Well, it’s still baseball and it’s still kind of …

By Troy Foster

SEATTLE — One down, 29 to go.

On Monday we saw the first game of our basecrawl — a 5-3 win by the Red Sox over the woebegone Mariners. We’ve been talking about this quest for more than a year, planning it for at least six months and carrying it now for five days. I had a lot of anxiety leading up to this project that carried through to the first pitch.

We spent two days in Seattle searching in vain for the Kingdome and stumbling through our equipment manuals. We also took a tour of Safeco Field, the abomination that replaced the Kingdome, and dropped in on several of Seattle’s notable sites: Pike Place, the Space Needle and Starbucks.

There were several bumps in the base path that added to my anxiety. No matter how many times I made my list and checked it twice, I knew I would forget to pack something. This time it was underpants. And because I was being nostalgic and wearing Oakland A’s gear while playing host to our first documentary video, the only clothes I changed in three days were my socks. I could literally smell my own stink, and so could everyone around me. 

So, anyway, when we found our seats in the center field nosebleeds and watched Felix Hernandez throw a strike on the first pitch, it was finally time to lean back and relax. As the Mariners retired the defending national champions in order to end the first inning, my thoughts weren’t on all the people we had met, the places we had been or all the stuff on my to-do list.

For the first time in a long time, I sat quietly and paid attention to the actual game on the field. It’s been more than 15 years since I’ve seen Major League Baseball up close and personal and I’ve often wondered how something so dear to me as a child could be so foreign now. What changed in me? What changed about baseball? As I wondered before, how did I lose touch with my pastime?

A lot has changed, but as I watched the Red Sox turn around and quickly retire the Mariners in order to end the first inning, I realized at least one thing that hasn’t: the actual game.

It’s still kind of boring. 

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