Diamond Clubs Are a Girl's Best Friend.

So I had a landmark birthday a couple weeks ago, and as a gift, Scott made one of my dreams come true, and that was to see a Mariners game from excellent, close seats (and sitting 7 feet from our 56" HD TV doesn't count). So, he surprised me with a couple tickets to sit in The Diamond Club at Safeco Field, right behind home plate. It was.. in a word, awesome. It was easily the closest I've sat at a game. Usually we sit in the upper deck somewhere, or in the cheapo outfield bleachers. But not this time. Here we were, a mere 30 feet or so behind home plate. We could practically smell the player sweat (or maybe that was the garlic fries).

Okay, so I admit, I don't dream real big, but it was still something i'd always wanted to do, and in 30 years of Mariners fandom, never had. So this was a real cool experience. But the seats we're only part of it. One perk of the Diamond Club is all the free food and drinks you can eat. And we're not talkin' peanuts and popcorn either, though there's that too. When you enter the club, you're greeted by very friendly staff, seated to a reserved table, and welcome to help yourself to your choice of delicious foods. We didn't really indulge as much as we could have, but what we did have was delicious. And once we were done with that, we headed outside to check out our seats. Here's a few pics of the experience..

Inside the Diamond Club club.


The view from our seats. a mere 8 rows back. It's actually closer then it looks here. My cam has a wide lens.


The Huskies won the championship, so they were on hand to throw out the first pitch.


Yeah baby, sweet dugout closeness!


My favorite Mariner.


Felix Hernandez striking out the Twins' Mauer.


Woo hoo! Home run!


Ichiro striking a pose.


The Twins' Justin Morneau in the batters circle.


Extra innings..


Jose Lopez waiting his turn.


We're down, so pinch hitter Griffey comes in to try and save the day.


He tries, but ultimately we lose the game.


Regardless of the loss, it was such a cool place to sit and watch a game, it really didn't matter. Oh, and the best part was when we got home and checked the broadcast to see if we made it on TV. Well, we sorta did. Apparantly the 8th row just barely makes it into the frame on TV, so you can see Scott's arm occasionally, and once in a while our torsos. We found it pretty funny that we thought we'd be visible in alot of the home plate shots, but it turns out when we are, our heads are cut off by the top of the frame. Good times..