I know there are moms who’d rather die than spend Mother’s Day at a ball park, but I’ve been a baseball girl since — well probably before I was born. I wrote a little about it once for Seattle Metropolitan magazine, although that piece is more about my dad’s love of the game than mine. So today we went to Safeco Field for a game pitting the last place Mariners — who had dropped eight straight — against the only slightly less sucky Angels, who had been dropping games like fly balls until they came to Seattle. If we didn’t win this game, we would have dropped an entire home stand. And this is a team that was reputed to be pretty good. Oy!

Still, you go, you hope, you learn a few things. Here’s what I still know about baseball:

1. There are no bad seats at Safeco. The view below? From the upper half of the 300 level.

2. If it’s a warm day in Seattle, the wind off the sound will make it will be cold where the sun isn’t shining at Safeco. If it is a warm day in Seattle, it will be hot where the sun is shining. If it’s a cold day in Seattle, it will be hot where the sun is shining. If it’s a cold day in Seattle, it will be frigid where the sun isn’t shining. However, nothing here is ever as cold as Candlestick Park, anywhere, in any season.

3. Don’t believe anyone who says they don’t like kettle corn. They lie. It’s crack to the entire population of the world.

4. If you send Husband out with all the cash so he can find the Peanut Guy and get his warm peanuts, he will come back with a beer because he couldn’t find the peanut guy.

5. If you asked him to get you a taco salad at the same time, he will come back with his beer.

6. You can’t hear your phone ring in a ball park, so you don’t know that they are out of bowls for taco salad, and Husband doesn’t want to screw up and get something you don’t like. So he buys a beer. For himself. He does offer you a sip though.

7. Anyone who thinks we should have aluminum bats can’t hear. The sound of the crack of ball on wooden bat is a beautiful thing.

8. It doesn’t matter where the seats are, you can always see the ball better than the umpire.

9. If you don’t swing at a pitch, you have no chance of hitting it; and if you strike out looking twice in a row and are batting below the Mendoza line, the manager should sit you down. Dammit.

10. Griffey is still fun to watch. He’s a little older, a little slower, and God forbid someone should show him a fastball, but he’s got a sweet swing.

Oh, and we won, 8-1.