Game Report: Mariners vs. Rangers - Who Wants To Be A Millwood Heir?

I could write a game report from Saturday's game, but I spent most of it taking pictures, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Click on any to see the full photo set (and I've got more I could add, but I want to see what these look like on another monitor before recalibrating). Page 6 is the incident where the umpires actually changed the ruling on Ian Kinsler being safe at first in the 8th inning.



To be honest, it was a downright crappy day. I overslept and ended up driving down; then the route I usually take was unavailable due to construction up around Western and Denny. I got out of the car at the lot at about 12:25pm, and notice that it's cold, windy, possibly dripping a tiny bit of rain, and they're CLOSING THE STADIUM ROOF. So not only did I miss batting practice, but it was a grey cloudy day which already meant awful lighting, and then the roof closing was only going to frustrate me more.

However, I'd bought a ticket for 10 rows behind the Rangers dugout, figuring I might as well get a great seat to my last game of the year, plus the whole Kevin Millwood thing.

So I took a whole lot of pictures. Some of them actually came out well, though I took a bazillion of Michael Young and Mark Teixeira that didn't come out at all. I took an inordinate number of Felix, and of Millwood, but many didn't come out that well just due to the lighting. I took a lot of Ichiro and Kinsler just due to their high socks. And sadly, even at close range, getting a good shot of post-homerun high-fives is really sort of a pain. It's one of the things I'd like to work on next year -- maybe I'll even bother getting a faster lens. We'll see. That 18-200 VR is looking juicier and juicier every day.

The thing is, when you take 600 pictures, you're bound to get at least a few good ones. I'd say that about half the ones I put in this photoset almost evoke "good enough for Yahoo Sports" and the other half evoke "Ha, that's pretty funny". Maybe I'll reduce/reorder the set sometime later. I dunno.

Either way, this is most likely my final baseball photo set for the year except for my Japan pictures, which I was figuring on releasing during the offseason, maybe as a Friday Foto series, maybe something else. I do have a LOT of Friday Foto fodder this year, it seems, if people want me to do that again this year.

What can I say about the game? The Mariners won it 3-1. Millwood was lovely to watch, but Felix was even better. Beltre's home runs were fantastic. Seeing the umpires reverse the call on Kinsler was pretty bizarre. Seeing JJ Putz pitch a nice 9th was good. My only real complaint about the game was that it was too damn short, seriously -- if I'm going to bother buying a Box seat, I want to enjoy my view for more than just two hours, y'know?

It was really weird leaving the stadium after the game, too, realizing that I wouldn't be back there until April, except maybe for Fan Fest. Very sad.