Afternoon Delight

STADIUM BOUND: This afternoon we made our way to a bus stop atop our hill. There, we were waiting on the #24 - the bus that takes us to our happy place. Safeco Field. (Happy coincidence, Ken Griffey Junior's number was 24.)

The bus was a bit late, but we made our way to 'our' seats just ahead of the first pitch.

Lucky for us, G&G decided to go to the game, too, and they were in the good, nice seats behind home plate. We made a bee line to meet them,and let's just say we seriously self-upgraded our cheap 'weather day' student tickets ($12) and had the best view we've had in a looooong time!

The Rays had their young gun Chris Archer (above) going. Fortunately, Mr. Archer had a terrible first inning and it was 4-0 after one. 

However, the Rays kept plugging away and, to our chagrin, the Rays' Corey Dickerson hit a grand slam in the sixth, tying the game. The horror!

The Ms and Rays exchanged another run, and it was tied 5-5 after the regulation nine innings.

Fortunately, in the bottom of the 11th, Mariners catcher Chris Iannetti was the lead off batter. he walked up and smacked a home run to deep center field. Game over, Mariners win!

Meanwhile, in other ballpark shenanigans, the kids and Christian celebrated Ken Griffey Jr. during the middle of the fifth inning. All season long, the city is celebrating Junior's election to the Hall of Fame.

Here's the big screen version of the kids and Christian celebrating Griffey (they're above the "to Cooperstown."

One thing I learned today I'd never known despite my dozens upon dozens of trips to the stadium is that the baseball player depicted in the cast iron end of every row of seats in the stadium is Fred Hutchinson. 

Annabelle informed us of that fact today. She said while she was out and about, she saw a sign in the stadium sharing the fact.

These days, you hear "Hutchinson" in Seattle and you think hospital. While I'd also remembered hearing he was an athlete, until today, I had no idea just how big a deal "Hutch" was in baseball.

A pitcher - and sometimes pinch hitter! - he played for the Detroit Tigers for years, and then went on to be a manager for three MLB teams, including the pennant-contending Reds. However, he was stricken with cancer in his early 40s, while he was the manager of the then pennant contending Cincinatti Reds, and died at 45. 

Fred Hutchinson's surgeon brother, Dr. William Hutchinson (1909–1997), created the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, as a division of the Pacific Northwest Research Foundation.