Minnesota 29-30 July

From Milwaukee, we took the beautiful drive across Wisconsin and up the Mississippi River to the twin cities. There we met up with an old shipmate form my first submarine, USS Finback. Brooks and I had spent three years together on that boat, and looking back, those were some pretty good times. This was the first opportunity for Kate to meet Brooks' family and it was the first time that I had the opportunity to meet Brooks' two sons. For those of you that know me well, know that normally I prefer to avoid children at all costs. This was a pleasant exception, and we had quite a good time as well as a joint trip to the park with Brooks' family.

The Metrodome is approaching end of life as far as baseball is concerned. A new stadium will be in place in time for opening day 2010 and the Twins were already advertising ticket sales.

As many of you know, the Twins came into being when the Washington Senators of Damn Yankees Fame garnered enough sense to get out of Washington. Since that move in the early 60's, they have been a fairly successful franchise, winning two World Series' and numerous division championship. This, combined with an extremely loyal and Prairie Home Companion polite fan base would lead one to believe that their stadium should be state of the art.

Well, that would be a pretty poor conclusion. In this picture, you see the roof of the Metrodome. Somewhere in this picture, there is a baseball in flight. Good luck spotting it. We watched while on three occasions, outfields lost balls against the background of the roof. The roof, the AstroTurf, and the seating that focuses on the 50 yard line (yes the Vikings play here) instead of Home Plate, make this a terrible venue for baseball.
As I mentioned before, the highlight of the trip to Minnesota was not the stadium or even the games (which were actually well played with the exception noted above). The real high light was having the opportunity to spend time with an old shipmate and swap a few lies.
The Twins beat the White Sox in the first game to pull within a half a game of the division leader.
The Twins have got a fairly savvy mascot who seems to show up through out the stadium randomly. Unlike other stadiums where the mascot is well confined to the first few rows this guy really gets around. I suspect that like certain Christmas icons, there is more than one.
The Twins are a very young team, and they have built a franchise around several talented and young marquee players, a proven manager, and the fundamentals. Two things strike you immediately about the team. First as shown in this picture, they will soon need to start shaving. Secondly, they never miss a fundamental play. They always hit the cut off man, their base running is aggressive but flawless, and they are very aware of the ball strike count that the pitchers pitch count. This is a small market team with a chance.


Unfortunately, the Twins were not able to win the second game, and thus remained in second place. There is no doubt that the last word has not been spoken about this divisional race.


Despite having a great fan base and an understanding of the game and its history among the fans, the facility is the worst that we have seen on this trip for playing baseball. So the ranking stand:

First Division:

• Wrigley
• PNC Park
• Turner Field

Second Division

• Baltimore
• Milwaukee
• Cincinnati
• Toronto
• Philadelphia
• New York Yankees
• Cleveland
• Washington
• Chicago White Sox
• Boston
• Minnesota