Baseball In a Football Stadium (not RFK)

While travelling to northern Minnesota to see my wife's cousin get married last weekend, we naturally stopped in Minneapolis for a baseball game. We saw the Twins host the Oakland A's last Thursday in both teams first game back from the All-Star break. The Twins won 6-2, on good pitching by Scott Baker and some uncharacteristic wildness by A's starter Chad Gaudin. It's always fun to see a game in a ballpark different from the one(s) you're used to, but I'm here to tell ya, with the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, I'm not so sure. I guess I am really spoiled by now, living on the east coast and being only a few hours drive from some of the best parks in the country. Baltimore, Philly, Pittsburgh and Cleveland feature the modern classics, and the true classics of Yankee and Fenway are just up the road. RFK is a pit, but at least it's our pit. And most of us can remember back to when it was the best stadium in the NFL. That alone keeps me from complaining too loudly about RFK. And we'll have our shiny new playground next season anyway.

But the Metrodome? There's not one single redeeming feature about the game experience there to recommend it to anyone not looking to simply see a game in every major league stadium. There's only one concourse,
so you have to hike up or down to your seat regardless where you're sitting. If you're at field level, better get all your refreshments and bathroom break out of the way before you go down to your seat. Only the fittest of folks should do that hike more than once an evening, such as "Wally the World-Famous Beer Vendor".

All the seats point toward mid-center field (it WAS build for football), making it tough to watch, oh, I don't know, the PITCHER or the BATTER?!? It's a shock Twins season ticket owners haven't brought a class action suit against the stadium for their collective chiropractic bills.

And you think you've got it bad for food options at RFK? At the HHH Metrodome, you can get Dome Dog or popcorn. There are a couple ice cream stands. There was ONE non-generic beer stand. And there was one stand on the entire concourse to get a chicken sandwich. Nothing was getting grilled while you wait. Everything was pre-cooked and wrapped. Yuck.

The only positive we were able to take away from the Metrodome was the outside activities. Pre-game was like a county carnival. Plenty to see and do and eat. I wish someone had told us to make sure to eat before we got inside the stadium! Early pre-game (between 2pm and 3pm) we were able to get some autographs at the players lot, including from Pat Neshak, the Svengali of autographs. Turns out Pat played high school ball with my wife's cousins. Wish we'd known that BEFORE we met him. We also met our new Twins buddy Waldo, who helped us get Torii Hunter to sign our Gold Glove ball and Twins legend and broadcaster Bert Blyleven to sign for us TWICE. I'm a big Blyleven fan, and it was a big thrill to meet him. Why isn't he in the Hall of Fame???