Yes, it's another baseball post. Yes, I know it infuriates you because you feel lost and confused and you wish I'd talk more about how I woke up yesterday with grime under my fingernails and a cut on my hand and I don't know why, so I'm just waiting to see which thing in my house I disassembled and reassembled in my sleep, but that's just too bad because the Twins played their last game in the Metrodome last night, on account of losing to the Yankees in game three of the first round of the playoffs, so they had to shuffle out without the big celebration the Hefty Bag deserves. Or at least I think that's what happened, since we were watching it on TBS with the sound off and they kept showing the stupid Yankees players with their halfhearted celebration, rather than focusing on Joe Nathan stealing dirt from the mound in the background and a couple groundskeepers trying to pull up home plate with crowbars. I can only assume that Michael Cuddyer also cut some material from the baggie, Delmon Young nabbed a piece of turf and Alexi Casilla tried to fit second base in his back pocket.
There was also a distinct lack of nostalgia for the Dome in our local bar, even though the day manager is from Minnesota and there were other Twins fans in the bar even, because the Tennessee Titans were busy losing very badly and also a paranoid schizophrenic came in and sat down next to us and started accusing the bartender of being in the CIA and then got tossed, but was allowed to bring his tacos with him, which he seemed to be grateful for and only a little put out that they didn't have Louisiana Hot Sauce for him to take with him.
For some reason that got more attention than the game for awhile.
Anyway, a tearful farewell to the place I learned to love baseball and hate the outdoors, to where Kirby made catches and hit homeruns over plexiglass, where Tori rattled his brains against an unpadded outfield fence, where Doug Mientkiewicz did the splits at first and Joe Mauer just wouldn't stop growing behind home plate and where Johann Santana threw seventeen strikeouts in a game and Big Papi got his start and Terry Tiffee sold some jeans, where Paul Molitor got a lot of his 3,000 hits and Cristian Guzman got accused of loafing at shortstop and Eddie Guardado did deep knee bends and rearranged his junk at least four times per batter. Not even to mention the hall of famers that have Minneapolis streets named after them and the ones that undoubtedly one day will (Morneau Avenue, anyone?) and the Canadians and Venezuelans who were almost as plentiful as the Minnesotans and Alabamans and the balls lost in the roof and the ones that bounced off the infield turf and turned into doubles and 60,000 screaming fans who made it almost impossible to hear:
There is NO SMOKING in the METRODOME!!!
Goodbye and we will miss you.
Sniffle.
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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
It should be noted (since you had no sound) that the crowd went nuts went Nathan scooped up some dirt from the mound. I got a little misty when I thought about the last fans being blown out the doors onto the plaza after a game.
ReplyDeleteOn another, more practical note, it snowed 3.5 inches today. At the home opener last year it was 27 degrees in the morning and not a hell of a lot warmer at game time.
I'm not sure about this "outside" business.
Oh, that makes me happy! At least Minnesotans were paying attention.
ReplyDeleteI think baseball in the snow is a great idea. They can pull some good hidden ball tricks using snowballs. Wily!