It’s official. We will be hosted by the Mariners Friday, Sept. 29. Not in the owner’s box – but in a suite. I have asked for a real meeting. I need to send Mark a list of district administrators. I think the only change is in District 10. Please let me know so I can get an accurate list to Mark for invitations. You can use my personal email if it doesn’t need to be on the group chat. gpdickason@comcast.net. Interesting how memory works, however. When he told me he couldn’t get the owner’s box, so we could pretty much have any day we wanted, I told him we’d stick with “the usual” last Friday of September. I was sure we had always met on the last Friday of September, but I was really wrong. It turns out that only three times have we had the last Friday in September. – 2010, 2021 and 2022. Almost always since 1992 it has been the second Friday in September. I only have records in my electronic calendar since 2009, and don’t want to dig through boxes to find my calendars before that. I do remember that the first meeting took place at Sneakers in the off season in about 1988. From 1989-1991, we met in various place (including the Rainier Club)s on week nights. In 1992 with Jeff Smulyan in his last year as owner, we met in the Owner’s box, where we remained every year except the first year of Safeco Field, until 2019. Following is a personal anecdote – feel free to skip. I had my son with me when we met and had dinner in the room just off the locker room (media room now). We had ribs. Ken Griffey snuck in, sat beside my son, and ate some ribs. He later took him out on the field and played a short game of catch as a reward for sharing with him. My son was a 6th grader, so it would have been 1991. I know it was a weeknight because he was tired the next day. He was almost asleep and the teacher asked him what was wrong. Ernie told him about the evening he had add with the Mariners and the teacher told him to go ahead and take a nap. It doesn’t look (from my calendars) as if we linked the state meeting and Mariners until around 2010. We tended to meet in mid to late October in the home area of the district hosting the major baseball tournament (also known as the only baseball tournament until 1993).