On January 6, 2016, Griffey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 99.32% of the vote, breaking the record previously held by Tom Seaver's 98.84% in 1992. A flag bearing Griffey's number 24 was flown from the Space Needle following the announcement. I was so excited to hear that and I thought maybe he would show up at the fanfest this year. He didn't.
We still wanted to go to fanfest anyway. I asked Ben about a month ago if this would be something he would like to do. We were both huge Mariner fans as kids, cheering on Dan Wilson, Ken Griffey Jr., Jay Buhner, Randy Johnson and Edgar Martinez. Ben said it would be awesome so we called his mom to see if she and Amy wanted to go. Then it got bigger and bigger by adding on Brad, his kids and then my mom and dad. That escalated quickly!
I saw the night before which Mariners and support staff would be there. My only interest was getting Dan Wilson's autograph but we had to get there somewhat early to get a voucher.
The morning of the event was chaos. Ben was on shift the night before and was screwed over by one of his co-workers the next morning which made him late getting over to my house. We left late and we arrived in Kent late but Trish and her car load was late meeting up with us at the junction. For some reason our communication was bad and they ended up in front of us by about 10 minutes. We just told her we would meet her at Safeco. The morning already fell apart.
We all got there and parked roughly at the same time. We parked on the northeast side of the field and she parked near the southwest. We were suppose to meet at the left field entrance but met up at home plate to get our autograph voucher.
I handed out our tickets and was disappointed Brad's other kid didn't come (now a ticket was going to go to waste) and I gave it the ticket guy who checked our tickets to get in. I said give it to someone who doesn't have a ticket...sorta like a pay it forward. He said he would do his best. We went in and looked at the banners and got ourselves a fanfest booklet of things that were happening inside the stadium. It looked like the Dan Wilson autograph vouchers were gone. Dang it!
I was then asked by one of the guys handing out vouchers for autographs. He asked me if I was looking for something in particular. I said, we were old school Mariner fans and was looking forward to meeting Dan Wilson. He looked at me and smiled, "I still have 7 vouchers left for Dan Wilson if you want them." "Are you serious?" I asked. He handed them over to me and I thanked him over and over again. He made our day.
We walked up the stairs and decided what to do first. We had about an hour to kill before we had to get in line to see Dan Wilson. We all split up and Ben and I wanted to be on the field so we walked the bases and went into the dugout, something I've wanted to do since the place opened in 1999. It was awesome. We took some pictures of us on second base and inside the dugouts. We thought this was a great place to start our fanfest adventure plus it ate away some of the time before we got in line for our autograph.
By the time we walked up the stairs it was time to go meet at the stairwell to the second level to get in line to go see Dan Wilson. I actually found everyone and we got up the stairs in one piece. We got to see him and got his autograph within a half hour. It was awesome actually getting to meet a Mariner in real life.
From there, we split up into little groups again and walked to the activities we wanted to do. Ben and I waited in line to go and throw in the outfield. That one took some time but it was fun to throw again. I had forgotten what it felt like to throw a baseball. I have been conditioned to throw softballs throughout most of my lifetime. I over threw Ben a few times. This was the first time I've played catch with him.
We walked over to the bullpen line and got to throw pitches. Ben's hardest throw was in the 30's and mine were in the 50's. Haha!
Then he wanted to go his balls off of a tee. The line wasn't too bad but first we guessed how many whiffle balls were inside this container in right center field. I guessed over 7,000 and Ben guessed between 1,500-2,000. I wonder if we will find out how many were really in there. We were given our cage assignment and I had Ben hit first. He almost hit one over the fence. Then mom called me and told me where they were. They were standing right around left center field watching us bat. I told them we would meet up when we were done batting.
I wanted to do one more event before it was time to go. This was the longest line we had to stand in the entire day. I wanted a picture of us standing at home plate with bats and helmets. While we waited, we got to listen to Dan Wilson talk to the crowd...and we had some rambunctious kids in front of us being silly. When it was our turn we took three pictures, one of us together and one of us by ourselves. It was an awesome experience and I am so glad it didn't rain.
We gathered up everyone and took a group picture before we all left. We had called Doug and Jenn to see if they wanted to meet up at the pier and eat some seafood at the Crab Pot.
Unfortunately Trish, Amy, Brad and Grace didn't make it down to the pier. Trish got frustrated with the directions and traffic and ended up going home. I was sad they didn't get to come. I was excited to eat dinner with everyone.
We walked back to the Escape and headed down towards the pier. I wasn't aware that the entire pier/viaduct was under construction. I haven't been down here in a while. Luckily there were still some parking spots available. Mom and dad wandered while we talked to Trish. We had to waste some time so Doug and Jenn could get there. Luckily we didn't have to wait that long.
We were seated quickly and our drinks and food came really fast as well. I was impressed. Dad, Doug and Ben ate the pile of seafood dinner, mom and I had fish and chips and Jenn had the crab mac n cheese. It was all delicious and fun that dad got to join us this time around.
We paid, said our goodbyes and walked back to the Escape. Traffic wasn't that bad and we got home before 8. Ben and I watched some of our shows and he had to be back home so he could go to work the next day.
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