FanPost Friday: Let’s Remember Some Baseball

The baseball offseason is always tough on baseball fans, but I can’t recall a more deflating one than this offseason. We’re in the third winter of the pandemic, there’s a labor lockout, and the Mariners are on the precipice of being a real contender in the American League during a time when we can’t even get hyped about offseason acquisitions. Right now is THE offseason where the team was poised to spend on free agents to amplify the current talent core and the nearly ready next crop of prospects. Thankfully the Mariners landed the reigning Cy Young winner Robbie Ray and the potentially solid Adam Frazier before the lockout started on December 2, 2021, but since then we’ve been left with nothing more to talk about, dream on, or get stoked about. And since the players and owners do not seem to be getting any closer to a resolution, the 2022 season is in danger of being delayed, shortened, or...(chucks bag of salt over shoulder and spits) potentially cancelled.

But alas, this is not intended to be a gloomy post. No, this is FanPost Friday, dammit! We’re going to talk about some baseball! The last week has been dry weather-wise in Seattle and the sun has been setting well after 5 PM at long last and whenever that starts happening, my stupid brain starts thinking about Spring Training and the fact that I’ll have baseball in the evenings to look forward to soon (hopefully).

Photo by DAN LEVINE/AFP via Getty Images

Since there hasn’t been much of anything zeitgeist-y to talk about regarding the Mariners, we’re diving into the past this week. Not the far-past, just the near-past. With all due respect to the Kingdome and the legendary moments that occurred there, we’re going to talk about the second and much fancier home of the Seattle Mariners, T-Mobile Park née Safeco Field.

Built during the boom of the retro ball park renaissance, the stadium hosted its first Mariners game on July 15, 1999, and since then the Mariners have won 929 games at home and lost 843 games (h/t to Zach Gottschalk for looking this up). That’s honestly better than I was expecting!

Today, though, we don’t have to focus on the outcome of games. I have a couple of prompt ideas for y’all to drop into the brand spanking new comment system (which I also want to thank everyone who has been enthusiastically trying it out since yesterday and giving us feedback, it’s really wonderful to see it even though I know the system is not perfect). In other words, today’s prompt is just about Good Baseball Vibes.

Prompts!

1. Tell us about your favorite experience, memory, or interaction at a Mariners game at Safeco Field/T-Mobile Park.
2. Or give us a ranking (top 3 or top 5) of the greatest, most memorable games or moments you’ve witnessed in person at Safeco Field/T-Mobile Park

That’s it! Just a real meatball pitch/hanging breaking ball to get your weekend started and remind us all that baseball DOES exist somewhere out there and will exist again here in our own back yards at some point and it’s okay to get excited about it if you want to. Take care of yourselves and be safe out there!

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