Could this be the geekiest tree topper ever? At least of those commercially available, not handmade, maybe.
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But it’s probably fair to say that no park in a half century has been quite as despised as the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. I suspect the Metrodome itself would consider that a point of honor. Even people who love it, hate it. Well, how else can you feel about playing baseball in a football stadium with plastic grass, a baseball-colored roof, an echo and a giant glad trash bags just beyond the fence? How else can you feel about going to the ballpark on a beautiful July day in Minneapolis — there aren’t many seasons in America as beautiful as Minnesota summers — and then finding yourself watching something resembling baseball in this dank building with all the romance of a bank vault. It’s like playing Monopoly in your friends basement when it’s 70 degrees and sunny outside.
“What’s wrong with you kids,” our mothers would yell. “Go play outside!”
And that’s what I always wanted to yell — I sensed that’s what EVERYBODY wanted to yell — while watching games in the Metrodome. You know what Dan Quisenberry said about the place when he first saw it, right? “I don’t think there are any good uses for nuclear weapons but, then, this might be one.” He said that about the Dome back in the mid 1980s. John Schuerholz, when he was GM of the Royals, said something similar — something about nuclear weapons and blowing the place up. The Metrodome did bring out violent wishes. Billy Martin, who knew a little something about violent wishes, was direct: “This place stinks,” he said. “It’s a shame a great guy like HHH had to be named after it.”
Finally, there was inertia. Are you going to fix your drive or drive around the pothole? Truth is, after a while, you might even kind of learn to love that pothole. After all, it’s yours. And the Dome belonged to the Twins, belonged to Minnesota baseball fans. It was theirs: The worst stadium in baseball. Sure, that means something. It was something to COMPLAIN about. And stuff to complain about brings people together. In the South, it’s the humidity. Hot enough for you? In Buffalo, it’s the snow. In St. Louis, it’s the construction. In New York, maybe it’s the tourists., in Los Angeles the traffic, in Cleveland the Browns. In Miami, it’s the drivers. In Chicago, it’s the Bears quarterback. In Kansas City, it was for many years Carl Peterson … and I think people around Kansas City can’t help but miss him because it’s just not as much fun to complain about Scott Pioli.
The Metrodome would bring everyone together during baseball season. It was so dreadful, so indefensible, so anti-baseball that in a weird way it became the opposite of those things. My suspicion was always that Twins fans could take some pride in it.
How many games did you sit through at the Dome?
Oh man. Probably. Fifty?
Wow. You’re a stronger man than I am.
Waiting for visiting hours to start in cardio ICU. My Dad will need bypass surgery. Waiting to see him & on more info.
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| G | AB | BA | HR | RBI | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 29 | 102 | .431 | 12 | 35 | .516 | .873 | 1.388 |