Saturday, we took the whole family - grandparents, kids, etc - to a great Mariners game at the always amazing Safeco Field.

The Mariners came from behind to absolutely trounce the White Sox – and it was a ton of fun to watch! Weaver pitched well, and my mother-in-law got to see her favorite JJ Putz close. (Wanna know what Putz means in Yiddish? You should google it. Thanks, Mary!)

There were home runs, spectacular catches, strike outs and stolen bases. There was a gang of ten year olds in front of us, there for a birthday party. There was a drunk-ish guys leading fan cheers – and he got the ten year olds revved up! (He got a birthday cupcake for his efforts.) There was a Japanese tour bus full of schoolkids down front, wildly waving their Ichiro is the Man banners – in Japanese. (My older son speaks & reads it and translated.)

Speaking of older son, he had some great baseball questions:

• Why does the closer pitch only one inning?
• Why is there a designated hitter?
• Why do we have to stand up during the seventh inning stretch?
• Why is the ball out of play when it’s hit into the stands? Why can’t a fan toss it back into play?
• Why is it a big deal when a bat breaks?
• Why is the food so expensive?

And my question – why is it completely impossible to get a taxi after the game? You’d think that the cab companies would WANT to take advantage of 40,000 spectators heading out on the town, but there was not a single cab to be found.

I’m starting to really enjoy baseball, at least in person. It was a really great game!

So after 24 years, the Cardinals won the World Series in a quick 5 games over the Detroit Tigers. As you can see, Panda is thrilled.

Seriously, though, I would imagine all the talk of this team will be how it is one of the worst to have ever won the Series, as they had the worst record ever for a championship team. Whatever. They came together when the needed to and took it to a team that on paper looked to run over them. Once again, that’s why they play the games.