The Metrodome: a baseball
disaster
The Twins' arrived in Minnesota in 1961 and waited a half-century before a
ballpark was finally built for them. That's a big-league record.
Many people think Metropolitan Stadium was built for the Twins, but of
course 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 when "completed" Metropolitan Stadium had seating for fewer than
20,000 fans. That's because it was 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 surfaced, resulting 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
Minnesota Vikings realized the true value of that construction. It was just
additional outfield seating for baseball, but for football it was prime
sideline seating, so the Vikings paid for that in exchange for reduced rent.
A sad site when it died
When Met Stadium was demolished it was considered to be one of the worst
stadiums in sports, and Major League Baseball players acknowledged that the
infield turf was the most poorly maintained surface in the big leagues.
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.
In 1982 the Metrodome in Minneapolis replaced Met Stadium as home to the
Twins, the college football Gophers, and the National Football League's
Minnesota Vikings.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, where the Twins began play in 1982, is a
football stadium. Its configuration is ideal for football, and there are few
bad seats in the house for a football game. There were roughly 8,000 good
Metrodome seats for baseball. This is because the NFL sparked the concept for
the Metrodome.
The Vikings were never the primary tenant in Met Stadium, and that irked
Pete Rozelle. Baseball ruled in Minnesota when the Met was built, but as
the Vikings and the NFL rose to prominence in the '70s Rozelle, the league's
commissioner, disliked the fact the Vikings were not the primary Met tennant.
Rozelle also had issued an edict that every NFL team should have a new place to
punt.
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 commissioner considered the nearly 49,000-seat Met Stadium to have
insufficient seating, so in 1972 a $51 million, 70,000-seat stadium was
proposed. 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.
Legislators decided to take the stadium issue seriously when the Twins and
the Vikings threatened to leave Minnesota. There was no lease to prevent this.
So in 1976 a state House-Senate subcommittee on Sports Facilities concluded
that rather than remodel either the Met or Memorial Stadium that it would be
preferable and cheaper to build a new 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 to pay 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 appropriating
state funds for, say, snowmobile trails in Biwabik to lure tourists to
northernmost Minnesota in the winter, but they oppose state funds 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,
and a district judge soon ruled it unconstitutional because the law would have
created public debt; such a bill needed to pass by 60 percent vote from both
the House and the Senate. This had not been the case.
But there are usually extra innings to be played on stadium issues.
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 outcome was the Metrodome, which was completed in 1982 and never close
to being on the cutting edge of stadium plans. It was the last multi-sport
stadium built in the United States.
Still, 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, which oddly is something people who want to have stadiums
built for them never seem to mention as they carry their pleas into the media.
The roof, held aloft by air pressure, collapsed before the stadium ever
opened after heavy snow fell and caused a tear in the roof's fabric. This
happened in November of 1981, and it happened again in December of '82. And
again in April of '83, postponing a baseball game against California. This
became the only game ever postponed in Metrodome history, although high winds
tore the roof in 1986, delaying play of a baseball game for about 10 minutes.
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
awarded 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 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
early scores like that which prompted people to call it "The Homer
Dome," even though 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, struck out. Jim Eisenreich was the first Twins' player to take
a swing in the joint during the regular season, and he grounded out.
Former Minnesota Twins' first baseman Kent Hrbek distilled baseball
in the Metrodome during his retirement. Camden Yards had been built in
Baltimore, prompting Hrbek to note that baseball players just want to play ball
and it doesn't matter too much where. But as a fan, he found that he enjoyed
himself when he saw a game in Baltimore. When he attended a game in the Dome,
he just wanted to go home after a few innings.
Essays
index
|
GO TO