Getaway Matinee

It is a common practice for Major League Baseball to schedule the final game of many series as a day game.  This enables the visiting team, and in some cases the home team as well, to hit the road to their next destination without having to take a red eye flight.  For this reason the final game of a series is often called a "getaway game" and the day on which it's played is "getaway day."  This season the Twins home schedule includes twenty-five series, of which all but three finish with a day game.

In recent years I have developed a propensity to attend weekday afternoon games.  Maybe they remind me of loving to go to Cubs games at Wrigley Field when I was a kid.  Every home game back then for the North Siders was a matinee.  In fact, the Cubbies never hosted a night game until August 8, 1988.  Another reason for my attraction to day games might be linked to my attraction for beer, which always goes down better under the sun.  A third explanation is that during the twenty-eight years I worked in downtown Minneapolis, I can only remember once or twice when I played hooky to go to the Metrodome and then returned to the office.  Now that I'm retired I don't have to play hooky!  The feeling of freedom is cause for celebration.

I brought Momma Cuandito, who has developed into a full-fledged Twins fan, to the Twins game against the St. Louis Cardinals on a recent Wednesday afternoon.  National League teams make only one appearance per season here, and the Cards historically field a very good squad.  In fact, when the Twins-Cards series started, the Red Birds were only a game out of first place in the NL Central Division.  With the Twins trying to keep up with the Cleveland Indians, the cream of the AL Central, this game was a good one for us to attend.

What follows are some random observations of our game day experience.

My advice for attending a weekday matinee at Target Field is simply this: Don't drive unless you are prepared to pay through the nose for parking.  The downtown office workers take up almost all of the primo spots.  I used to park for $5 in a surface lot at Second & Second in the Warehouse District.  That property is now a mammoth hole in the ground.  Apparently there is no such thing as too many apartment buildings all over downtown.  

The low point for the game in question was the pay lot next to Cuzzy's at 8th Avenue and Washington.  The sign on the curb advertised a fee of $10, but once at the lot entrance around the corner we found out the actual charge was $30.  As Momma Cuan pointed out, that's the kind of price gouging one would expect in Wrigleyville, not here in Minnesota Nice territory.  We settled for parking in the ramp behind the Bull Dog on 11th Street for $8.    

Target Field, now in its ninth year of operation, remains one of the best ball parks in MLB.  It still amazes me how the architects fit the stadium into its small footprint, nestled among an interstate highway, entrance and exit ramps, heavily-traveled four lane roads and the city's major rail transportation hub near the heart of downtown.  Amazingly, when people are walking toward the stadium on most approaches such as 6th or 7th Street, the stadium does not come into view until they are practically right on top of it.

For many fans Target Field's food choices are practically more important than the game itself.  For years our favorite option was the cubano sandwich from Tony'O's, which has kiosks on the first two levels.  This time we tried the roast beef sandwich from Murray's.  It may not have been as filling as Tony's offering, but the meat was top drawer.  At $14 a pop, it should be. 

I wish I could heap praise on the stadium's beer selection, but alas, unless you are a light beer devotee or a Bud drinker, you have to look hard for anything better.  One of the very few vendors who has a decent selection is located down the left field concourse on the first level.  Minnesota craft beers are his headliners.  There is usually a long line of serious swillers who are willing to put up with the wait.  Similarly, Hrbek's, which is an enclosed bar right next to the gate bearing the former Twin first baseman's jersey number (14), has some interesting beers in addition to the usual suspects.  A tip of the hat to Herbie for adding a new outdoor patio to the premises.  A funny aside: I struck up a brief conversation with a Hrbek's bartender who told me that no matter how many varieties of beer are available, all the Milwaukee Brewers' fans order is Miller Light.  

While we are on the topic of beer, Mary and I often wait for her grade school classmate, Tommy Newell, to make his way to our section.  He has been a Twins beer hawker for years.  When Mary went to the end of our row to purchase beer from him, he told the two women whose view he was blocking that Mary was the valedictorian of their class.

Aside from the paucity of good beer, I have three other gripes about the stadium.  First, the right field porch which juts out from the wall is too gimmicky for my taste.  The wall of the porch is made of stone. which sits above a wooden wall and (below that) a padded wall.  Thus on a long drive which is about to carom off the wall, the right fielder has to guess which of those three materials the ball will strike if it doesn't carry over the wall for a home run.  Each of those three materials creates a different carom.  It is incumbent on the center fielder to be ready to retrieve the ball if the right fielder guesses incorrectly.

My second peeve is the disregard the scoreboard operator has for those of us keeping score.  Yes, I realize that keeping score is becoming a lost art, but the Twins do make scorecards available (for free!), so they must be aware that some fans do enjoy tracking the game in that manner.  There are many times when the fans in attendance or those watching on television would like to know how particular plays are evaluated by the official scorer, such as (i) hit or error, or (ii) wild pitch or passed ball.  Another example is the official scoring on a ball hit into a defensive shift.  Was that the shortstop or the second baseman who fielded that ball to the right of second?  The scoreboard does have a space for "Scoring Decision," but whoever is responsible for posting current info in that space is asleep at the switch at the most inopportune times.

My third minor complaint has to do with this rhetorical question: Is the average Twins fan a total rube?  How else do you explain the need for the scoreboard operator to urge, in huge all-caps letters, "MAKE SOME NOISE" or "CLAP YOUR HANDS!" flashing frenetically across the outfield wall?  If you have to be told when to cheer at a baseball game, my sympathies go out to you.

A lot of attention was given to the decision by MLB to require, or at least strongly recommend, that teams install protective netting to separate the field of play from the infield box seats.  The objective was to prevent injury to inattentive fans who would otherwise be struck by a foul ball.  For decades only the seats more or less directly behind home plate were behind a net. But then a few fans, including a young girl in Boston, were seriously injured by scorching liners into the seats, and MLB decided to take action. The main objection to broadening the width of the netting to at least the dugouts was that it would obscure the vision of those fans siting behind the netting.  After having attended many games when I had to look through the net to see the field, I can attest that in just a matter of a half-inning or so, you don't even notice that the netting is there.

Finally a word about the visiting team's fans.  The Cardinal fans were loud and proud as their team beat the Twins 7-5.  Most of the red-garbed visitors were seated behind their team's third base dugout and en masse along the left field line.  It reminded me of a Twins game I attended against the Astros last year.  The Houston fans, having much more to cheer about than the Minnesotans, practically took over Target Field.  I have been in their shoes many times, wearing "my" team's colors on the road in the opponent's den.  It is hard to explain, but if you're lucky enough to see your team win on the road, at least two feelings come over you.  You feel that, somehow, your vocal encouragement contributed to the win; and, you almost forget about the hundreds of dollars you probably spent to be there.