I was among the hundreds of thousands lining 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle today to catch a glimpse of the Seahawks victory parade.
I took the No 12 bus to Westlake Center and walked north along 4th Avenue to Belltown, checking in on the crowds at several of the cross street corners.
Look for Blitz, the Seahawks mascot, in my pictures below.
I believe that is defensive back Julian Love holding the Vince Lombardi trophy.
Sports anchor Paul Silvi is right next to him in the yellow KING5 jacket.
In another picture, a guy in stars-and-stripes pants wears a t-shirt that says WE.DID.NOT.CARE.
Those were the words of head coach Mike Macdonald following the team’s victory in the 2025 NFC Championship game, commenting on a reporter reminding him that many pundits had written the Seahawks off as an ‘afterthought’ in a division dominated by the Rams and the 49ers.
There is going to be a trophy celebration event at Lumen Field tomorrow at 10 am (tickets sold out in an hour or so on Monday).
Then, targeted for around 11 am, a parade will start along 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle.
The Seattle Times reminds readers that in 2014, hundreds of Seahawks fans had already camped out along 4th Avenue by 6.30 am .. and also that the day is sure to set light rail ridership records.
In 2014 some 500,000 people attended the parade and at that time the light rail ran only from Capitol Hill to Seattle-Tacoma airport.
BEEP BEEP THE HAWKS ARE BACK IN SEATTLE.
And so are 750,000 of your closest friends, all coming to Seattle to celebrate our SUPER BOWL CHAMPS.
So if you’re heading to Seattle tomorrow, take whatever ferry, bus, train, or spinning teacup is closest to you.
Please.
– Tweeted on X by Washington State Dept. of Traffic @wsdot
Picture tweeted on X by Washington State Dept. of Traffic @wsdot
Congrats to the Seahawks for their decisive win over the New England Patriots!
Matt Barrows writes for The Athletic on NYTimes.com:
The Seattle Seahawks, who rode a dominant defense to their first Super Bowl title 12 years ago, did it again Sunday, suffocating Drake Maye and the New England Patriots in a decidedly defensive 29-13 win at Levi’s Stadium.
Egged on by a raucous, pro-Seattle crowd, the Seahawks sacked Maye six times and picked him off twice, one of which was returned 45 yards for a touchdown by defensive lineman Uchenna Nwosu. The Patriots did not score until the fourth quarter, and Seattle also forced a fumble.
In praising his players, coach Mike Macdonald had to shout to be heard above the din of the fans who gathered in the southeast corner of the stadium.
“They made it happen,” he said of the dream of reaching the Super Bowl win. “They made it come to life. And we won the game.”
Reporting from The Athletic at nytimes.com. (Drake Maye is the New England Patriots quarterback.)Mon. Feb. 9: Front page of the Seattle Times. There will be a victory parade along 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle on Wednesday.
It is a time-honored tradition for countries and postal agencies over the world to issue postage stamps to commemorate the Olympic Games.
The Unites States Postal Service has not issued stamps for the 2026 Games, though.
Here is host country Italy’s stamps.
Very abstract— compared to say, the issue from Japan for the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo.
From olympics.com:
Sapporo 1972 was significant for both Japanese and Asian winter sport.
As the first Winter Games held in Asia, they inspired people across the continent to watch, and take up, snow and ice disciplines.
The success of the Japanese ski jumpers– known as the Hinomaru Squadron– created national heroes and showed that Asian winter sports athletes could compete with the best from Europe and North America.
The 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games XXV, Milano Cortina, Italy Issued by Poste Italiane, Jan. 21, 2026 Miniature sheet of 2 stamps | Perf. 11 Die Cut | Engraving by I.P.Z.S. S.p.A. – Roma | Self-adhesive | No watermark 4877 FLV | €3.35 Multi-colored shades of green, yellow-green | Milano Cortina 2026 “Futura” emblem 4878 FLW | €3.35 Multi-colored shades of dark blue, purple, violet | Milano Cortina 2026 “Futura” emblem [Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI Overview]The 1972 Winter Olympic Games XI, Sapporo, Japan Issued by Japan Post, Feb. 3, 1972 Miniature sheet of 3 stamps | Perf. 13¼ | Photolithography | No watermark 1103 A730 | 20 yen Ultramarine & multi-colored |Downhill Skiing 1104 A730 | 20 yen Ultramarine & multi-colored |Bobsledding 1105 A730 | 50 yen Ultramarine & multi-colored |Figure skating, pairs and Makomanai Indoor Skating Rink (now known as the Makomanai Sekisui Heim Ice Arena) [Sources: 2021 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue Vol. 4A, stampworld.com]
Congrats to Team Alcaraz for winning the Australian Open.
