Returning to where we left off

By Troy Foster

SEATTLE — I don’t know the exact date of the last Major League Baseball game I attended. It was probably sometime around 1990, near the end of boyhood. But what I am certain of was the location and the venue: Seattle’s Kingdome.

As our fledgling basecrawl gets off the ground, I’ve been contemplating my personal connection to baseball. It seems like a contradiction. Growing up, baseball was the most important thing in my life. But then somewhere along the way it stopped being important. I even came to loathe it. 

Why? I’m not sure, but I think I’ll find out. For me, this baseball road trip is sort of a quest to discover what happened to my relationship with my personal pastime.

Today I’ll be seeing my first Major League game in many years. It’s appropriate that it’s in the same city where I left off. But make no mistake: I was no Mariners fan. My father would bring me to Seattle every year for a three-game series to watch the Oakland A’s embarrass the Mariners. The A’s were my absolute obsession as a child. There’s a story behind that fanaticism, but I’ll save it for another day.

Things certainly have changed since I last saw a baseball game in Seattle. Bert and Ernie split up, the Cookie Monster eats fruit and vegetables and the Mariners no longer play in the Kingdome. From what fans here in Seattle are saying, the Mariners suck again, so at least that hasn’t changed. But I really, really miss the Kingdome.

And I’m outraged that it’s gone.

(There’s more on this and our other adventures at BaseCrawl.com.)