I had an entirely pleasant evening in Seattle and all I have to prove it is this silly picture of me trying to look like Drunken Dale Thayer

I’ve been visiting my best friend Matt, who now lives in in Spokane, Washington, for the last few days. Yesterday, we drove through the Cascades and into Seattle. We ate at a cheap and delicious noodle place for lunch, then wandered around downtown, eventually making our way down First Avenue to the “famous” Triangle Pub. Before we got to the pub, we ran into my fellow NotGraphs-er Patrick Dubuque, and then, in the pub, the young and dapper Kyle Davis, whom some of you might know as one of FanGraphs most supportive readers, and whom you should know as baseball blogger if you do not already, was waiting for us in the sun-drenched triangle part of the Triangle, which we monopolized for the next two hours, drinking, alternately, local IPAs and cheap happy-hour Rainiers.

We talked about Seattle, how the city has changed since Patrick was a kid, neighborhoods to avoid (based on density of douchebags — not based on crime or anything like that), the shittiness of The Killing (one of the few television shows set in Seattle).

But mostly, we talked about baseball. Kyle can’t help be infuriated by certain baseball traditionalists on Twitter; Patrick prefers the Mariners logo from a time when the team “wasn’t charming, so nobody likes this logo.”

Near gametime, we walked towards Safeco Field, where Patrick, Matt, and I would watch the Mariners trounce the Angels, mostly while not sitting in our seats. Standing beyond the centerfield wall, Patrick named several “Milwaukee Brewers Past and Gone,” to which Matt and I were to provide our visceral reactions. Throughout the evening, we lamented what might be the last Major League start of the always animated Munemori Kawasaki, who, from what we could tell, walks up to the plate to a song by indie rockers Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes.

Mike Trout struck out three times.

At the end of the game, Patrick departed unceremoniously, like Kyle had done before the game; Matt and I wandered back towards downtown, commenting on architecture, oggling the space needle from a distance.

I’m horrible with taking pictures. I would have liked to get a picture of us all in that sun-drenched triangle, or one of the space needle from where Matt and I stopped in our tracks at the top of a hill on 2nd Avenue. Hell, I would have filmed the four of us walking down that alley that led to Safeco. But the only picture I actually had taken was this one of me, leaning against the Gaylord Perry panel in “the Pen,” attempting to look like a drunken Dale Thayer.

Bauskie needs another brewski, haha.

This is all to say, the way that I enjoy baseball has changed thanks to the baseball blogging community. I can show up in just about any Major League city now and meet up with someone to talk baseball with, to attend a game with. I’ll learn something from them — about baseball, about a city, about writing, about beer. Thanks to the blogging community, lots of cool stats are readily available for free, lots of awesome research has been done, more great writing has been produced, but it’s also a place where people can connect about their love of the game in new ways, and that’s the greatest boon.

This has been another overly earnest piece that wouldn’t exist if not for the blogosphere.