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Geoff Baker covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times. He provides daily coverage of the team throughout spring training, and during the season.

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April 4, 2008 6:23 AM

Come along on M's road trip

Posted by Geoff Baker

Ever wanted to be an MLB beat writer but couldn't find the time? Well, now you can stick to your day job and come along with me for the first Mariners road trip of the season. I made it in here to Baltimore last night after my connecting flight from Newark, NJ got delayed by some four hours (last time I checked). Anyway, I called an audible and flew to Washington-Dulles Airport in Virginia instead. It wound up being a 100-minute ride to Baltimore from there, but it sure beats sitting around an airport all afternoon and possibly all night. Never did hear why the airline had no plane for us. That's the reality of air travel today, right? As I say in the video: "This is the kind of stuff that doesn't show up in the stats sheets." Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common experience for us. I used to travel on the team plane back in 1998 when I covered the Blue Jays, but that stuff went out of style 10 years ago. Newspapers try not to depend on the teams for their travel arrangements if they can help it.

In total, a 12-hour trip, door-to-door. Right now, it's stopped raining, but more is in the forecast. The Orioles got rained out last night. I'm dreading what's ahead. You'll see on the video footage just how bad the rain was and is expected to be at points this weekend. This reminds me of what happened in Cleveland last year. It's not snowing, but I'm sure the M's will do all they can to get all four games in here. Could make for some long days and nights. But anyway, in this video, I try to show you what a trip out to the East Coast looks like, how we pack and prepare. Not like taking a family vacation. This is work. Stuff has to be done before and after the flights, which is the only reason you're seeing this and watching the video. Enjoy.

p.s. -- For those of you asking what was on TV, calm down. It was some type of advertising reality show where they were checking out fashion of some sort in a boardroom to decide what slogan to go with. Seriously, stick to talking about Richie Sexson...or my cab bill, if you want. It was a flat-rate fare BTW, so the added minutes didn't really matter. Good thing.

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