At The Game! With Oppo Field: Twins/Red Sox

I was fortunate enough to attend today's rain-soaked Twins/Red Sox game at the shiny new Target Field and seeing as how this is a baseball blog and all, I figured you folk would probably be interested in how that went.  Well, the Twins lost pretty soundly, but other than that, Target Field was quite the treat.

The stadium itself is nestled in the heart of the downtown Minneapolis's warehouse district, giving a bit of an old-timey feel to something so brand-spanking new.  While parking is a bit of a beyotch (as parking usually tends to be in most places such as this) the walk to the stadium is interesting, and there was a definite sense of a gameday atmosphere (including a sign on a storefront that said simply: "BALL GAME TODAY"), something I imagine is normally pretty hard to cultivate but was actually achieved here somehow, some way.  The fans were enthusiastic about their team and proud of their new future landmark to the point where the large mouth-breathing man with very interesting nostril hair behind me in the beer line--in between cracking jokes to people who had their hands full ("I can drink one for ya if that'll help!" or "Hey, got a light?" ... BA DUM BUM), the hokiest of stadium jokery--made a point to tell me about how long it had been since the Twins played outdoor baseball.  But then it started raining and everyone ran away.

Well, not entirely, but not long after the first sprinkles fell there was a significant increase in outward bound aisle traffic; perhaps to just go buy a poncho or grab another brewski and hope the rain peters out before they get back, but the fact remains: Minnesotans love to complain about the weather.  Winter's too cold (which I can agree with), and when summer--not even summer, but spring--rolls around, it's damn near immediately too hot.  And after begging and begging their mayoral-daddy for outdoor baseball, they got it; it remains to be seen if they can handle all that big-boy responsibility that comes with having your own ballpark.

But another thing about Minnesotans, they love their food.  And by "their" I mean "their."  Local businesses made their presence known in this stadium (Kramarczuk's sausages are made fresh and delivered to the stadium daily), which points to one of my favorite things about this place: there is an unequivocal level of local pride here, beyond just baseball and food.  Minnesotans love their own musicians, their own breweries, their own home-grown ballplayers (Maaaauuuuuerrrr!!), although not to the point of snobbishness.  They don't turn their nose up at Wisconsin cheese curds, they just love when Minnesotans succeed, and it's a thoroughly nice trait to have in a city/state/city-state.  So despite initial grumblings about the rain (which was off and on in different strengths from about the 2nd inning on), the seats were surprisingly full until the very last out, something I can appreciate after attending a college where it was common practice to leave football games at the half.

As for the guts of the stadium, the walkways are spacious, the concessions are copious (and lines move relatively quickly, for a ballpark.  At least they're never Dodger Stadium-long, because fuck Dodger Stadium for making me miss 2 1/2 innings for a Dodger Dog), and the views are gorgeous.  The jumbotron lives up to its moniker, and they included the seemingly standard LCD scoreboards along the fronts of the mezzanines all the way around the stadium.  All in all, the best thing about Target Field (besides the fact that it's not the Metrodome) is that it's not a bowl with a field in the middle, but a nicely varied and nicely leveled baseball field.  Although I'll probably be sitting in the same place most games I go to, I'm actually curious to see what other seating areas have to offer, something I haven't much felt before (the bleachers are the only place for me at Wrigley, after all).  The field itself is pristine, though there were some mound issues today due to rain (something the grounds crew will get used to, along with chasing down stray fluttering napkins, which happened today and resulted in a round of applause)--mostly a hitter's park with fairly shallow corners and moderate alleys, although this is balanced by a high outfield wall from right field to about left-center, oddly limiting the Twins' left-handed bat power.  And atop it all in center field are the Minnesota Twins themselves, Minnie and Paul, two goofily generic doods that shake hands (via neon assistance) when the Twins (the team) hit home runs.

The excitement over the new stadium in Minneapolis is definitely justified, but if they really want to be a major-middle-market team, they gotta at least say "Twins" instead of "home team" in Take Me Out To The Ball Game during the 7th inning stretch.  But Target Field should grow nicely alongside a nicely growing team, despite the lamented expiry of the Dome Dog (replaced by four (4) different Dog options, for your eating pleasure).  Twins lose today, but at least I can say I was there for the first loss in Target Field, right?