of him, and suddenly he seemed to go "Shit, I'm an outfielder, I need to uh, catch that?"

Supposedly, he thought Gutierrez was going to get it. So what? You run towards it anyway for backup. What if something happens to Guti? There's no excuse for that play. And the kicker? It wasn't called an error.

Then, right after making a fantastic field of a bunt, Michael Young let a ball go through him at 3B (also not called an error). The next half-inning, Jose Lopez repaid the favor by throwing the ball over first base, but apparently that ALSO wasn't an error. The guy in front of me claims that Matt Treanor might have been safe even if the throw hadn't been towards the upper deck, and it only would have been called an error if he got an extra base on the play, which he didn't. But he didn't get an extra base on the play because he ran through first and didn't even stop to turn around and see what was going on. And then some people yelled about interference. Whatever.

Elvis Andrus, two batters later, hit a grounder to short, and Jack Wilson picked up the ball, went to throw it to first, and literally dropped the ball on the ground behind him. Huh? (And why is the play not at second anyway?)

I finally got to write down the 6th or 7th error of the game as an actual error in the bottom of the 4th when another grounder to third didn't make it successfully to first base. Hooray!

Now here's something more messed up: Michael Young booted another grounder through first base, and it ended up going into the stands, and that was called an error. Fine. But then Gutierrez bunted, and the pitcher and the first baseman both charged the play -- and Ian Kinsler DIDN'T GO COVER FIRST, so the pitcher and 1B are standing there with the ball like "...who's on first?". I guess not bothering to work out who covers what play is also not an error, or a mistake at all?

The last play of the game that pissed me off was in the top of the 8th, where Julio Borbon was standing on second and Michael Young singled to center, and Gutierrez just kind of stood there with the ball for a second or two, waited for all the runners to be safe, and then threw it in. I fail to understand that one either. "Shit, there's no play at home" doesn't really fly for me; let a relay man deal with it then, you can still get the dude running from 1st to 3rd.

And as for "WTF is going on" moments on the field, someone's got to tell me why Vladimir Guerrero even thought about trying to steal second base in the 3rd inning.

Yeah.

Anyway...

I wonder why there's this perception that the MLB is so exciting, and that Japanese baseball is boring compared to it? I mean, in the MLB, so many of the players look so similar -- all around 6'2 or 6'3 and weighing 220-225 pounds, and built up so that they all pretty much look exactly the same when playing. Even before I moved to Japan, I always got really excited about players who were *different* in some way. I loved sidearmers and submariners, and guys who had different batting stances from the norm. Or guys who were only 5'9 and managed to make it to the show anyway, or guys who were 6'9 and had to wear high socks in the minors (I'm looking at YOU, Doug Fister).

I love how in Japan I don't even necessarily need to see a player's uniform number to know who they are, because I can recognize a lot of them from their build and their play style. With the Fighters, we usually see a pinch-hitter coming in all the way from the outfield, but it's not hard to tell who it is just by seeing the guy. It's odd, but for a country which is known for homogeneity and for everything being and looking the same, what I love about the baseball here is how unique every player is, and how you get to know a lot more about them and their history and their personality than you would with an MLB player.

I suppose a lot of people in the US don't really care about that kind of thing. And worse, because of how much money the players make and how elevated the celebrity status is, as well as how much they can get in trouble for interacting with fans (ie, photos from parties getting out on the internet, or even worse in some cases, like some of the things that used to surface here), that there's more of a wall up between them, and the players probably guard their personal lives even more than they would otherwise. But here in Japan, it is not really that impossible to meet a player if you really want to.

(Heck, this morning at my school, I had brought my Hichori Morimoto folder with me to a class of 7th-graders, and not only were we sharing stories about going to his parents' yakiniku restaurant which is relatively near here, but one of the other kids told me about another Teikyo HS grad named Takaaki Matsumoto who plays for the Hiroshima Carp now -- and who grew up 4 blocks from the JHS I teach at, and his parents run a restaurant there too. I knew he was Teikyo, but had no clue he was from this area!)

I get the feeling that most people who call Japanese baseball boring do so because they don't really know who the players are or any of the rituals behind the game, and if they learned about it, they'd see that it's just as interesting, if not moreso, than the American version.

