Yeah, really. This one had the feel of a Seattle Mariners major league baseball game, as the Kennedy Lancers played the West Seattle Wildcats in the 2nd Annual High School Baseball Classic Thursday.

At Safeco Field.

That's right! These kids all got to play there last week.

The game score itself really played out immaterial almost, 11-2, Wildcats, as both teams were on different ground for this one.

"We are on spring break and Kennedy isn't," said Wildcats manager Velko Vitalich. "If we had league games to play this week, it would have changed how we played this game."

Kennedy had to play Evergreen in fact the next night, so they likely weren't throwing their best pitcher in this inconsequential, non-league game.

So, this game was about kids getting to run around Safeco's seats with virtually no one else in the stands but the 600-700 or so fans altogether on both sides of the field watching. This game was about the kids of each team, West Seattle and Kennedy, getting a chance to play in the Bigs' atmosphere.

"It happened for us to get a great opportunity," said Donnie Moore, continuing to say that a son of a Seattle Prep booster club parent got this ball rolling, mentioning Dr. Stephen Lockett's name as a booster club helper helping Moore get in the proper paperwork to make this thing a reality for the Lancers.

It was already a reality for West Seattle, which further proves that these two teams were on maybe somewhat uneven playing fields as the Wildcats got to play in this atmosphere last year and knew the field's lights shining at them perhaps a little better than Kennedy's players. In the first inning, what looked like a routine fly ball, if the Lancers infielder had backed up at the crack of the bat, turned out to be a bloop single in shallow right-center. He obviously lost that ball in the lights. From that bad came only worse for the Lancers, who were down 4-0 after the first thanks to Michael Oliver, Stefan Adams, Daniel Hellinger, back-to-back hits from the first and third on the list with the middle hitter, Adams, getting a fielder's choice. Two batters before those three got walks, too, to set up the four runs in.

Another error on the same kind of blooper play where a line-drive zipped almost thru the glove of a Lancers infielder allowed another run to score in the bottom of the second.

Moore, though, stated like Vitalich, that this game was about letting the kids get a chance at having major league experiences on the best baseball diamond in Washington state.

"The main thing was to give them an experience," said Moore. "An experience like this is..."

Nice.

The whole experience was well, nice, for no lack of a more choice word. The Mariners announcer announced the kids names before they batted every single time up to the plate. The readerboard had all the players' names and positions, just as if the names "Ichiro" and "Beltre" were up there.

The players were zeroed in on by the fan cam, just like a major league game. Kids ran all over having fun, like Brandon Johnson's related family, 10-year-old brother Kennedy Cook, Artie Johnson, Jr., 6, and Billie William Thorpe III, 5.

Thorpe III and Cook were watching the game, but were already speaking of Kennedy as past tense about the time Kyle Hesse singled for the Wildcats and made it 7-0 in the bottom of the third.

"Kennedy is losing this game," Cook said.

They along with Johnson Jr., who are related to big brother, Johnson, who had the Lancers first hit of the game, which actually was the only hit until back-to-back single and double action by Joe Moffat and Josh Kutz respectively gave Kennedy a run in the top of the fourth inning. But the next three batters struck out to end that threat and it was 11-2 Wildcats.

But, as was being said, Thorp III, Johnson Jr. and Cook were all having fun..

But that is what this game was about, it was about Kennedy parents, fans, coaches, maybe some alums, altogether getting to watch their kids play in a great atmosphere. Kids getting to go running after fly balls landing in the stadium seating, it was about the video board showing the same things as if this was an actual Mariners game. Can you guess what things those were? Yes, they did the hydroplane race with the green, yellow, red hydros going at it. That was a great race too. But as the boats were nearing the finish line, suddenly, the video did one of those back and forth numbers showing a boat ramp. So the boats all flew off it into the air and that yellow boat flew by green and won it, to visibly one happy person's grin and finger pointing to student friends sitting with him. The Mariners hat (shell game) was played, too, having everyone try to guess what hat the ball was under and switching all the hats around before letting everyone guess. There was also a pinball car race that people could pick their faves. Yes, this great night was about kids being able to root around and dance to songs like La-la-la Bamba and, boy, Cook could groove. The fan-cam caught him a time or two just grooving every bit as good as the star of the movie, La Bamba (Lou Diamond Phillips), showing in there a little John Travolta, too, it looked.

The Kennedy student section did a mean 'YMCA' spelling out the letters too, and, that goes for all the fans in the stadium seats standing.

Many songs, many happy memories, that soon won't be forgotten for certain, by all.