The Metrodome: a baseball disaster
The Twins' franchise arrived in Minnesota in 1961, yet it will be 2010 - a half-century later - when they will be able to abandon the claim as the only Major
League Baseball team to spend that many decades in one city and never have
a baseball stadium built for it.
Many people think Metropolitan Stadium was built for the Twins, but that is not the case.
Metropolitan Stadium was constructed in Bloomington, Minnesota, in 1956, but
the original construction was not designed to accommodate either the Twins or Major League
Baseball.
| When Met Stadium was demolished, it was considered to be one of the
worst stadiums in sports.
|
The long-term plan in the '50s was to lure big-league ball to Minnesota. But originally
Metropolitan Stadium had seating for fewer than 20,000 fans, and had been built for the
Minneapolis Millers, a Class AAA baseball team. It was not until 1958 that a
serious push to lure a baseball team to Minnesota resulted in a $9 million bond
issue to double the seating capacity of the stadium to about 40,000.
That set the Met on its path to being a patchwork mess, including work in 1965 to cobble together left-field stands for baseball's
All-Star Game. But the real value of that construction fell into the laps of the Minnesota Vikings organization, which paid for
the work in exchange for reduced rent, not to mention more sideline seating for football.
A sad dump when it died
The Metrodome in Minneapolis replaced Met Stadium as home to the Twins,
college football Gophers, and the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings
in 1982. When Met Stadium was demolished, it was considered to be one of the
worst stadiums in sports, and Major League Baseball players considered the
infield turf to be the most poorly maintained surface in the game.
Contrary to those who wax poetic about Elysian Fields, Metropolitan Stadium
was an ugly, piecemeal bit of architecture set in an area that guaranteed a
traffic jam after even weekend ballgames, when there was no work traffic.
Today, it's impossible to imagine the effect on traffic in that area of
Bloomington if a big-league team played there.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, where the Twins have played since April 3,
1982, is a football stadium. Its configuration is ideal for football, and there
are few bad seats in the house for a football game. For a baseball game, there
are roughly 8,000 good seats. That's one way to tell it was the Minnesota
Vikings who sparked city officials to consider a new sports stadium in 1971.
The Vikings were not the primary tenant in Met Stadium. Baseball ruled in
Minnesota when the Met was built. The Vikings had risen to prominence by the
'70s, the Twins were faltering, and there was Pete Rozelle. The National
Football League commissioner disliked the fact the Vikings were not the primary
Met tennant, and he had also issued an edict that every NFL team should have a
new stadium.
The house that Pete built
| There was talk of building a stadium that would have one football
goal line in Saint Paul and the other in Minneapolis. The plan died.
|
The NFL considered the nearly 49,000-seat Met Stadium to have insufficient
seating, and in 1972 proposed a $51 million, 70,000-seat stadium. Minnesotans
strongly opposed the idea, because that is what Minnesotans have historically
done, but the city of Minneapolis approved the plan and arranged to borrow
money. Minneapolis Mayor Charles Stenvig opposed this. He called for a
funding referendum, and voters supported him. The plan died.
Three years later, the state Legislature was listening to a new round of
stadium proposals. There was discussion about expanding the University of
Minnesota's Memorial Stadium into a $125 million multi-purpose field with a
dome. There was talk about building a stadium in Lakeville that would be
recessed into the ground, much like the Metrodome playing surface today.
With the Twins and the Vikings each threatening to leave Minnesota, and no
lease that could prevent this, legislators decided to take the stadium issue
seriously. In 1976, a state House-Senate subcommittee on Sports Facilities
concluded it would be preferable and cheaper to build a new stadium, rather
than remodel either the Met or Memorial Stadium.
Rudy and Quie
Location and financing were the political issues, with outstate legislators
preferring a hotel-motel tax. Legislators in Duluth and Rochester, outlying
parts of Minnesota, didn't want their constituents paying for a stadium that
would benefit the Twin Cities metropolitan area, even though their constituents attend games there.
This is the same argument presented when dealing with issues of transit in
the state: legislators in outstate Minnesota have no problem building, say,
snowmobile trails in Biwabik to lure tourists to northernmost Minnesota in the
winter, but think they will not be re-elected if they vote to improve mass
transit in the Twin Cities.
When it comes to state politics, there is often further division within the
Twin Cities, and that was the case during the Metrodome Stadium discussions. At
one point in '76, there was talk of building a stadium that would have one
football goal line in Saint Paul and the other in Minneapolis. The plan died.
Eventually, a bill for a 65,000-seat stadium passed. Governor Rudy
Perpich signed it into law as the 1977 state legislative session closed. A
district judge ruled it unconstitutional because the law would have created
public debt and the bill had needed to pass by 60 percent of both the House and
the Senate. This had not been the case.
The effort was revived once more, and in 1979 Governor Al Quie signed
a bill for a $55 million domed sports stadium in Minneapolis. It was to be
financed with a limited hotel-motel and liquor tax, local business donations,
and payments established within a special tax district near the stadium's site.
Outdated from the onset
| A few innings in the Dome and you are eager to leave.
|
The Metrodome was completed in 1982, and was hardly on the cutting edge of
stadium plans. It was the last multi-sport stadium built in the United States.
But it was inexpensive, and like Metropolitan Stadium operated in the black.
Unlike stadiums in some parts of the country, stadiums in Minnesota have not
been money pits.
Before it ever opened, the inflatable roof collapsed after heavy snow fell
and caused a tear in the roof's fabric. That happened in November of 1981, and
it happened again in December of '82. In April of '83, it happened again, which
postponed a scheduled game against California. This became the only game ever
postponed in Metrodome history, although high winds in 1986 caused a tear in
the roof, which resulted in a nearly 10-minute delay of play.
The Dome - and again, this is a football stadium - was the place where
Dave Kingman hit a towering fly ball that passed through one of the
roof's drainage holes in May of 1984. The ball never emerged, and Kingman was
given a ground-rule double. Footballs, of course, don't travel high enough to
enter these holes. The roof is 195 feet above the playing field.
In '92, Detroit's Rob Deer, in consecutive a-bats, popped up twice to
shortstop Greg Gagne, the ball ricocheting off the roof both times. In
the Dome, any ball hit off the roof, or a speaker suspended from the roof, in
fair territory is an out if the ball is caught. If the ball nicks a speaker in
foul territory, it's just a foul ball, but potentially playable.
The Twins, by the way, lost their opener in the Dome, 11-7 to Seattle on
April 6, 1982. The Twins' first win in the Dome came the next day, 7-5. It was
scores like that which prompted people to call it "The Homer Dome,"
but the stadium has been more conducive to doubles than home runs in its
history. The stadium actually favors pitchers, slightly.
This dump was home to the Twins way longer than Met Stadium. Fittingly, the first man to ever bat in a regular-season game there, Seattle's Julio Cruz, whiffed. Jim Eisenreich was the first Twins' player to take a swing in the joint during the regular season, and he fittingly grounded out.
Former Minnesota Twins' first baseman Kent Hrbek distilled baseball
in the Metrodome during his retirement. It was after Camden Yards had been
built in Baltimore that Hrbek noted baseball players just want to play ball,
and it doesn't matter too much where. But as a fan, when he sees a game in
Baltimore, he enjoys the entire nine innings. When he attends a game in the
Dome, after a few innings he just wants to go home.
Essays
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