Monday, April 25, 2005

Seattle Day

I met my friend Krisanne at Safeco Field - a going away present to me was to attend this game! The Mariners won 9-1 and the game involved some unusual plays: one balk, and later, the Cleveland Indian's pitcher struggled and walked 5 batters in a row - filling the bases and then walking in two run for us!

Krisanne and I got into a discussion of unusual plays in baseball, and how rare it would be to see a perfect game, or a player hit the cycle. She mentioned the unassisted triple play might be the rarest of them all. In the baseball almanac I found there have been a total of 12 unassisted triple plays, while there have been 17 perfect games. I guess I won't hold my breath hoping to see both in the same game. ;) Instead, I might make a checklist of unusual plays, and carry it to future games.

Baseball Bat sculpture inside Safeco Field


I had a little time before volleyball, so I went over to Magnuson Park to wander around. It was a sunny windy day, so several people were out on Kite Hill... flying kites (imagine that!), and practicing canopy skills for skydiving?

Flying a giant kite.

This woman was filling her canopy with air, and then tugging on the strings before letting it fall back to the ground. I'm not really sure what she was doing, but it looked pretty cool.

Sharks!

Along one path are several "fins" from submarines. The name of this sculpture is "The Fin Project: From Swords to Plowshares".

The entire reason I decided to zip by Magnuson was to see the Sound Garden (the page also mentions the Fin Project) - a sculpture of pipes and vanes that hum as the wind blows through them. Yes, the rock band took their name from this musical sculpture. Unfortunately, I could only get close enough to see it from the other side of a fence - due to security concerns, there is no access on the weekend. This may seem really strange, but Sound Garden is technically located on NOAA property. I plan to return when I can walk through it and take pictures.

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