In Search of the Perfect Mariners Bar: Mike's Chili Parlor?

My personal El Dorado is the ideal place to watch baseball. Join me on my search, won't you?

I get to Mike's Chili Parlor in the shadow of the Ballard Bridge a few minutes before first pitch. The televisions, none of which are of the HD variety, are tuned to Yankees/Red Sox. I claim a bar stool, next to a slender older fellow in work clothes and a "Ketchikan, Alaska" hat. The even slenderer and older bartender comes by. I ask: "Are you going to put the Mariner game on one of these TVs?"

"I will when it's time," he says definitively, and turns away to get my order of a bowl of chili and a beer. The bartender does not seem interested in talking. The guy next to me? Well, that's a different story.

A fun fact: When someone prefaces a sentence with "I don't mean to talk politics in a bar," you are about to hear someone talk politics in a bar. Over the course of my meal and the first few innings of Mariners, I'm treated to an expansive discourse that touches on these topics:

-- Why black athletes are better than white ones. ("Culture")
-- Global warming, its causes. (Not man)
-- How quickly a glass beer bottle left out in Antarctica will explode. (About five minutes)
-- The mounting national deficit.
-- The recent mayoral election in Ketchikan.
-- The likelihood that Mariners LF Eric Byrnes will hit a ball to center. (Very, because he's Norwegian.)

After I've finished my chili and my Rainier, I decamp. Thanks, Mike's Chili Parlor. Time to rate you! (1-10)

Food: 8
The chili is really quite excellent--nothing fancy, just ground beef and beans--but the beans are cooked to perfection, not mushy.

Beer: 5
Average selection, average prices.

Televisions: 3
Decrepit and HD-less.

Baseball conversation: 1
See above.

OVERALL RATING: 4 (Not perfect...so, onward!)