My wife and I started going to Mariner’s Fan Fest in 2004 before we even had any kids. Now we have 3 daughters Gracie (has been to 8 fan fests), Malia (has been to 5), and Avery (has been to 2). It’s one of our favorite weekends of the year. The reason we started going was to try to get a few autographs and do stuff at the stadium that you would normally not have a chance to see or do. We have pitched from the bullpens, hit balls from the outfield into the bleacher seats, seen the home and visiting locker rooms. Besides getting the autographs I think my favorite thing to do is run the bases with my girls but we always have to stop and get a picture from 2nd base.
THANK YOU
This year was by far the most players that have been at Fan Fest since I started going, 16 in all. Big thanks to all the players that came. Not only do they sign autographs but they stroll around the stadium to stop and interact with the fans. Josh and I were walking around the stadium and I noticed Eric Wedge talking and taking photos with fans. Then he got in a bouncy house line with his wife so his kids could go play. That’s awesome and goes way beyond just showing up signing a few autographs and answering a few questions.
Also I would like to thank my wife, mom & dad in law, sister in law and 4 little beautiful girls for helping Josh and I to get the autographs. Without you guys we wouldn’t have gotten half of what we did get.
THE FAN FEST EVENT
This year there was 2 new things at fan fest. The zip line (which I had zero interest in since I am not a fan of heights) and a spot where you can go and get a picture with a player. I went up to the player photo area with Avery while my wife Leah went to the zip line with Gracie and Malia. Avery got to get her first picture with a player, Kyle Seager. Gracie and Malia had gotten a picture taken with Seager at 2011 Fan Fest so it’s cool that Avery got a chance this year. Also this year I figured out how to use Twitter and it was fun tweeting at the stadium and posting pics.
It seemed like there was a lot more people this year then in the past and there was. A record 17,952 attended this year, breaking the previous high of 17,299 in 2010 and they almost doubled last years mark of 9,774.
BLAKE BEAVAN
So if you read my blog post “A Mistake and A Solution” you would know one of the things I was looking forward to at Fan Fest was righting a wrong I made at last years Fan Fest. I gave Casper Wells a Mariners Magazine to sign but he wasn’t one of the players on the cover. He signed it anyways so I erased it. My mother in law was going to the Beavan line so I gave her the magazine. I wasn’t worried about it because I figured Beavan would see himself and sign by him just like the 3 other players did, Kyle Seager, Mike Carp, Trayvon Robinson. I was wrong because for some reason he signed by Dustin Ackley. I don’t know if he forgot what he looked like or what but I will have to fix the magazine again and try to get him to sign it this year at the stadium or at Spring Training next year.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
As usual Fan Fest was a ton of fun and we have new fun stories to tell. We got to spend 10 hours inside Safeco Field talking baseball with baseball fans. Everything that happened at Safeco Field was awesome. The hotel we stayed at was a different story. The hotel its self was fine but we happened to be there on the wrong weekend. There was a cheerleaders competition nearby so there was probably a couple hundred girls at the hotel. Also I believed I got food poisoning Saturday Night because I spent most the night in the bathroom. I have always said it would take something big to keep me away from Fan Fest. Well food poisoning wasn’t big enough because Josh and I still got to the stadium 2 hours early Sunday morning.
AUTOGRAPH BREAKDOWN
67 total autographs
50 on 49 cards
3 on 2 baseballs
3 on 2 magazines
3 8×10 photos
8 ice cream mini helmets