He lost the first set against a sharp Djokovic, but then found his footing and did not look back.
Final score 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, 7-5.
Alcaraz has commemorated previous major wins with small tattoos—
a strawberry🍓for Wimbledon,
the Eiffel Tower 🗼for the French Open,
the date of his first U.S. Open title 🇺🇸,
and after his second U.S. Open title in New York, the Statue of Liberty 🗽 and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Word is that he will now add a kangaroo tattoo 🦘 om his leg for Australia.
Post on X from German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Happy Friday.
It’s finals weekend at the 2026 Australian Open.
World No 1 Carlos Alcaraz (22, 🇪🇸) survived his marathon 5½ hour 5-setter semifinal match against Alexander Zverev (28, 🇩🇪) 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (3-7), 6-7 (4-7), 7-5.
He will meet Novak Djokovic (38, 🇷🇸) in the final.
Djokovic was not supposed to beat world No 2 Jannik Sinner (24, 🇮🇹) in the semis, but he did: 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
In the women’s final Aryna Sabalenka (27) will meet Elena Rybakina (26, 🇰🇿).
P.S. There are AI-animated versions of the matches posted on espn.com in addition to the real ones. Why? Just for fun, I guess. Alcaraz is in green.
The animated players play with an oversized tennis ball. The AI engine is still a work-in-progress when it comes to the finer detail, though— such as showing the hands of the players gripping the racquets.
Sam Darnold threw three touchdown passes, and the Seattle Seahawks outlasted the Los Angeles Rams 31-27 in a thrilling NFC (National Football Conference) Championship Game on Sunday to advance to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 2014 season.
They will face the New England Patriots on Feb. 8 in a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX.
– Nate Atkins and Michael-Shawn Dugar reporting in The Athletic in the New York Times
That’s Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold, speaking into the microphone. Darnold has been with the Seattle Seahawks only since March 2025. He signed a multi-year contract after his strong 2024 season with the Minnesota Vikings. To the right of Darnold, his face hidden somewhat behind his clapping hands, is Seahawks head coach Mike McDonald (age 38), himself hired just the year before in January 2024. In just two seasons, Macdonald took a 9-8, middling team to 14 regular season wins and a Super Bowl berth. [Headline from the Seattle Times. Photo by Nick Wagner/ Seattle Times]
Happy Friday.
It is a major sports weekend for Seattle— the Seahawks face the Los Angeles Rams this Sunday for the NFC Championship and a spot in Super Bowl LX.
I spent a lot of time this week sorting the hundreds of loose stamps I had bought in Tokyo, by year. Here are some ones with nice postmarks and a sports theme.
International Table Tennis Championships, Tokyo Issued by Japan Post, Apr. 2, 1956 Perf. 13¼ x 13½ |Litho. |National Printing Bureau 618 A369 |10 yen |red-brown |Table tennis players Postmarked 31.4.5 which means 1956 April 5. The 31 refers to the 31st year of Emperor Hirohito’s reign (1925 + 31 = 1956). Softball at 33rd National Athletic Meet, Nagano Prefecture Issued by Japan Post, Oct. 14, 1978 Perf. 12¾ x 13 |Litho. |National Printing Bureau 1348 A938 |20 yen |multi-colored |Softball Players and Mt Yari Postmarked 59.7.3 (let’s say) which means 1984 July 3. The 59 refers to the 59th year of Emperor Hirohito’s reign (1925 + 59 = 1984). Badminton at 36th National Athletic Meet, Nagano Prefecture Issued by Japan Post, Oct. 13, 1981 Perf. 12¾ x 13 |Litho. |National Printing Bureau 1485 A1064 | 40 yen |multi-colored |Badminton player and Lake Biwa Postmarked 86.2.6 8-12 which means 1986 Feb. 6 8am-12 noon The 86 now refers to the Gregorian calendar year 1986. Handball at 40th National Athletic Meet, Tottori City Sports Arena Issued by Japan Post, Oct. 19, 1985 1665 A1233 | 40 yen |multi-colored |Handball Player and Mt Daisen Postmarked 89.6.21 12-18 which means 1989 Jun.21 12 noon- 6pm (Chofu is a city in Tokyo prefecture) The 89 now refers to the Gregorian calendar year 1989. [Sources: 2021 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue Vol. 4A, stampworld.com]
Here is a summary of posts on X (generated by Grok):
Roger Federer stole the show at the Australian Open’s opening. The 44-year-old retired legend teamed with Andre Agassi and Ash Barty for a record-breaking exhibition doubles match against Lleyton Hewitt and Pat Rafter on Saturday night. Federer dazzled with elegant shots, recreated his iconic ball kid catch alongside now-grown Dylan Alcott, and shared a warm embrace with Novak Djokovic courtside while his four kids watched from the stands. The night ended with fireworks and a heartfelt tribute, setting a nostalgic tone as the main Australian Open draw begins January 18 with Jannik Sinner as favorite and Djokovic eyeing an 11th title.
