The End of the Dome

I've always been a baseball fan. It's a great game. No time clock. Lots of strategy and subtlety. And our local team the Twins are just the sort of team I've grown to like best - though since I live here I'm sure I'd be a Twins fan in any case. Next year the Twins move outside to a new stadium - which will be great. I'm looking forward to summer nights at the stadium.


One of the consequences is that the dome won't be hosting any more baseball games. For a regular season game in mid-season, that won't be much of a loss. It's a football stadium where they play baseball. But when it's packed and the crowd is roaring, there is no place where I've had more fun watching a baseball game. The first game of the 1987 World Series was one of my great sports memories. And though I didn't go in person, the best 3 games I remember were all played at the Dome.

The 6th game of the 1991 World Series between the Twins and the Braves - the Kirby Puckett game - was amazing.

Kirby made an amazing hit-robbing catch, and followed it up with a home run to win the game. The next night Jack Morris pitched 10 shutout innings and the Twins won the series. Two great games.

But last night the Twins beat the Tigers in a one game play-in game for this year's playoffs that was even better. The Twins had been chasing the Tigers since May - but really only started making any progress in early September. It was just a great, great game. For Twins fans things had been building to this game for a while. And it was just a thrill ride.



If the other two games were movies they would have been tense thrillers like "Rear Window." Last night's game was "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark". In a way it was too bad that either team had to lose. But if one did, I was glad that it was the Tigers.