Memorial Day May 31, 2016
My Dad was asked by the Mariner's to throw out the first pitch.
He has been very involved with the Puget Sound Honor Flight Organization and that is how this all came about. The veterans in this organization were honored at the field that day.
On our walk to the ferry this cute brunette came up to Dad and put her arm around him and thanked him for his service. They had a little chat. Then she came and found him on the ferry and asked to have her picture taken with him again.
A little while later this young sailor came up to Dad to talk. It was pretty special. He is from Saipan and that is where my Dad served in the Navy. This sailor left Saipan four years ago so they were able to talk about locations and a little Navy lingo type stuff. I don't know if it like this everywhere, but in the Pacific Northwest the people are so patriotic. It is really fabulous.
We walked to the official check in point.
We found the best place we could to record the big moment. First they rolled out a big red carpet for the veterans to walk out on. There were about 20 Veterans lining the 3rd and 1st base line.
Each Veteran was introduced by name, their military branch and rank. Each Veteran was projected on the big screen in the stadium. I didn't realize that at first. I just saw the tv screen where we were standing so I decided to take a picture of that screen. Here is my Dad during his big moment. He was doing a signal. He was a signalman in the Navy. He was a ham of course.
After the National Anthem, the Veterans were escorted from the field and Dad trotted out to the mound.
Here are all the links we have tracked so far:
Original Video from Mariners Facebook:
Fox Sports Interview in the seats at SafeCo:
King 5 Interview:
MLB Coverage:
ESPN coverage:
Then I realized he was up on the big screen in the stadium so I started taking pictures of that.
Here he is taking the mound.
Waving to the crowd.
All around.
This is the official MLB photo.
Do you see he brought a pen for autographs?
Dad requested to meet Edgar Martinez. This is them walking to the dug out to get his autograph.
I decided I better get a selfie before we left the game.
I really can't put into words the emotions of the day.
It's so fun to be his daughter. I love being able to say "That's my Dad!"
He is a great example to me that we can become better people in our lifetime.
I'm pretty excited that we get to have him live with us.
I'm hoping he rubs off on us in all the good ways.
2 comments:
He is such big news up here! We also saw him on KOMO 4 news, but the King 5 one was even better with the interview and showing him practicing pitching. We are all going to really miss him. I loved always running into him at the temple, and Keith would see him more often since he's Brownsville Ward's contact high councilor. He was Toby's cub scout leader and he took Luke under his wing as a home teaching companion. And we had hired him to do some work at our house years ago, I still can't believe he lifted our heavy french doors right over his head! I hope you keep us all posted with how he's doing. And it was so good to see YOU on Sunday! Hope you can post about your trip here.
And I LOVE saying that he's my Grandpa!!! I've mentioned him enough in Ogden that some people recognize his name!!!!! hahahahahaha!
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