While it ended up being an UGLY night on the Safeco Field dirt for the hometown M's, plenty was positive. King Felix looked good the first inning, but who knew that his counterpart Bartolo Colon, would be freakin' Cy Young last night? I know the Mariners lineup can be anemic at times, but three hits against the A's? Last week in Oakland, we looked like the 1927 Yankees hitting the ball, and now nothing. Instead of me going all sad on them in game #9 of the season, let's check out the cool parts of last night's home opener.
It was the start of the 2000 season, and the Mariners had traded Ken Griffey Jr to Cincinnati. One of the players to come to Seattle was Mike Cameron. The kid had BIG shoes to fill because everybody loved Griffey. What does he do to start but rob Jeter of a HR in great fashion:
Cammy would patrol center field for the Mariners from 2000-2003 before leaving as a free agent. Mike was a big part of the 116 win team of 2001. One of the most lasting images in my mind was Mike and the team with the American flag at the mound after winning the AL West and honoring those lost in the 9-11 attacks.
Since leaving Seattle, Mike has been a Met, Padre, Brewer, Red Sox, and Marlin in those 8 years. He had signed with the Washington Nationals to play this season. Mike informed them before camp started that he was going to retire. Mike had not filed his paperwork with the league yet, and yesterday signed a one day contract to officially retire from baseball as a Seattle Mariner. While the Mariners had already announced that Mike would throw out the ceremonial first pitch last night, it was great to see the recently retired Mike have honor to throw the pitch to former teammate Ichiro Suzuki.
Another awesome sight to see at Safeco Field last night was a little tradition that the Mariners do at Friday home games. During the middle of an inning they do a promotion that let's a young kid run on the field, "steal" second base and run back off. Last night the young man to do the honor was 13 year old Kyle Smerer. As he pulled up second base, the umpire tried to scare him out of taking the base:
What Kyle didn't realize at first was that the umpire was no umpire at all. The man was none other that U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Steve Smerer--his dad. Sgt. Smerer had returned from Afghanistan from a 13 month deployment. The Mariners had planned this for the family but didn't tell Kyle. It really was a heart warming sight to watch last night considering nothing else was exciting on the field.
After last night's dismal performance, let's hope the hometown 9 can turn it around tonight. I don't know anything about the A's pitcher Tommy Milone tonight, but I want to see something out of Hector Noesi. We gave up a good young arm for him and he needs to step up and show us something.
