We purposely planned our Spring Training trip late in the season for one reason: the Guardians would be playing the Seattle Mariners on Opening Day and my sister lives in Seattle! We bought our tickets back in December as soon as they went on sale and then planned our trip around today … our first Opening Day (away) game!

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday morning, we flew from Sky Harbor to SeaTac and were settled into my sister’s apartment in Lower Queen Anne around noon. She had to attend some afternoon video calls for work so I spent the time organizing and uploading all my photos from the trip. We ran out later to pick up groceries and such for the rest of the week and cooked dinner back at her place.

Wednesday and Thursday were working days for both of us. I was working on Eastern Time like I did last year when I came out for hockey (since Spring Training was cancelled by the lockout) so I was up at 5:00am and done at 2:00pm (but I was eating on Pacific Time). My sister had to actually go into her office so I was able to use her home office and desk to work which was nice.

Today (Thursday) was Opening Day 2023 for Major League Baseball and all 30 teams would be playing. Once my sister was done with work, we drove down to T-Mobile Park. The past few days had been unusually sunny for Seattle, but it was still cold (for me anyway, mid-50s) and the roof of T-Mobile was open. The crowds and lines were huge! We’d never been to an opening day game before, so it was quite the cool experience, especially since we had been at Spring Training games just a few days earlier. Ichiro was there, as was Edgar Martinez; and Ken Griffey, Jr. and Marshawn Lynch were among those throwing out the ceremonial first pitch. There was a sweet Army Ranger Apache helicopter flyover during the Star Spangled Banner (my video of it is here).

It was a cold, windy, 0-0 game, classic pitcher’s duel … until the bottom of the 8th inning when we saw our first pitch clock violation. Karinchak came in from the bullpen and threw two strikes before losing track of the time and got called for the violation, which counts as a ball. The crowd went nuts and that must have rattled him because his next pitch was a wild one that completely missed the catcher. Then he hit the next batter and gave up a 3-run home to Ty France which put the Mariners up 3-0. Ugh. It was all over after that … the loud Seattle crowd was into it and the Guardians couldn’t recover (unfortunately for the Mariners’ fans, though, Cleveland won the next 3 games of the series, so there!). The game was about 2 hours and 20 minutes, right about the average for what we saw in Arizona.

Getting out of the stadium was crazy. Once outside the gates, there was just one stairway that everyone was trying to crowd up to walk back to where most of the parking garages were. It took us about 30 minutes to get back to the car, and then another 20 or so to get out of the garage. Typical opening day crowds in the big city. 🙂 But man what an experience (even though the Guardians lost).

It was great to see baseball out west in March and April again, what a fun trip! Tomorrow I start heading home, but will be making a stop in Ohio to see my daughter perform in the OIPA Color Guard Championships before finally flying back to Tampa on Sunday morning. Whew!

It’s a new season, and these new rule changes will definitely make it interesting. Go Guardians!