Ballparks – 16 - The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome

The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome 

(From Google Images) 

This sad regular, fan-less season is over. I need to diversify this year’s posts. While I HAD hoped to visit some new ballparks this year, that didn’t happen. However, there are a few already on my Life List that need to be shared.

The memories might be long ago and far away and a bit thin on personal detail, like the Shea Stadium story from October 2017. The images might be someone else’s. It’s still my list and I hope you trust that it is true. Just because I don’t have pictures, ticket stubs or programs, doesn’t mean I wasn’t there.

One of the few advantages of being an old fart today is having been to a few parks that no longer exist. You younger collectors will appreciate that when you mature and some of your experiences are no longer possible.

It would be nice to eventually visit ALL of them, but this will be a more casual, opportunistic quest. If a scheduled trip gets me close to a new ballpark, I will try to catch a game and add the place to the list…like bird watchers do.

After the 1960 season, the Washington Senators fled D.C. and became the Minnesota Twins. They played twenty years in Metropolitan Stadium (opened in 1956; demolished in 1985; now the site of the gargantuan Mall of America) before the climate of the Great White North prompted the city fathers to build an indoor venue for their football Vikings…and any other activity they can fit in. The Metrodome is the only facility that has hosted the World Series, the All-Star game, A Super Bowl, the NCAA Final Four…and a Rolling Stones concert.

Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington, MN 

(From Google Images) 

Built on converted farmland outside of Minneapolis, the stadium 

was a typical mid-century American sports venue…symmetrical 

and away from the congested downtown with plenty of parking 

because driving is the only way Americans like to get around. While 

the Minnesota climate made playing against the football Vikings a 

miserable experience for visiting teams, baseball in the early spring 

and autumn was occasionally not very pleasant either. 

The Metrodome was built for football and was not good for baseball. The fiberglass roof, held aloft by air pressure was white, which made it difficult to track fly balls. It was also low enough to have balls hit struts and hanging speakers. This made for interesting ground rules regarding balls in play. They compressed the football stands in right field into a wall of telescoped seating which was covered with a plastic sheet. The wall was high (23 feet) but still close to home plate. The ‘Hefty Bag’ wall was a tempting target for lefty sluggers.

Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (From Google Images) 

In 2010, Mother Nature helped persuade management that something better was needed when a big snowfall collapsed the roof (see video) and the Metrodome was finally closed in 2013. Now the Vikings have their own indoor, downtown stadium and the Twins occupy their own outdoor playpen based on the pleasant, urban, Camden Yards model. Target Field was presented here previously.

“Yeah, yeah. So, what about YOUR experience there?”

Sometime in the mid-90’s, I was visiting my sister and took in a game. I recall very large diameter air ducts…big holes in the field-level walls that were there to keep the air flowing and the roof aloft. Again, no program. No camera. Just an unmemorable game with my brother-in-law. Andy and I had a good time, though.

Gone but not forgotten.