So on another note, the player I was most excited to see in the game was this guy, Darren O'Day:



Since he came up to the pros after I left for Japan, I had barely really heard about him at all. But he's a sidearmer! And even better, he has some crazy stuff in his past. Like, apparently the day the Rangers claimed him off waivers, they put him in a major-league game and he didn't even have a uniform and he wore someone else's. And in another article it turns out he's got a bit of an intellectual side; apparently he studied to be a doctor, spent a significant amount of time working in hospitals and such, and that he basically had good medical school and law school test scores, but decided not to go in favor of trying professional baseball first. He picked his sidearm delivery up in his senior year at Florida as a way to get himself back onto the team, and went all the way to the college World Series.

I guess there are still interesting stories to be had in the majors sometimes.

And look who else I got to see play:



I didn't move to Seattle until 2002, so I've never been part of the Griffeymania. It vaguely reminds me of when Tatsunami was being the Uber-PH for the Chunichi Dragons last year, except I actually think Tatsunami was more likely to get a hit and help his team than Griffey is now. Still, I guess now I can say I've seen the guy play in a Seattle uniform.

Something I thought was funny is that they're giving away a "95 Slide" Griffey Bobblehead thingy to all fans 14 or under. But think about that -- by definition, those are all PEOPLE WHO WEREN'T ALIVE WHEN GRIFFEY'S SLIDE EVEN HAPPENED! Shouldn't it be a giveaway for "people who have lived in Seattle for at least 10 years"? I'm not sure how you'd prove that exactly.

And ranting side, I love the new scoreboard in left field, in full color and with the out-of-town scores on it:



I'm sure if I was back in the US and doing fantasy baseball again, this would be both the greatest thing ever and the worst thing ever -- greatest because I could keep up with all the other games going on, and worst, because I would never want to pay attention to the game going on in front of me. They not only show the score and the current pitchers, but also how many people are on base, and who is at-bat, and so on. It's pretty crazy. The display also looks quite nice for showing information about pitchers who come into the game or who are warming up in the bullpen.

On another note, I looked around the Mariners website just to try to get any context at all for what the heck is going on this year, and found an interesting article about Brett Merrick, who is an insurance salesman by day, and batting practice pitcher by night. The article is great and it's a really interesting story -- but me being me, I noticed they made a mistake in saying Tim Lincecum won two American League Cy Young Awards. I haven't even been living in the US for the last 3 years, and even *I* know that's wrong. Sigh.

Also, Eric Byrnes got DFAed, which is sad. I missed seeing him in a Mariners uniform by one day, apparently. It's a little sad because Byrnes was always one of my favorite A's players because he was just batshit crazy and always looked like he'd had a few too many cups of coffee on any given day.

On one final amusing note, I wanted a photo of us in front of Safeco Field...



The funny part is, I couldn't find anyone to take the shot. Every time I tried to approach anyone to ask, they either happened to walk off, or looked at me funny, or whatever.

Then I saw two Japanese guys walk by; one had a Hiroshima Carp Ogata #9 jersey and I had seen him in the Team Store a bit before, so I asked him in Japanese if he could take a photo, and he said sure! He took the photo (and knew EXACTLY what kind of "tourist shot" I wanted), and then commented on how I speak Japanese really well, so I explained I live in Tokyo and was just in Seattle for Golden Week. Turns out, so were these guys. They both live like 20 minutes from me and are huge baseball travellers. The Carp guy was actually from Hiroshima, and we talked about Colby Lewis and about Koichi Ogata and Tomonori Maeda and whatnot. It was great. I find it somewhat amusing that I feel more comfortable talking about baseball in Japanese than in English these days.

So, yeah, now I am back in Japan. Hooray?

Hey, I'm still alive, I've even been doing some baseball stuff over the last month or two and taking photos of things, it's just that I'm also... busy with more important things while back in the US. Last time I managed to get a blog entry in, I was still in Philadelphia spending time with my father for what might be the last time ever, and after that I managed to end up in NYC, Pittsburgh, and Chicago for a few days at a time until finding my way back here to Seattle; on Feb 3rd I'll be heading back to Japan. In the meantime, I'm trying to see a bazillion people and take care of a bazillion things, so baseblogging hasn't really been a priority.

However, today I went to Mariners Fan Fest, and took some photos, so I figured I'd put a few up here for fun. They're at the end of the post. I really don't entirely know who's on the team anymore, and I've already been to enough Fan Fests that I've done most of the activities around the stadium already, so I pretty much had four goals for today:

1) See someone I knew from the blogosphere
2) Listen to new GM Jack Zduriencik talk
3) Get Aaron Heilman's autograph
4) Get my photo with the Mariner Moose

And I managed to accomplish all four.