Here is Carlos Alcaraz (22, 🇪🇸) hitting a ‘tweener’ (a between-the-legs shot) against Adam Walton (26, 🇦🇺) on his way to a 6-3 7-6 6-2 victory. Alcaraz split with his coach of 7 years (Juan Carlos Ferrero) in December. If Alcaraz pulls off a win at this Australian Open in spite of that, he will become the youngest man to complete a Career Grand Slam*. (Don Budge from the USA was 22 years, 357 days when he won the 1938 French Championships to complete his Career Grand Slam). *Winning the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. [Still image from highlights of the match at ausopen.com]
The Seahawks are through to the NFC (National Football Conference) Championship game and are now one just win away from playing in the Super Bowl.
Matt Barrows, Michael-Shawn Dugar and Vic Tafur writes for The Athletic in the New York Times:
The Seattle Seahawks hadn’t hosted a playoff game in front of their fans in nearly a decade. It took them only a few seconds Saturday night to give the roaring 12s something to celebrate.
Rashid Shaheed returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, and top-seeded Seattle never let up, routing the sixth-seeded San Francisco 49ers 41-6 in an NFC divisional-round game. The Seahawks will host the winner of Sunday’s matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship Game next Sunday. Seattle hasn’t been in a conference title game since advancing to back-to-back Super Bowls in the 2013 and 2014 seasons.
Headline and picture posted on nytimes.com/athletic
There was more rain today (another inch or so).
I ventured outside with my umbrella before the gray outside tuned into black.
Here’s Republican Street and 15th Avenue East on Capitol Hill. The holiday lights on the trees are on already, to bring a little cheer to the gray outside.Looking down Thomas Street at 12th Avenue. The red beacon light is already blinking on the Space Needle’s flag post .. and is that an S on the flag? I wondered.And here’s the answer: yes, it’s an S for Seattle Torrent, the name for Seattle’s new women’s ice hockey team. They will play in Climate Pledge Arena. The eight teams in the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) are the Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost, Montréal Victoire, New York Sirens, Ottawa Charge, Seattle Torrent, Toronto Sceptres, and Vancouver Goldeneyes. [Picture posted on Space Needle’s Instagram, but without any names]
It was not to be— the Seattle Mariners playing in the World Series.
They lost 3-4 in Game 7 tonight against the Blue Jays, in the deciding game in the American League Championship Series (ALCS).
The Toronto Blue Jays will now take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
Beautiful fall foliage surrounds the playfields at Miller Community Center on 19th Avenue East on Capitol Hill.
Happy Friday.
The new pickleball court facility called Sideout Tsunami Center is open for business (but the official grand opening will be in November).
This weekend, the center is hosting the finals of the National Pickleball League team competition in the “Champions Pro” division for players aged 50 and above.
I stopped by this afternoon to check out the new courts and the action there.
P.S. A win for the Mariners in Game 5!
From the Seattle Times:
Cal Raleigh and Eugenio Suárez delivered eighth-inning homers to send the Mariners to within a win of the World Series, and send T-Mobile Park into a frenzy.
