ICHIRO!!

Nice shot of the Moose vs Bullpen in the gallery.

To take this guy to the World Series. He freaking deserves it.

I just kept rewinding, rewinding, rewinding. And then I listened to Niehaus’s radio call 20+ times (AMAZING CALL).

It was almost a perfect storm of an event. I say ‘almost’ because this was not a playoff game nor did it have playoff implications for the Mariners. However, it was against the Yankees in late September. Every third person in the stadium was a Yankee fan. There were a ton of cheers when Hannahan and Carp struck out. Then Mike Sweeney kept the game alive with the long double.

But here is where it really came together. The crowd is pumped because the tying run is on second base and Ichiro is coming up— the night after he hit a walk-off single. On the first, which is key, the crowd is standing on their feet cheering loud to get into Mo’s head. And when that ball came off the bat EVERYONE knew it was gone. Immediately, 20,000 people turned to the Yankee fan sitting next to them and went nuts. It was important this happened on the first pitch because the crowd progressively gets less boastful as an at-bat continues. Ichiro took every ounce of energy in the stadium and put it in that one swing.

Just listening to the crowd’s reaction, both on TV and radio, is simply amazing. It sounds like a sellout during the playoffs at the Kingdome. Griffey may have been the only other person to induce that kind of moment. I love you, Ichiro. And thank you Felix for setting that moment up by pitching nine incredible innings.

I want to see a gif!!!!

The "mistake’’ was a cutter Rivera had hoped to bury deep inside. He didn’t get it in nearly enough.

“I didn’t get it where it was supposed to go.’’