Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Final Metrodome Game (part II)

Metrodome baseball just will not end.

Games like tonight are the kinds of games that I wish I would/could have written about years ago. There were no blogs back then… Hell, there was barely an Internet back then.

Tonight’s game reminded me so much of 1991. Even the Homer Hankies were out again.

Not that this team is going to win the 2009 World Series or anything beyond this game, but the crowd “in the building” had many of the same emotions. This was “Do or Die” baseball at it’s finest.

The crowd was AWESOME.

There are too many games at the Dome that when the home team gets down early, the crowd goes into a shell. Not only do the fans not care about the outcome, but they feel obligated to “sit on their wallets” because they are unhappy with the product on the field.

NOT TONIGHT!!!! Not with everything on the line.

The Twins were down 3-0 early, but this Metrodome crowd was going to do whatever it took to help the Twins win the 2009 AL Central Title.

I worked the left field corner tonight. These are interesting fans in the corner for a busy game. They are the fans that get in line early for special tickets (i.e. Yankees, Red Sox, playoffs, etc…), but I get the feeling that they don’t attend too many games during the regular season. They just like to go to the best ones.

Not that they are bandwagon fans, because I am sure they hang on every pitch at home on their TV. The fans I sold to tonight were great fans. They just want to go to games that really mean something, and not just a whole bunch of normal games.

The best thing about fans like this is that they are into EVERY pitch. They know when to cheer… They know when to be quiet… and best of all; they know that this type of game is no place for The Wave.

Sidenote: (I have always HATED The Wave. For years, I have called The Wave, the first sign of a completely uninterested crowd. The wave is made for a crowd that has no clue what is taking place on the field. They are only interested in making a spectacle of themselves. Any time the wave starts, a regular fan knows that either there are thousands of kids in the building, or too many people do not know what the score is.)

So when the Twins got down early tonight, the fans didn’t sit back down in their blue flappy chairs or forget where their wallet was, they kept tipping back the Buds knowing that all 54,008 “in the building” could have an impact on the game.

…And they did.

You could still sense it in the 12th. The fans were as tired as the team (or as a beer vendor after 25 miles of stairs in 5 nights). We had been taken on an emotional roller coaster ride and desperately wanted to survive to play another night. All that yelling and screaming (and drinking) could not be wasted on a loss. So nobody left, and everyone kept cheering even though many had very little left in the tank.

It wasn’t wasted. It was a great finish. Lots of beer vendors stayed until the end. I stayed even though I knew that my parking meter had expired 30 minutes ago. It really didn’t matter.

Everyone wanted to see what could be the final pitch for the Minnesota Twins. Fortunately it wasn’t tonight.

The baseball field at the HHH Metrodome just isn’t ready for retirement… yet.

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