back on target

i followed up my trip to coors field in mid-july with an outing to target field to see the angels and twins. i had planned to see their visit to the twin cities last season, but we know how that turned out. my hope for this game when we picked it was to see mike trout and shohei ohtani and albert pujols. unfortunately, once the schedule rolled around to july 23, trout was still on the injured list and pujols is on the dodgers, so there was only ohtani to look forward to.  of course, joe maddon gave him the night off.  here's my "stub" from the game:

target field was the 17th different big league stadium i witnessed a game in, and it was the first stadium i had been to that replaced one i had previously seen a game in. it opened in 2010 and was as diametrically opposed to the stadium it replaced (the hubert h. humphrey metrodome) as could possibly be.  i have this card in my "stadiums i have seen games in" mini-collection:

it's from the 2011 topps twins factory team set. it shows the partial downtown minneapolis view you get from the stadium, along with a bit of the target center at the right edge of the card. that's where the nba and wnba play. it was one of the ugliest buildings around in my opinion, but underwent an overhaul a few years back and looks better now. the gym i used to go to was in the bowels of target center with a strange layout, but it had perks like being able to watch the timberwolves or lynx shoot around sometimes. it wasn't odd for me to run in to wally szczerbiak or coaches kurt rambis, kevin mchale, or even bill laimbeer once in a while. these days, their practice facility has moved across the street. 

during the construction of target field, i was able to walk by almost daily. i have a few friends who worked on the design of some of the infrastructure around the stadium as well. i used to work in the warehouse district which is where the stadium is located, and could see the back of the minnie and paul sign from my office window. in addition, the stadium site used to be where i would park. i wasn't able to visualize a stadium in that space, but darn if they didn't figure out how to shoehorn it in.

prior to the first game i attended there in 2010, i walked around the stadium to check out the final product. along the northwest side of the property, there was still some construction fencing up, but the twins had covered it with a screening that featured different topps baseball cards of twins from throughout the years, like this one: 

it was just one of the ways that the team honored their history with the new stadium. as always, i was on the lookout for the retired numbers, and they were (and still are) prominently placed on the facade facing left field

since this photo was taken, the team has added tom kelly's 10, bert blyleven's 28, and joe mauer's 7 to the numbers for jackie robinson, kirby puckett, kent hrbek, tony oliva, rod carew, and harmon killebrew, and you can see those new numbers in the background of the first pitch photo i took on july 23 of this year:

over the years, i've been to probably three dozen or so games there. i've finished a 5k on the warning track, and i've taken the official tour of the place. i've been to a card show in the lower levels and to other twins events out on the adjacent plaza area. there is a lot of baseball history on display, including the twin cities' minor league history (there's a photo of roy campanella from his st. paul saints days in one of the restaurants) and the region's town ball teams in addition to the franchise (including the washington senators) history. in fact, i noticed during my visit last month that they are now flying banners for the senators' world series title and their pennants

on the far left is the senators' 1924 world series championship flag, with flags for the 1925 and 1933 american league pennants to its right. in the middle is the 1965 twins' pennant flag, with the 1987 and 1991 world series banners at the right. not sure why the breeze wasn't affecting the '91 flag as much.  it's odd to think that since gene larkin's series winning hit in 1991, the twins are 3-25 across nine postseason appearances.

anyway, target field is a great ballpark, and i'm glad to live so close to it. 

as an aside, i bought a 2021 topps now card of ohtani earlier this year

the card is all about tying ohtani to babe ruth which is great. i bought it to put in my "names and numbers on the back" mini-collection. here's the back:

cool to see a reference to luis tiant there at the end, although topps originally gave his last name a decidedly different spelling:

kudos to topps for correcting the spelling before going to print.