Cactus League -- It's Started!

Spring-training started across the Valley yesterday for some teams. The Seattle Mariners kicked off the season with their first game today with their park mates, the San Diego Padres. The Padres and Mariners share one of the oldest Spring Training complexes in the Valley in the City of Peoria. The Peoria City Fathers have put an incredible amount of money -- several millions -- into the complex during this past year. They completely tore down and rebuilt the clubhouses and redid the fields.

It was a gorgeous day for a ball game. There were a few clouds, enough to keep the sun from being too hot. There were about 4000 people at the game and they all seemed to be enjoying it.

To make it an even better day, the Mariners won the game 7-1. We watched Rob Cano hit a single in his first at-bat as a Mariner. The first three runs came during the first two innings. As usual, in early Spring games, the regulars went back to the club house after the fourth inning and left the "youngsters" to play the rest of the game. That crew managed to get another four runs and held the Padres to just one.

We very nicely got a golf cart ride back through the parking lot to our car and headed home. We were doing great until we turned onto Shea Boulevard heading towards Highway 87. The seven miles we had to go took us over an hour and a half. We finally got to the scene where it looked like a pickup pulling a trailer collided with another pickup..