Jury Duty

My entire adult life I have been free of jury duty or even a notification, but that streak has ended. Today I opened the mail and found a jury selection questionnaire from Hawaii. I am a little surprised that the State of Hawaii would send me something like jury selection since they had to mail it to a Washington address, but I'm sure they wanted to give me every last chance to participate just in case I had my heart set on being in a jury. I really kind of wish that they had a selection box to check that indicates I am no longer a resident of the state of Hawaii, but sadly it's not an option. I hope this is an easy thing to get squared away and doesn't turn into some lame drawn out thing where I have to physically go there to prove I'm not living there; because that would be ridiculous. 

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

This last week me and the wife went to see two different baseball games here at our local Safeco Field. Neither Sam, my wife, or I had been to a game in over a decade, and we felt it was about time to see one. I had lost my childhood interest in baseball after player strikes, cable-viewing extortion, and steriod abuse scandals, but after some time I was willing to give baseball another shot.

Sam and I went to see the Boston Red Sox vs. Seattle Mariners, and Toronto Blue Jays vs. Seattle Mariners. Sam and I are both Boston Red Sox fans; Sam has been a life long fan, and I became a fan after watching a rather small-statcher rookie hit the first home-run of the 2007 World Series which for me was what baseball is all about. That rookie Red Sox player was Dustin Pedroia, and rather coincidentally is from Woodland, CA, my home-town. For the Red Sox Game I bought two tickets in the lower level 40 rows behind 3rd base which were the best seats Sam or I had ever had the chance to view a game from. The day of the Red Sox game we dawned our Red Sox attire and caught a bus downtown. Just on the short walk to Safeco Field from downtown it was surprising how many Red Sox fans were in attendance. Inside the game it was hard to tell if the home team was the Red Sox or the Mariners as it seemed to me there was at least a 50/50 mix of Red Sox fans and Mariner fans. Noise wise it was clear it was Bostons house that night as Mariners fans could barely be heard, and during the 7th inning stretch " the Red Soxs" was clearly heard over "the Mariners" in the traditional singing of 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game". It wasn't that the 1st place Red Sox were dominating the actual game, because they didn't; the Mariner's first batter Ichiro Suzuki hit a home-run on the very first pitch which kind of set the pace for the game. Red Sox fans are not easily deterred. We had hotdogs, Crackerjacks, Sam had Cotton-Candy and we watched the entire game only to have our team lose. On the bright side we did get to see hometown boy, Dustin Pedroia, hit a homerun, and that was pretty cool. When we took the bus home it stunk like stale beer, which I think was from other baseball fans filled with traditional liquid-fun, and we were able to complete our transit without incident. After having a pretty decent time at this game despite the loss to our favorite team we thought we would make the effort to attend another game before the season ended.

After only 4 days since our last visit to Safeco Field we were back for the Toronto Blue Jays vs Seattle Mariners game. Sam had signed us up to go to her companies annual baseball outing which came with a free company t-shirt to wear to the game, a free meal at the game, and of course free tickets to the game. The group seats were upper-level, but when the tickets are free I'm not going to complain; but honestly the view was still pretty good for upper-level. I took the bus downtown to meet up with Sam after work to have dinner, as we skipped the free meal; I've haven't had the best luck with free meals so we thought it best not to risk it. After dinner we made our way to the game. The game was fairly uneventful and not entirely interesting as both the home-team and the away -team suck donkey balls. Sadly whatever gusto the Mariners had when they beat the Red Sox it was clearly gone as the Blue Jays pummeled the Mariners. It was the quietest Major League Baseball game I've ever been to. We left the game in the 6th inning with no regrets, but still happy we went.

I just have to say it must suck hard to be a Mariners fan. I'm not saying Mariners fans suck, not at all, but I am saying the experience can't be very pleasant. It's not easy to be a fan of a losing team, and I know because I was a Sacramento Kings fan; and when I was a kid the Kings lost more than they won. I kind of felt bad for the Mariners fans at both games I attended because at both games the visiting teams had substantial fan representation, and the noise of the visiting team fans was noticeably louder than the home crowd. Where else does this happen? I've never experienced a sporting event where the home crowd didn't overwhelmingly out number the visiting team fans. I understand that the Mariners don't have a winning record and I agree that is a problem with getting the home crowd to the game, but I think the Mariners organization is going to have to reach out a lot more than they are now if they want people in the stands. As it appears now it is unclear what the Mariners mission is. It seems to me it would be better to have a ballpark filled at half-price than have 1/4 to a 1/3 of the park at full/current price. I believe that with a Safeco field full of people there is positive pressure on the Mariners to play well and not disappoint the fans. If nothing else I believe there is a fear factor of being booed by a very large group of fans. In this time of economic down turn I really think the Mariners are going to have to face facts that they are stink'n horrible and no one should pay to watch them play/lose, and after they get over their major league ego issues they then can show fans and potential fans they really really really want their attendance and give those fans a reason to make the effort to show up. To reiterate: the Mariners organization is failing to give local baseball fans a reason to be Mariners fans.