Mariners Moses Lake Part 6

As most know Ben is a HUGE Seattle Mariners fan. HUGE, is not entirely accurate. He is a bit obsessive, reading all sorts of blogs and knows every player and everything about them. HE tries to watch every game (even though we are in California), and sometimes flies to Washington just for a game. Yes. He is obsessive. But I'll give it to him, it is really his only obsession (other than politics). I always make fun of him for loving an ever failing team (sorry honey). Despite them losing all the time we are a Mariners family. Austin is Austin Marriner Jones for a reason other than being named for Marriner Wood Merril (ancestor). 
We had a great dialysis team. We all became friends and would chat about this and that. I always told them about wanting to write the Mariners to see if we could go to batting practice, or meet one of the players since Austin was such a huge fan. As time went by, including Austin's transplant and buying a house (more on that next post), I totally forgot about this. Until it was 5 weeks away from his first Mariners game. I contacted Jennifer at DaVita and she wrote a letter. It was a week and a half before the game and I still hadn't heard anything so I called my Aunt Vivian who works for the Mariners. She made some phone calls and sent me the number of an HR person that works for Mariners Cares (Jeri) and BAM! We were invited to go to a batting practice.
We showed up and Auntie Viv met us there, then Jeri came down and walked us onto the field. Well not actually on to the field, no one but players and coaches are allowed on the field, but we were able to go into the dugout, and Austin caught grounders in the dirt. We watched the players hit balls, and met Dave Sims the announcer as well as Casper Wells, Kevin Mellwood, John Jasso, and Blake Evan. It was pretty awesome. As you could imagine Austin thought it was amazing and Ben was in heaven. I was just so happy my boys were having a wonderful, once in a life time opportunity.
We then went up in the stands and watched the game with Ben's family right above third base. We wore our rally caps, met the moose, and watched Jasso get pied because he had the game hitting run! As you can tell from the pictures Austin was done by the end (it was a long day for him) but it was a memorable day with lots of fond memories of why this family love the M's.