…Barry Bonds achieved the highly media-hyped feat of tying for second place in one of baseball’s most revered statistics, I watched our slowly-improving Seattle Mariners take on the once-mighty San Diego Padres.

I’d been given some prime seats in the heart of “Area 51,” three rows from the right field fence. If I were gay I’d have enjoyed the many opportunities to peruse Ichiro’s backside.

The game was great. Mariner hitters drove six runs home. Gil Meche pitched seven brilliant innings prior to fading in the eighth, followed by a two-batter disaster for Eddie Guardado, in turn followed by four outs in five batters for new closer J.J. Putz.

Eight seasons into the Safeco Field era, and I’m still unused to the whole “real grass, real sunshine, real baseball” thang. I can’t help but feeling that a major league baseball game ought to take place within a huge but sterile-looking indoor space, where no annoying distractions such as sunny skies, creeping dusk, light breezes, luxurious concessions, or colorful signage divert one’s attention from the purity of the game. (Of course, during the Kingdome era the game’s many purists denounced the tepid spectacle that was indoor baseball on AstroTurf.)

Another aspect of the Safeco experience that differentiates it from the Dome: E-Z egress. Within one minute of the last put-out, I was heading down an escalator and out on lovely First Avenue South. At the Dome, you’d have endured five to ten minutes wandering down the exterior ramps along with scattered dozens of other dejected but expecting-it fans after a quiet spectacle of opposing-team home runs.