Goals 1 and 2 were achieved at the same time -- I woke up fairly late and didn't manage to get to Safeco until 12:30pm, which was just in time for Zduriencik's dugout panel. I made my way down to the dugout, and immediately spotted PositivePaul and his brother-in-law (and their cameras) there, so that was goal #1. And when I arrived, Rick Rizzs was interviewing Zduriencik, so that was goal #2.

As for GM-Z, or Z-man, or whatever -- Paul even asked him, "We have trouble spelling your name in the blogosphere, do you have a nickname?" -- he was very entertaining and candid with the crowd. He told some funny stories about how guys like Scott Boras will sell you old players or young players and go on about how great their age is, and also about player evaluation. It was also great to hear him say outright, "We work for you guys -- the fans are the ones paying our salaries, if you don't like the product on the field, then we're not doing our jobs." But at the same time he said that he's still sticking it to the players to get out there and get it done; all the front office can do is provide the talent to hopefully make it work.

After the Z-man was Lee Tinsley. I kind of wandered off after about 10 minutes of him, since the questions were getting kind of boring ("What do you do as a first base coach?" "How do you tell guys to steal second?" "Was Edgar the greatest player ever?").

Got some food, wandered around a bit, and came back in time for the panel with Gutierrez and Heilman, which was bookended by Dave Sims and Mike Blowers. It was overall pretty entertaining, although I'm not sure I learned much aside from that Heilman has a subtle sense of humor. Gutierrez got asked a lot of questions about being an outfielder and how he feels about the Mariners outfield ("it's great! I'll be between Ichiro and Endy Chavez, how cool is that?") and mentioned that Andres Galarraga was his baseball hero, and so on. Heilman said that he's a huge rock fan and loves Pearl Jam and so hopes that he'll fit in well with Seattle. Someone also had to ask him, "You look like such a nice boy-next-door type of guy. How can you make yourself be menacing on the mound?"

After that, since despite being super-late I'd managed to get autograph session vouchers when I came in, I wandered up to the Suite Level and waited in line for about 15 minutes for Heilman's autograph. I hadn't brought anything to get signed, but they actually provided photo cards, so that was pretty cool! I thought I'd end up being the super-lame person bugging him to sign my ticket. So, that was good. It was about 2:56 at that point, so I ran back around the stadium to the Terrace Club and also managed to get through the line for Gutierrez's signature, and they also had photo cards there. Cool.

I did wish both guys good luck and welcome to Seattle. Back when I was still living in the US and playing fantasy baseball, I often had Heilman on my rosters. He had the right combination of talent and a killer smile that fit into several of my teams, you see.

So, while waiting in line to achieve Goal #3, I asked one of the staff members where I could find the Mariner Moose, and it just so happened this lady was like the Moose Boss or something, so she radioed a few people and told me to head down to Section 103 when I got out of the autograph session and I could surely get my photo with the Moose. I did, and it wasn't a joke, the Moose had come back to the Moose Den. I felt kind of lame waiting in line along with families with kids and all (by this point I was going around alone), but I seriously had never gotten a photo with the Moose in all the years I lived here, so it seemed like something I really needed to do.

Having achieved all of my goals, and having no desire to sit around in the Last Fan Standing trivia room getting frustrated that I never get called up to the stage and yet always know more crap than the people up there, I headed to the Mariners Team Store and then home.

I think I'm glad I went, though I really wish they'd had Jeff Clement there, dammit.

Here are a few of the photos I took:



Announcer Rick Rizzs shares a laugh with general manager Jack Zduriencik. Or maybe they're sharing some Z's.


Lee Tinsley... I think he was reacting to a question like "Would you tell Ken Griffey Jr. to steal if you were coaching him?"


Dave Sims.




Franklin Gutierrez.


Aaron Heilman had his sunglasses on for most of the panel.


Then he woke up.


Mike Blowers was standing off to the side making weird faces for most of it, I swear.


Fanfest view from centerfield. You can see the onfield activities and the colored tags in the seats for people interested in season tickets.


Me and the Moose, in the Moose Den. Yay.


These were the photo cards I got autographed. Mostly because I want to make Metsgrrl jealous.


I will tell you one thing, after thinking about it today quite a bit: I don't hate the Putz trade anywhere near as much as I despise the Bedard trade. Sorry, but it still hasn't really sunk in with me that George Sherrill is really gone. Sigh.