Sunday, March 21, 2010

Jon and his college friend Duane went to Target Field today for a sneak peek of the new Twins baseball stadium. From what he was saying when he got home, it sounds like a pretty nice place. I think it's neat that old stadium history was incorporated into the field. The original flag pole from the Metropolitan Stadium found a home on Target Plaza and the wood floor laid behind the island bar at the Town Ball Tavern is the actual floor from the Minneapolis Armory, the last home of the Minneapolis Lakers before they moved to Los Angeles.

In the picture below, Jon is seated in the seat he'll be sitting in when we go see the Anaheim Angels play the Twins.  See the scoreboard?  It's the 4th largest videoboard in MLB.  It's nearly 5,800 sq ft of HD sweetness. 

A different view.

Here's a little of our downtown skyline.  (Who am I kidding... it's probably most of it.)

They call this the Celebration Sign.  It's a tribute to the original Twins logo and features lights that allow "Minnie" and "Paul" to shake hands across the Mississippi River every time the Twins hit a home run.  I hope to see it in action!  Someone posted a video on YouTube.  Fancy!

Here Jon is sitting in The Golden Glove.  It symbolizes the Twins' commitment to playing great defense and includes a tribute to every Gold Glove winner in team history.  I can only imagine how many butts that glove will hold in it's lifetime.

Some other neat features of the stadium are:  

• Multiple "knotholes" along the 5th Street side of the ballpark allowing fans to watch the action while standing outside the park.
• A large fire pit on the Roof Deck that will warm fans on cool spring and fall evenings.  I'm sure that fire pit will get a lot of use!
• The Roof Canopy, which is one of the largest in baseball, holds the field lights and protects Terrace Level fans from the elements.
• A logo stamped tin ceiling in Hrbek's restaurant.
• The facility is green.  Regional materials were used in the construction, recycling collection points are stationed around the field, excess food will be donated to local charitable organizations, water-saving fixtures will save 4.2 million gallons of potable water per year, and a rainwater recycling system was installed to capture and reuse rainwater.  The purified water will be used for field irrigation and seating area washdown saving more than 1.26 million gallons of water per year.

I saved the best feature for last.  There are 401 women's restroom fixtures.  (The Dome only had 256).  Hopefully now the lines will be short.  For those wondering, the men only get 266.