Tigers, Twins give fitting end to baseball in dome
By TIM DAHLBERG
AP Sports Columnist
AP Sports Columnist
Oct 06, 2009 - 10:40:03 CDT
It’s a tough place to get nostalgic about, even as they get ready to take the baggies down for good. About the only things Minnesotans really liked about the Metrodome was that it was warm and the mosquitoes couldn’t get inside.
That it will be so loud under the Teflon-coated top Tuesday that Miguel Cabrera’s head will spin even if he hasn’t been drinking is just a function of bad architecture. Noise bounces so crazily around the place that there are times the public address announcer can’t even recognize his own voice.
The plan all along was to play the last baseball game there on Sunday, then say goodbye. But then a ball got lost in the cloudy roof, the Twins got hot, and things changed.
In its last days as a baseball stadium, the dome suddenly doesn’t look so bad after all.
The brats are grilling, and the Homer Hankies are back. They might even be able to scrape off most of the yard makers from the Viking game the night before to trick people into believing it’s really a baseball field.
Let Ozzie Guillen curse it. Just don’t forget he’s the same guy who had bad things to say about Wrigley Field, too.
As for the others? Well, maybe they just don’t appreciate the beauty of the great indoors.
The Atlanta Braves certainly didn’t. They felt like they had a World Series stolen from them by the Twins and their Homer Hankie-waving fans in 1991 when they lost all four games in the dome, including the final two in extra innings.
“We were the outdoor world champions in 1991, and they were the indoor world champions,” said John Smoltz, who pitched in the dramatic final game won 1-0 by the Twins in 10 innings. “It closing doesn’t bring a tear to my eye.”
“Baseball in the Metrodome is an unnatural act,” said John Schuerholz, who was general manager of the Braves at the time.
Harsh words for a stadium that crowned two World Series champions in its 28 seasons, one more than the Braves won during that time. But even Twins fans can’t seem to bring themselves to find a lot of affection for the field with its cutout bases, plastic right field fence, and revolving doors that can slam you into a turnstile like you’re entering a wind tunnel.
Outfielder Carlos Gomez was attacked by one of the doors before a game this year, needing two stitches to close a cut on his forehead — and people just shrugged. It was just the dome, after all.
That was part of what little charm the place had. The dome’s history is filled with tales of lost balls, sagging baggies and turf so tough it scorched uniforms of players unlucky enough to slide on it.
It was built as a place where Minnesotans could enjoy baseball no matter what was happening outside. That lasted about a year before a snowstorm collapsed the inflatable roof, forcing a game to be postponed.
Things never quite worked right at the dome. I remember driving several hours to go there during a brutal heat wave one summer just to cool down for a few hours. The next day I tuned the game in on TV only to see people strung across seats suffering from heat exhaustion when the air conditioning failed.
And how many stadiums do you know that put hockey plexiglass on top of the left field wall? The Twins did, before someone finally figured out a hockey game wasn’t going to erupt.
If there was one thing that drove Minnesotans crazy, though, it was that they had to go indoors to watch baseball. For people who spend most of their winters trying to figure out ways to get outside, it was the ultimate indignity.
Indeed, the countdown in centerfield all season long wasn’t to the final game in the Metrodome. Instead, they counted down the number of days to outdoor baseball in Minneapolis.
Nearly 50 million people made their way inside the dome for baseball games over the last quarter century, but you would be hard pressed to find any that are going to miss baseball there. Most can hardly wait until Target Field opens on the other side of downtown, with a fire pit on the party deck in left field to keep fans warm on those chilly Minnesota nights.
Count the bartender at Hubert’s, the closest bar to the Metrodome, as one of them. I stopped in there after a Twins game in August expecting to hear him complain about losing business because of the move.
Any tears for the dome?
“Are you kidding?” he said. “We want outdoor baseball.”
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org
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That it will be so loud under the Teflon-coated top Tuesday that Miguel Cabrera’s head will spin even if he hasn’t been drinking is just a function of bad architecture. Noise bounces so crazily around the place that there are times the public address announcer can’t even recognize his own voice.
The plan all along was to play the last baseball game there on Sunday, then say goodbye. But then a ball got lost in the cloudy roof, the Twins got hot, and things changed.
In its last days as a baseball stadium, the dome suddenly doesn’t look so bad after all.
The brats are grilling, and the Homer Hankies are back. They might even be able to scrape off most of the yard makers from the Viking game the night before to trick people into believing it’s really a baseball field.
Let Ozzie Guillen curse it. Just don’t forget he’s the same guy who had bad things to say about Wrigley Field, too.
As for the others? Well, maybe they just don’t appreciate the beauty of the great indoors.
The Atlanta Braves certainly didn’t. They felt like they had a World Series stolen from them by the Twins and their Homer Hankie-waving fans in 1991 when they lost all four games in the dome, including the final two in extra innings.
“We were the outdoor world champions in 1991, and they were the indoor world champions,” said John Smoltz, who pitched in the dramatic final game won 1-0 by the Twins in 10 innings. “It closing doesn’t bring a tear to my eye.”
“Baseball in the Metrodome is an unnatural act,” said John Schuerholz, who was general manager of the Braves at the time.
Harsh words for a stadium that crowned two World Series champions in its 28 seasons, one more than the Braves won during that time. But even Twins fans can’t seem to bring themselves to find a lot of affection for the field with its cutout bases, plastic right field fence, and revolving doors that can slam you into a turnstile like you’re entering a wind tunnel.
Outfielder Carlos Gomez was attacked by one of the doors before a game this year, needing two stitches to close a cut on his forehead — and people just shrugged. It was just the dome, after all.
That was part of what little charm the place had. The dome’s history is filled with tales of lost balls, sagging baggies and turf so tough it scorched uniforms of players unlucky enough to slide on it.
It was built as a place where Minnesotans could enjoy baseball no matter what was happening outside. That lasted about a year before a snowstorm collapsed the inflatable roof, forcing a game to be postponed.
Things never quite worked right at the dome. I remember driving several hours to go there during a brutal heat wave one summer just to cool down for a few hours. The next day I tuned the game in on TV only to see people strung across seats suffering from heat exhaustion when the air conditioning failed.
And how many stadiums do you know that put hockey plexiglass on top of the left field wall? The Twins did, before someone finally figured out a hockey game wasn’t going to erupt.
If there was one thing that drove Minnesotans crazy, though, it was that they had to go indoors to watch baseball. For people who spend most of their winters trying to figure out ways to get outside, it was the ultimate indignity.
Indeed, the countdown in centerfield all season long wasn’t to the final game in the Metrodome. Instead, they counted down the number of days to outdoor baseball in Minneapolis.
Nearly 50 million people made their way inside the dome for baseball games over the last quarter century, but you would be hard pressed to find any that are going to miss baseball there. Most can hardly wait until Target Field opens on the other side of downtown, with a fire pit on the party deck in left field to keep fans warm on those chilly Minnesota nights.
Count the bartender at Hubert’s, the closest bar to the Metrodome, as one of them. I stopped in there after a Twins game in August expecting to hear him complain about losing business because of the move.
Any tears for the dome?
“Are you kidding?” he said. “We want outdoor baseball.”
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org