We’ve gone to some good baseball games but this one was awesome. The Angels are our biggest “rivals” right now in the AL West. It was a tight game, a pitchers duel. And the Mariners won!

We’ve been sitting in a lot of cheap seats lately but we’ve found the best deal. Brian found the $10 seats with the best views. It was Japanese baseball appreciation night. Everyone was decked out for Ichiro. Taiko drumming, free, ugly, MasterCard/Mariners shirts, tourists from our sister city of Kobe., and an interview of Johjima by Japanese school kids (adorable!). And Ichiro had a great game (a triple and some nice catches in center field). The Kobe Mayor threw the first pitch to Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols and managed to hit Nichols between the legs. Heehee

Note for non-baseball fans: Baseball is different from basketball. In the NBA, the majority (16 of 30) of teams make it into the play offs. Major League Baseball has 30 teams, divided into two divisions, American League and National League. Each is divided into 3 regions- west, central and east (making it 6 divisions total). For the playoffs, the team with the best record from each division gets in (6 teams) plus one wild card team from each League (2 teams). The wild card is the remaining team with the best winning percentage from each league.

The AL East is where the Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays, Orioles and the Devil Rays play. So only one of those teams gets into the playoffs by being the first place team in their division. The others have to duke it out with all of the other AL teams (west, central and east)to secure that one wild card spot. The playoffs begin in early October. So get ready to hear a lot of talk between now and October about win-loss records and the wild card race.

Go Mariners! Although Brian would say "Go Red Sox!"