As summer winds down and fall settles in, this is the last weekend of Major League Baseball for the 2010 season. Oh, I know that there's the divisional play-offs, the league championships and The World Series coming up, but I usually quit watching baseball about this time of year because the innocence of the game is usually lost by blathering talking heads who report the games on TV like their viewers were from Afghanistan and had never seen a baseball game before in their lives. The end of the baseball season is always melancholy for me since it really does signify the end of summer.
With that said, I was able to take in a few ball games this summer while traveling around to see dealers. One place I really wanted to go to was the brand new Target Field in downtown Minneapolis, home of the 2010 American League Central Division Champions Minnesota Twins. I was able to make it to a game back in June between the Twins and the Colorado Rockies. Each game, the Twins offer up to 1500 $22.00 "standing-room-only" tickets. Considering that I really wanted to wander around the park - and I truly like to wander rather than stay put in a seat for a baseball game - this worked tremendously well for me.
Since 1982, the Twins played in the Metrodome, an indoor hanger of a building on the south side of the downtown area, about a mile from Target Field. Although the field was more set up for football, the Metrodome had a number of quirks and character flaws that allowed great home field advantage for the Twins over the years. And that's not mentioning the fact that Twins games were never rained out, snowed out, froze out - whatever can happen in Minnesota between April 1 and October 1.
When the Twins announced about 15 years ago that they were looking into the feasibility of an outdoor stadium to play in, critics and fans scoffed at the notion that outdoor baseball would work in Minnesota. Having a stadium with a retractable roof - such as Miller Park in Milwaukee - seemed to be the most popular concept. But given that the taxpayers of Minnesota were going to have to cough up about 67% of the price of the new stadium, suddenly an expensive retractable roof stadium was out of the question.
After legislation was passed in 2006 to by-pass a referendum on raising the sales tax in Hennepin County by .15 of a cent to help fund the new stadium, the County Board of Supervisors voted 5-2 to approve the design of the new stadium, located just north of Target Center on the north side of downtown Minneapolis (see map). Construction on the new stadium began in 2007 and it was finished well before the first pitch was thrown earlier this year.
One of the unique features of Target Field is the use of public transportation and facilities to move people to and from the area. Minneapolis' Metro Transit light rail system - the Hiawatha Line - begins at the Mall of America and ends literally feet from the east side of Target Field. An estimated 8,000 people use the Hiawatha Line to get to Twins games. For vehicular traffic, Interstate 394 ends and empties into three large parking lots - Ramps A, B, and C. There's a skyway between the Target Center and Target Field and it's easy walking distance from many of the bars and restaurants in the downtown Minneapolis area.
I was staying on the south side of Minneapolis and decided to take the Hiawatha Line in for the game. I parked at a Metro Transit lot between the Mall of America and the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. Already before 5 p.m. a large number of Twins fans were waiting for the Hiawatha Line to show up. It was a $4.00 round trip ticket for Twins games and within minutes I was on the train heading downtown.
A half-hour and many stops later - with many people getting on at each stop - we pulled up to Target Field. Instead of going into the nearest gate on the east side, I wandered around the outside of the stadium. Along a fence that bordered the north and west concourse outside the stadium, there were a number of silk screened images of baseball cards depicting old time Twins players. Many of these cards I had as a little kid growing up and rooting for the Twins. Unfortunately, those cards are long gone, but the images certainly brought back a number of great memories.
Around to the south side of the stadium, there's a large plaza where people congregated waiting to get into the parking lot. It was there that I had my first beer of the evening - a Summit Extra Pale Ale. A 16 oz. glass was $7.50. Compared to many other ballparks, $7.50 for a 16 oz. cup of premium beer was a pretty good price. A guy and a gal were pouring beer on the plaza before the game. I told the guy that I was going to be just walking around since I had a standing-room-only ticket. He told me they'd be just off the right field line on the main concourse for the game. And there they were! (below left) They just wheeled the cart inside and were selling beer like they had been before the game.
The first thing I noticed when I got into the stadium was how wide the main concourse was compared to the old Metrodome (above right). When crowds got huge at the Metrodome it was almost impossible to walk through the main concourse. Even with a reduced seating capacity of about 39,500 vs. 55,000 for the Metrodome, the concourses at Target Field were still pretty packed with people getting to their seats. Of course, I picked the night when 40,814 people showed up that evening - the largest crowd to date to see a Twins game at the new ball park. A little over 1300 SRO tickets were sold for that game - most ever for a Twins game at Target Field.
And it was a beautiful night, to say the least. It was a warm summer evening with fluffy clouds and a bright milky-blue sky overhead. Actually, the Twins only had a couple rain outs in the spring and the weather cooperated for the first full season at the new ballpark. However, with the play-offs lasting through the end of October, if the Twins ever make it back to the World Series it could get a little interesting with night games on the 28th of October.
Before the game, three Indy Series/NASCAR race car drivers who all drive for the Target/Ganassi racing team - Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Dixon and the 2007 and 2010 Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti - came out to throw out the first pitch. (Below left) Since Franchitti grew up in Scotland and Montoya grew up in Columbia, I'm guessing neither had much exposure to baseball as a little kid. Dixon actually threw out the first pitch - a perfect strike to the Twins' Scott Baker, the starting pitcher that night.
I settled into a one of two small bar areas high above the home plate area on the upper level of Target Field for the first pitch. (Above right) It was kind of a nice area - it had a large window looking out onto the field and they had a bar in each of these little "tap" areas where you could get a mixed drink, a premium beer and be able to stand along a counter ledge or at a high table to either watch the game live or on the TV. Here's the first pitch of the evening from the Twins' Baker to the Rockies lead-off hitter Carlos Gonzales.
