It's Another Great Day To Be An M's Fan

April 7, 2001

Still delirious over yesterday's win, I settled in to watch game 2 of this series with my dad and I notice early on that I'm going to become delirious with irritation over the hour it takes the home plate umpire to call anything. It's like here's the pitch and five minutes later he lets you know what it was, which I personally found exhausting; I can only imagine how horrendous the ballplayers must feel.

 So anyway, nothing noteworthy in the first except that Alex "Scott Boras Jr." Rodriguez made an out which I hope he continues making with an alarming frequency for at least the next 7 years and the second passes uneventfully and the third passes uneventfully and I'm kind of aghast that we are having somewhat of a pitching duel with the Texas "Ball Four!" Rangers.

Fourth inning. Mike "Griffey Who? Cameron singles. Edgar "Mr. Double" Martinez doubles to score him. The pitcher throws a semi-wild pitch that the catcher has to go a little out of his way to stop and my dad, who was plotting on how to get Edgar (who is not by any means a FAST runner) over to third base, says, "Yeah, throw it to the back stop… and then trip over the ump trying to get it" and we laugh uproariously over this but then it turned out not to matter as John "My, How That Little Country Boy Could Play" Olerud follows with a single of his own, but then we leave the two of them stranded.

Seattle "Who Says We Can't Hit-Have You Met Our DH?" Mariners leads 1-0 going into the bottom of the fourth. Texas suddenly comes alive, and much to my great horror Alex leads off with a double. I swear. We give up 2 homeruns. More swearing insued. Somewhere in the midst of it all John makes an error, and I am struck dumb for about a full minute because he NEVER DOES THAT. They keep hitting. I keep swearing. Lou "I Share Laura's Concerns About Our Starting Pitching" Piniella makes a pitching change. We get out of the inning, trailing 3-1.

Top of the fifth. We strike back with a little two out rally. Ichiro "Mighty Big Shoes To Fill In Rightfield, It's A Good Thing I'm So Likeable" Suzuki got an infield hit. Mike "Griffey Who?" Cameron doubled. They intentionally walk Edgar. I curse. My dad says, "Can you blame them?" and we giggle. Then John walks, which also walked in a run. 3-2 Texas. Bret "Welcome Home" Boone singled, scoring both Cammie and Edgar. We leave the inning 4-3 Seattle.

Nobody cares what Texas did then or in the sixth… or in the seventh… or in the eighth… since it was still 4-3 Seattle. Then in the ninth, we decided, "HEY! Two out rallies are fun, let's do it again!" and Edgar singled, and then John singled, and then Boone doubled and scored Edgar, and then Stan "Plays Hard Anywhere You Need Him To" Javier reached on an infield single and scored John and here we go into the bottom of the ninth leading it 6-3.

Unfortunately, Kazu "Hero" Sasaki had a little trouble, and with two men already on, A-Rod hits a double and scores two I suffer a small stroke and here we have a one run ballgame with one down, but he comes back strong and we win it, 6-5.

"We're a good team, but so are they. You don't play a team managed by Piniella and run by (Pat) Gillick and not respect it." -Johnny Oates, on playing the Mariners, (The News Tribune)