Seattle Center officials were reportedly huffing Windex when they invited the 2018 Little League Baseball Seattle Championship Game teams to an off-season rematch on a grass field next to the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum Saturday afternoon.
The game between the Loyal Heights Gremlins and the Columbia City Crushers was one for the ages, with each team hitting in runners in the first two innings, followed by a bench-clearing brawl in the third. By the fifth inning, the Gremlins’ ace slugger, Kyle Webb, wheeled back and let one go, sending it clean out of the park, exploding the east-facing window of the nearby museum.
“Kyle’s got some nice, loose shoulders and he’s built like an ox,” Gremlins coach Rick Anderson said after the game. “After he sailed that one out of the park and the other kids saw what they could do that museum, you better believe that was a motivator.”
Over the next four innings, the Gremlins sent eight balls sailing through the museum’s windows and delicate hand-blown glass galleries, while the Crushers sent six, with pitchers on each team throwing slow-pitch underhand at times, seemingly to see whether they could send more balls skyward.
“My crystal palace! They destroyed everything! I blew each of those pieces myself!” the famed glass artist Dale Chihuly sobbed when reached after the game.
What did he think of the controversial tag-out as the Gremlins’ Andrew Ramirez rounded third base at the top of the ninth?
“I’ll tear those little monsters apart! None of them are safe! None of them!”
Indeed, to this Needling reporter, Ramirez, was clearly out and not safe on base.
Museum officials say insurance will cover much of the damage, and they plan to reopen by summer, when the International Youth Putt Putt Golf expo will appear at the Seattle Center.
(Photo: “Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum” by Davis Staedtler, licensed under CC BY 2.0. Changes were made.)
