Tour Takers

BALLFIELD FIELD TRIP: Monday means a field trip and today we had some special guests along - Grandma & Grandpa (a/k/a Judy & Eric) Richstad. Where would we go? Safeco Field of course. The Mariners' baseball season may be over but they give tours year round. And though we've all been to Safeco multiple times, the chance to go and see behind-the-scenes parts of the park was certainly a good enough reason for us to go.

The tour started in the team store where everything you can think of is emblazoned with a Mariners logo up for sale. From there, we caught the elevator up a floor to meet Ted, our tour guide. We darn near had a private tour - there were only three others in attendance (a couple from Australia and their baby).

We walked up to the concourse, and boy was it different looking than what we're used to. Missing were tens of thousands of fans in colorful garb, and no smells were wafting out of concession stands. There was no noise from the crowd or the PA speakers. Rather, it was eerily quiet, dark and cavernous. A lone groundskeeper limped around the infield and three young Japanese men were warming up near the home team dugout.

We toured several of the exclusive suites in the stadium where the high rollers hang out. We saw the visiting team's locker room, the press box, the Mariners' workout room, batting cages and the interview room where the team holds press conferences.


Pictured above, the Richstad/Kisky clan announces that Ken Griffey Junior has signed on for the 2010 season (don't we wish?)
Throughout the tour we saw all sorts of great baseball memorabilia and learned about the history of baseball in the Pacific Northwest, including women's and Negro League teams.

We definitely saw signs - and lots of them - that Major League Baseball is an international game. Most all of the signs were in Japanese as well as English (and there were a few signs in the locker room in Spanish, too). The Seattle Mariners are the only team in MLB with a majority owner from another country - in this case, the Nintendo Corp. of Japan.

CJ and Annabelle got to stand in the spot (deep within the bowels of the stadium)where people who throw out the ceremonial first pitch practice, and have a new appreciation for exactly how far (60 feet, 6 inches) it is from the pitching rubber to home plate.

We learned that there are tubes filled with warm water running underneath the grass at Safeco, so which help the turf grow year-round. We learned about the retractable roof, and the fact that it was retrofitted with an apron on the west/Puget Sound side in order to ensure the whole roof didn't rip off in high winds. (It's supposedly good for sustained wind of up to 90 mph now.)

And we learned that a lot more than baseball goes on at Safeco Field. There are over 300 events held there a year, including everything from weddings to proms to corporate get togethers.

After the tour, both kids said their favorite part was being able to go down on the field and hang out in the dugout, just like the real baseball players.

ANOTHER OUTING: Once we got back to the MPA campus, we headed for the hilltop and Ella Bailey Park. There, the kids got some good P.E. time.

ELECTRIFIED: Back home, we didn't break out the workbooks at all today. Instead, the kids watched Electric Company which, I am discovering, is really just about perfect for where they are reading-level wise. The show prompted CJ to want to go to their Web site. Once there, he played games including Chain Gang, where consonant blends are used to form multiple words. Perfect!
BROOM BOOK: This evening we read Room on the Broom, a cute story Annabelle got for her bday from G&G Richstad. In the story, an accident prone witch keeps losing items (her wand, her hair bow, her hat, etc.). Fortunately, she encounters critters (a frog, a dog, a bird, etc.) who help her recover the items and wind up coming along for the ride. CJ, Annabelle and I took turns reading pages aloud. Once the book was done, I asked them comprehension questions about which items the witch lost (and in what order). I did the same for the friends she encountered. They both were 100 percent on the item recall and sequencing, so I know they were comprehending what they read. Excellent!