Why I'll Miss the Dome

If you're a Minnesotan baseball fan, you know why the Dome has to go. It's a football field. The sightlines were never meant for baseball. The concourses are too small, the bathrooms are too small, and you have to pee in a trough. But I'm going to miss the Dome. First all, it was home to the only two Minnesota sports championships of the modern age (i.e. not counting the Minneapolis Lakers), the '87 and '91 Twins, one of which ('91) is rated, if not the greatest, then among the greatest World Series ever played. I can't imagine a pair of more dramatic games than game 6 and 7. This was where Puckett and Hrbek (my favorite Twin) played. This is where a fly ball went up but never came down, where David Ortiz (Red Sox/steroids version) hit a massive should-have-been home run that hit a speaker and bounced back into play. This is where a capacity crowd welcomed the '87 Twins back home after defeating the much-favored Tigers in the ALCS. This where Kirby said goodbye, and we said goodbye to Kirby. And this is where, after the last game of the 2006 regular season, the most amazing regular season I've ever seen, I watched the Tigers lose and the Twins clinch the division.

But more than all those moments, the Dome was the ultimate home field advantage. We knew how to take advantage of it and everyone else had to deal. Even after so many years, you could always count on an opposing outfielder losing a ball in the roof several times a season. Back when the field was as hard as a rock, you could bet on the visitors playing bounces wrong. The Baggy in right is tricky is you don't know what you're doing. Add it all up and you get a home field advantage unmatched anywhere else in baseball. Sure, sometimes it cost us too (coughLewFordcough), but it always cost them more.

I'm psyched about the new stadium next year. While I worked downtown over the last year, I would take my lunch break and walk down and look at the progress at least once a week. From everything I've seen and heard, it's going to be fantastic. But it's going to take a while for it to be home. Talk to me after Mauer and Morneau have a couple of world championships under their belts.