A little pro shop tucked into the corner by the entrance. The facility is at 2300 26th Avenue S in Seattle, in a non-descript building (a former Pepsi bottling plant) with a large, newly-paved parking lot outside.Twelve teams from all over the USA compete for gold, silver and bronze medals. Look for the logos of the Indy Drivers, the Austin Ignite, the Kansas City Stingers, the Boca Surge, the Naples JBB United, the Princeton Bruisers, the Denver Iconics, the Houston Hammers, the Seattle Tsunami, the Coachella Valley Scorpions, the Columbus Hotshots and the OKC Punishers.A first look at the courts. There are no pavilions or bleacher seats in the spaces between the courts. Maybe some will be added later for one or two show courts.Three mixed doubles pairs make up a team. Here is the No 1 team for Austin Ignite (left) facing off against the No 1 team of Coachella Valley Scorpions. It’s best out of three sets, first to 11 by one point. Coachella Valley Scorpions won this match.Pickleball in the Pacific Northwest. (The whale is a humpback whale.)
Game on, and on to Game 4.
The Toronto Blue Jays rocked George Kirby and the Mariners, 13-4, in Game 3 on Wednesday night, silencing a sold-out Seattle crowd and climbing back into this best-of-seven American League Championship Series in emphatic fashion.
– Adam Jude, Seattle Times staff reporter
Tim Booth, Seattle Times staff reporter, concludes his analysis
“ALCS: Three impressions as Mariners take 2-0 lead vs. Blue Jays” as follows (this series is best of 7 games): .. but general playoff history, momentum, belief, maybe a weird witch-induced aura are all on the side of the Mariners. The opportunity is there for Wednesday night to be one of the most important games in the history of T-Mobile Park.
Win and put a stranglehold on the series.
Lose and the Blue Jays are right back in it.
A guy takes his dog for a walk on Capitol Hill’s East Republican Street (dog jacket with a Halloween pumpkin design 🎃 ). It was clear and felt downright cold to me here— 6.00 pm (and 53°F/ 12°C) with 24 mins to go to sunset. It will be clear and cold here in the city through Thursday (‘cold’, because I’m not yet used to October’s normal highs of only 58°F/ 14°C or so).
It’s almost go time for Game 5.
Below is a ticket from the Mariners game against the Texas Rangers that I had attended wa-ay back in 2004. 🤗
10.30 pm:
They made it!
At the bottom of the 15th inning the score was still 2-2. Jorge Polanco delivered the walk-off* on a sharp groundball to right field to score J.P. Crawford and end the winner-take-all game 3-2 against the Tigers.
*A walk-off in baseball is a play where the home team scores the winning run in the bottom of the final inning, which immediately ends the game. The term walk-off comes from the fact that the visiting team “walks off” the field, as they have no more opportunities to bat.
What happens next?
From espn.com: Starting Sunday in Toronto, the No. 2 seed Seattle Mariners and No. 1 seed Toronto Blue Jays will clash with a trip to the World Series on the line. Seattle outlasted the Detroit Tigers in a thrilling ALDS Game 5 on Friday night, two days after Toronto dispatched the AL East rival New York Yankees to get to the ALCS.
I believe the Mariners batter pictured on the ticket is Bret Boone. The Seattle Mariners 2004 season was not a happy one. It was their 28th, and they finished last in the American League West at 63–99 (63 games won and 99 lost). P.S. Two days before, on October 1, Ichiro Suzuki set a new major league record for hits, breaking George Sisler’s 84-year-old mark with a pair of early singles. Fans in downtown Tokyo watched Suzuki in sports bars and on big-screen monitors. [Source: Wikipedia]
The Mariners crashed to a 3-9 defeat in Game 4 today in Detroit.
Game 5— the deciding game— will start at 5:08 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday night in Seattle.
A picture is from yesterday. The leaves have turned golden on the trees lining Martin Luther King Jr Way in Central District.
There was a rain delay to the start of the game in Detroit.
Once the game started, though, the Mariners were the first to put several runs on the board. They held off a late attempt by the Tigers to come back in the 9th inning.
A summary of the match generated by Chat GPT.Seattle Mariners’ Randy Arozarena is tagged out at first in Game 3 of the ALDS Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025 in Detroit. [Photo by Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times, caption from The Seattle Times]
