Tonight was the Seattle Mariners' Stitch n' Pitch game. It was a lot of fun, fairly surreal, and I may not have my hearing back until sometime next week. The people sitting directly behind me were VERY enthusiastic fans, and in addition to cheering at absolutely everything liked to wolf whistle. In that key that makes you curl up into the fetal position. At one point in the 9th inning I overheard the whistler say "Every time I whistle it makes them cringe. I'm going to do it again."
This was the first game I've been to without my Sweetie since I've started scoring games. I was a bit nervous, because I frequently turn to him for validation or how to score the wacky plays, and my safety net wouldn't be there. I did, however, encourage my Sweetie to keep an eye on the game and alert me to any bizarre plays that I would have likely scored incorrectly. Turns out that came in handy. In the 3rd inning there was a 3-4-1 play at first base - the ball had tipped off the first baseman's glove, the second baseman covered it and the pitcher made the play at first. From my vantage point I could not tell the first baseman had made any contact with the ball, it looked like it had just gone past him. (But, to my credit, when I got home and Sweetie mentioned that I had likely scored that play incorrectly, I knew exactly what play he was talking about.)
It was kinda nice to be the baseball expert for once. Usually when we go to games Sweetie is the baseball expert. Part of that is sexism in action, and part of that is the fact that he knows a lot more of the stuff that people like to talk about at games. But tonight, I got to be the one people asked questions to. I was able to talk about wild pitches, and pitching changes and other stuff like that. I even knew where Yuniesky Betancourt was from! (I was asked, and said I THOUGHT it was Cuba, but wasn't 100% sure, but turns out I was right!). That was a very fun feeling.
I also got some opportunity to feel a bit smug at times. There were several big, beautiful fly balls that got the crowd going wild hoping for a home run. The fact that there were three homers tonight didn't help things in that arena. But I know that in instances like that you watch the outfielders. For several of those plays they didn't even need to take a step to catch the ball and make the out.
There was a beautiful catch by Ichiro. Richie Sexson hit a long-bomb homer to center field, and Mark Kotsay ran up the center field wall attempting to field the ball. I will put exclamation points in my scorebook when defensive players make particularly spectacular plays. I considered a scorers note with an exclamation point the efforts he went through were so outstanding.
At the end of the day the Mariners lost, which is a bummer, but it was still a fun game.
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