camknows: First 2009 Mariners Game

We went to the Mariners game last night at Safeco Field. It was the first time we have attended this year. Bethany, Jelly, and I went with Keith, Joyce, and Tawnya. It was military appreciation night, but I didn't see any appreciation except for discount tickets. I was glad the tickets were cheap for watching a game versus my Los Angeles Angels.

Bethany picked me up from work so we could drive in the carpool lane to Seattle. Traffic is typically really bad before a ball game when coming from the eastside, so being able to use the HOV lanes is essential. We arrived at the stadium a bit early, but the gates were already open so we went in to walk around.

The center field entrance to Safeco Field.

Watching the Angels warm up from right field. There's Guerrero on the right.

We walked around the 100-level and stopped at the Nintendo Fan Network booth to rent a new DSi for free. Nintendo has a couple stalls at Safeco where you can rent a Nintendo DS, or bring in your own to download the Mariners Nintendo Fan Network. It's this really cool free app where you can watch the game streaming live on your DS, read about other games going on in MLB, and play games against other people with DSs in the stadium. It's a pretty sweet feature for Mariners fans as I believe we are the only city who gets to use this. Makes sense for a team that is owned by Nintendo of America. It's been around for a few years already, but it was our first time using the Fan Network because we had always forgotten to bring our DS. They just started renting them out for free this year, so we tried it out. The DSi rentals are only going on for three months. Nintendo made a deal this year with ESPN to add all the extra baseball coverage, as well as closed captioning to the PA announcements. Other neat stuff you can do with your DS is order food and have it delivered to your seat (for an additional charge), chat with other fans, and get live weather and traffic reports. The live streaming video looked pretty good. They just use the Fox Sports Northwest feed and the center field video screen during commercials, but there's about a three or four second delay. I actually kind of like the delay because if you want to see a pitch or hit again, you can just look down at your DS. You used to be able to buy a Mariners-themed DS Lite at the booths, but I think that was a limited edition. They might make some new ones for the DSi.

Watching the game live in real life and on DS.

Quality is pretty nice for wireless streaming.

Everything I could need for a great ballgame. You can tell that Safeco Field is really hurting for money because they have these hot dog, chips, and drink combos for only $5. It usually costs that much just for the hot dog.

The DSi using the Nintendo Fan Network in action.

As for the DSi itself, I got to play around with it a lot before the game. The camera is a nice feature and you can do a lot more with the photos than I thought you could. There's actually two cameras on it; one in between the two LCD screens, and the other on the back of the top panel. The screens are only slight bigger compared to the DS Lite. It also has a matte finish instead of glossy, but I'm not quite sure which one I like better. I do like how it is wider and a little thinner. Really fits well with the hands and fingers. There is a SD card slot and internal storage, but no GBA game slot for old games and DS Guitar Hero, which is why I still love my classic DS. Nevertheless, Nintendo will milk the DS for all its worth just like they did with Game Boy. If you have a DS already, I don't see any reason to buy the DSi. If you don't have a DS and have been wanting to get one, I would get the DSi.

The Angels were practicing out in the field so we walked down behind the visiting team's dugout and watched them hit and field from as close as you can get. Vladimir Guerrero was out there fielding despite his pectoral muscle injury. When we took Juliana to the games last year, she could track the players throwing the ball back and forth to each other. This year, she is able to actually see them hit and track the ball as it flew to the outfield. She had a great time watching the Angels practice. When we turned around to head back up to the main level, she got all wiggly in my arms wanting to go back and watch more.

Watching the Angels do some batting practice.

Guy setting up the cameras for the game. We did not get on camera during this game like we did last year, but we didn't try very hard.

I love my little girl despite her being a Mariners fan. ^_^

To calm her down, we went to the kids' playground which is located behind center field. On the way there, we ran into the Mariner Moose. Julie was a bit scared of him, but we got some pictures taken anyway. The playground was more for three and ups as it had a lot of high climbing and big slides, so Jelly was content with walking up and down the stairs.

Photographers are stationed randomly around the stadium to take your picture. Later, you go online and look up the photo and you can purchase it if you want to. It's a little expensive though. Apologies for the watermark. They obviously protect their photos so you can't just download them and print them yourself.

The Moose wanting a high five from Jelly. She knows how to serve them up, but was too scared.

"Do not want!"

Here is the professional photo of us with the Moose. Jelly = still not happy.

Here is the Moose getting the crowd excited. He was having one side yell "Let's go!" and our side yell "Mariners!"

Jelly loved going up and down the stairs of the playground. I did get her to go into the first section, but she didn't care for that too much. Also, the trains were really loud going by and she was not going to have any of that.

Sittin' on the stairs... looking mischievous.

Our seats were up in the 300 level behind home plate. I took Jelly up to the very top of the stadium to look out at the Puget Sound view. I'm not sure how much of the game itself she could see from up there, but she looked like she had a great time. We had a roof closed game due to really heavy rain and thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are quite rare in Seattle compared to most other cities in America because the temperature stays relatively cool and doesn't have too many dramatic changes. We had some great warm weather over the weekend, but a cold front moved in really fast from the northwest pushing the warm air up through itself. We could see the lightning flashes outside of the stadium and here the follow-up of the thunder booming. It shook the whole stadium. The fans got even more fired up. Some friends told me that it had hailed further south.

This is what you see when you look out of the southwest corner of the stadium on the 300 level. You can see the Puget Sound and the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

View from the very top middle of the stadium.

And this is the view from our actual seats.

I'm not going to get into the details of the game. You can read that here. The highlights were Pearl Jam's Mike McCready playing the national anthem on the guitar, Ken Griffey Jr. hitting his 615th home run during his first at bat, and my Angels winning 6-5. I don't think I've ever seen Griffey hit a home run in-person before. That was really neat.