What I wore: black Nike sneakers (same as the previous day), tan Levi's jeans (same as two days before), light red Arizona Cardinals t-shirt, faded blue Cardinals hat.
What I did beforehand: continued a multi-day conversation/argument on the phone with my older brother about whether St. Louis is the most racist place in the United States and how that impacts rooting for the Cardinals. (My argument, which I'm not sure my brother ultimately agreed with, involved a complicated, lengthy cooking analogy about how the basic ingredients of racism-- political disenfranchisement, economic oppression, threats of or actual violence by the police or white citizens, etc.-- exists everywhere in this country, but that each local area combines them in a slightly different recipe based upon local conditions. So while the racist stew dished out by the white people of St. Louis may be particularly repulsive, it's not necessarily all that different or worse than a similar city such as Cincinnati or Baltimore. My brother's argument involved a lengthy list of all the horrible things that have ever happened in St. Louis.)
Who went with me: my friends Dorothy and Paul, whose daughter went to preschool with my daughter almost twenty years ago.
How I got tickets: Mariners ticket office-- the friendly ticket agent helped me choose different but excellent seats for all three games.
Why I saw this game: I've loved the Cardinals ever since I was a little kid. There were a lot of other Cardinals fans there as well.
Pretty much everybody in red in this picture is a Cardinals fan.
Where I sat: section 245, row 2, seat 12. These seats were in the club section, which has it's own concessions area and padded, slightly-wider seats. There were ushers who would take your order and bring food to your seat if you wanted (we didn't). The bathrooms in our section, though, were some of the dirtiest I've ever seen at Safeco Field.
Things that were sad: one of my all-time favorite Mariners, injury-plagued Franklin Gutierrez, hit a three-run home run in the sixth inning to tie the game at 6-6.
Things that were funny: the Mariners gave all dads belated Fathers Day barbeque tongs.
If you weren't a dad, you couldn't get one
Things that were not funny: the people behind me had a long conversation with a young man who seemed to be some sort of relative (but maybe not a son) about how to choose a fraternity when he heads off to college.
What it is: a satisfying ending to a weekend spent watching baseball.
Who should see it: me and my friends and the chatty Mariners fan who sat in front of us who once worked for a year-and-a-half in St. Louis for the circulation department of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
What I saw on the way home: a lot of people were leaving Seattle Pride at the same time that the game ended, so the light rail was very crowded (but not as crowded as some train riders (who were telling people on the platform not to try to get on) seemed to think).
(Thanks to How Way Leads On To Way for the inspiration.)