Once again, satisfying my scoreboard fetish, here is the main scoreboard over the left field stands. It was average, at best, but efficient with enough information to let you know what was going on with the batter and the game. I still think the scoreboard at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland is the best in the major leagues.
In dead center field, the longtime Twins logo of the two mascot ball players "Minnie" and "Paul" lurk over the field (above right). When the Twins hit a home run, the outline of the state of Minnesota lights up, strobe flashes go off and the two guys "shake hands". Given that Target Field was a literal death valley for home runs this past season, "Minnie" and "Paul" didn't get to do their little light show very often.
After a couple innings, it was off to try the food at the ball park. I was hoping beyond hope that the food would be a marked improvement over the offerings at the Metrodome - home of some of the worst food in the major leagues. I was heartened to find that Delaware North Sportservice was providing most of the concessions at Target Field as they replaced the company that ran the horrible concessions at the Metrodome.
There was a multitude of things to try - from Frankie V's Italian (named after former Twin Frank Viola), to Halsey's Sausage Haus (named after longtime Twins writer and broadcaster - and he was about the worst sportscaster/color man in baseball history - Halsey Hall), to Senor Smoke's - a Mexican food concession named after former Twin Juan Berenguer (although I thought the original "Senor Smoke" was one-time Twin Luis Tiant). Below and to the left is a Cuban food concession named for former Twins great Tony Oliva. They had Cuban sandwiches there and I told myself to stay away as there was NO chance they'd even be close to an original Cuban sandwich that I've had in South Florida.
I did try a brat from Kramarczuk's, a local sausage maker/restaurant/deli/market that's a favorite of Twin Cities residents. While the brat was OK, the sauerkraut was wimpy and there was too much bun. I stood near the garbage can pulling bits of the stale bun off from around the brat, using the bread on the bun as a holder. It was disappointing.
Later on, I tried a grilled hot dog from one of the kiosk grilles throughout the concourses at Target Field. I thought the hot dogs at Jacobs Field (Progressive Field) in Cleveland and Candlestick Park in San Francisco (when the Giants were playing there) were the worst I've ever had with the ones at the Metrodome coming in right behind them on my "suck" scale. But I may have to amend that now to the ones at Target Field as being the worst in Major League Baseball. The hot dogs were salty, the buns were even more stale and thick than the Kramarczuk brat buns, and while I like a good grilled brat from time to time, this was just absolutely horrible. It was very disappointing to say the least.
However, Target Field features two sit down restaurants where fans can go during the game and order food from a menu with a full waitstaff. Hrbek's (below left), named after former Twins great Kent Hrbek; and the Town Ball Tavern, a neat little place that was named after and pays homage to dozens of small towns across Minnesota (and the Midwest, for that matter) that had "town ball teams" made up of local players or college kids who would play for the fun of the game from the 1940's thru the 1980's - long before slow-pitch softball leagues and other summertime activities took precedence.
While Hrbek's featured a lot of memorabilia from Kent Hrbek's playing days with the Twins, the Town Ball Tavern was even more interesting in that they had dozens of pictures of real old time town ball teams with little stories about those teams along side the pics. Also, the floor at Town Ball Tavern came from the Minneapolis Armory, the place where the Minneapolis Lakers used to play professional basketball before they moved to Los Angeles.
I took a look at menus at both places and the food was a little high-priced, but looked better than what you could get on the concourse. There was full bar service at both places and, of course, multitudes of televisions turned on to the Twins game being played down below, or other games that were shown on ESPN. I'm not certain why people would really want to go and sit down in a place like either Hrbek's or Town Ball Tavern. I mean, it's - AT LEAST - a $22 buck cover charge per person (the price of a standing-room-only ticket to get into the stadium, which is the cheapest ticket one can buy) just to get into Hrbek's or Town Ball Tavern. Then the food ain't that cheap.
Wandering along the concourses both on the main level and in the second and upper deck, I found a lot of great vantage points to watch the game. There really wasn't a bad area to stand and watch the game on any level. There's a place just beyond the center field wall on the main concourse that has a nice ledge to set your drinks or food and to get a great view of the action just above the batter's black-walled backdrop. A lot of younger people were at the game that night taking advantage of the standing-room-only tickets and what I think are reasonably priced beers at the stadium ($7.00 for 16 oz. cups of domestic beers). On the right, I had to take a picture of the calf of a young man who is a obviously a die-hard Twins fan who had the "TC" logo inked into his leg.
It was getting late and I had enough beer and definitely enough of the horrid hot dogs and brats at Target Field. Plus I knew that as it got later in the game, the Hiawatha Line light rail system would begin to get crowded. After being squashed like a sardine on the trip up to the stadium, I decided to cut my losses and head out after the top half of the 7th inning with the Twins leading 2-0 on the strength of Baker's 12 strike-out performance, giving up only two hits in 7 innings pitched. The Twins ended up winning 2-1 that evening.
Twilight had begun to creep in and with the sun setting around 9 p.m. in the Twin Cities at the start of summer, it was a wonderful evening to see a baseball game at the new park. I remember going to the Metrodome on many occasions in the past when the weather was just gorgeous. Then you had to go inside to see a game. I'm sure there's going to be some upcoming days in April and, hopefully, for Twins fans, in late October where the weather is going to hamper the game. But nights like the one where I attended my first game at the new Target Field will more than be a positive in the decision to bring baseball back to the outdoors in the Twin Cities. Target Field is simply a great place to watch a game.
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