Seattle Mariners Opening Day; So, That Happened

As I mentioned, yesterday was a gorgeous day.  It was 70+ degrees, so after work I decided to go for a bike ride.  Went about 20 miles, then came home to watch my tivo’d broadcast of the Mariners season opener.  Did I mention I love opening day?  It’s awesome.  You know who doesn’t love it, though?  The FSNW broadcast crew.  The broadcast opened with a montage of the following scenes:

- Niehaus and Blowers sitting silently in the broadcast booth
- Graphics being displayed with no music or narration
- Niehaus and Blowers sitting silently in the broadcast booth
- Helpful FSNW tech putting a white sheet of paper in front of the camera to adjust the camera’s white balance.  In HD it looked to be 20 lb. bond.
- Niehaus and Blowers sitting silently in the broadcast booth
- Random shots of downtown Minneapolis
- Bonus audio: Niehaus yawning

And so on, for about four minutes.  It was really the perfect way to start the season, and I can’t actually explain why—it was hysterically funny yet not embarrassing for Niehaus or Blowers (no nose-picking, no swearing, they were just sitting there).  The broadcast then cut back to the studio and resumed as you would expect.

And then the game started, and it was a good game—I have long since given up on trying to decide whether this will be Felix’ breakout year or not, so I’m just enjoying one start at a time, and this start was a gem.  Granted, Minnesota isn’t exactly the 1927 Yankees, but Felix made it look easy, even after rolling his ankle trying to field a nubber down the first base line.

And then there was Junior.  I wrote, and I have read, many impassioned pleas for Seattle not to sign him—he’s not the player we need, he’s not the player we lost in 2000, etc.  And I still believe that they shouldn’t have signed him—but it’s a done deal, I’ll not complain about it again, and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t awesome to see Junior in a Mariners uniform again at the start of the game.   The fact that he hit a home run was just icing on the cake—and it made up for the, shall we say, interesting pursuit of a Nick Punto flyball in the 5th inning.  I want the homerun hitting Griffey, not the defensive Griffey, please.

And with that, we’re off on a 2009 season that promises to be…well, I don’t know what it promises to be, other than baseball every day.  Really, what else do you need?