Kris's Covid Pandemic Blog

When I started this I called it Kris's Pandemic 2020 Blog. It NEVER occurred to me that I would still be writing a pandemic blog in October of 2021. Today I finally bit the bullet and renamed it. It no longer has years in it. I need to both keep my optimism about 2022 (optimism is a rare quality, I hoard as much as possible) and stay sane and in this reality. So this is officially my blog of...this Covid period...whatever that might mean. The baseball went predictably. The Mariners were really never in their last game and the teams they were up against both won so it ended up not mattering anyway. For the record, in the end the Yankees and the Red Sox ended in a tie and both qualified as wild card teams. The Blue Jays finished a game behind that and the Mariners finished a game behind the Blue Jays. All of those teams won 90+ games, a good record by any standard. The Red Sox eliminated the Yankees two days later in a playoff game (don't get me started on how dumb Major League B

 This blogging on Thursdays thing is going super well for me given that it's Saturday. I don't think I have time to go into my relationship with the Mariners, but I'll try to give it to you in a nutshell. 1977 the Mariners start as a professional baseball team in Seattle 1978 I was born Until 1988 the Mariners field a solidly mediocre at times abysmal expansion team in the concrete crypt that was the Kingdome. I have sense memories of walking those endless ramps in and out of there. My dad once gave us a choice of 3 games in the $5 seats or 5 games in the $3 seats and was proud of our fan cred and math skills. 1989 19-year-old Ken Griffey, Jr. debuts with the Mariners and my walls quickly fill with Griffey posters early 1990s were the Age of Griffey, with the father son duo and all star MVP and the locking down of my status as a Mariners fan (prior to Griffey I tended to root for the A's who had an AAA franchise in nearby Tacoma and whose stars I therefore knew well. Th