File This Under ‘Glad We Did It; Won’t Likely Do It Again’

The drive to Seattle was distressingly traffic laden. Somehow, we found the stadium (it helps that it sticks up like a beacon), but had trouble with getting tickets and parking. We didn’t want to pay $30 (yes, that’s THIRTY dollars) to park and then discover the game was sold out. The streets around the stadium were filled with cops, pedestrians, and massive amounts of slow moving traffic. Amy popped out near the ticket sales and snagged two cheap seats ($18 each, all that was left) while Scott circled the block (which is not nearly as easy as it seems it ought to be). After a while, Scott came back around, and Amy signaled him wildly from the opposite side of the street that she had the tickets and he should park in the $20 garage he had just passed. With a nifty maneuver that irritated the officer nearby (the first of several of Seattle’s Parking Enforcement officials who had words for Scott), he went off to park. And then, to Amy’s surprise, came driving back out. Turns out he had no cash left and they didn’t take plastic. After much more irritating of police officers, Amy and Scott were reunited, and engaged in the search for a parking space. Finally, we found one that let us in for $30 (the next one was charging $40), and we were able to take many escalators to our nosebleed seats. Actually, the seats were pretty awesome.

A few quick impressions: Safeco is a very nice stadium. Even three rows from the top we felt like we were close to the action. Statistics are updated during the game in real time. Matsuzaka records an out, his innings pitched go up, his ERA down (though we do question the 107 MPH radar gun reading). Food was varied but expensive (Alaskan cod! $11.). Fans were generally very polite and there seemed to be less beer drinking.

Including $30 for parking, we spent a total of $81 for game, parking, and food. Not bad at all.

Video from our seats during the game.