Mariners FanFest 2014 Photo Gallery

The Home plate entrance to the House That Junior Built. Credit: Dan Hughes

The sun was out, the excitement was in the air, people were ready for baseball. The 2014 Seattle Mariners FanFest kicked off Saturday and I was there with one of my sons – the one who loves baseball.

The fans were gracious and excited. The staff was courteous and accommodating, the food was as good as it’s been. My only main complaint would be that the team allowed Season Ticket holders front-of-the-line access to all of the attractions.

This wasn’t an issue with most of the attractions, but it caused an absolute logjam at the zip line in the outfield. The wait time was between 90 minutes and 3 hours for the entire afternoon. Mostly because ST holders could walk right up to the front (sometimes in groups of as many as 10) and insert themselves in front of the 300+ people waiting in line.

My only other complaint is how they handled autograph sessions. Fans were allowed to choose one player/group per autograph session and there were two sessions in the day. Each session was limited to the first 450 fans. Here were the sessions:

Session 1:
Robinson Cano
Dan Wilson
Brad Miller/Mike Zunino
D.J. Peterson/Chris Taylor

Session 2:
Taijuan Walker
Michael Saunders/Tom Wilhelmsen
Logan Morrison/James Paxton
Stefen Romero/Carson Smith

Now choose just one in each group. Of course, Cano went fast. My son really wanted to meet Cano but understood why his tickets went fast. I wanted to meet Dan Wilson, so we both went to Wilson. But I talked to several people who were somehow able to cheat the system by getting in to Cano, Wilson and Miller/Zunino in the first session alone.

I just feel that this method needs to be tweaked. But enough of the negative. My overall experience was one of excitement and fun. My son and I had a blast. Here are some pics from Saturday.