I was convinced that there wouldn’t be batting practice. The weather was iffy, and the game had an extra early start time (12:10pm). I mean, if ever there was a day for the players to sleep in, this was it. Right?
Well, when I ran inside the stadium, the cage and screens were all set up, and players from both teams were throwing in the outfield:
I hurried down to the left field foul line and quickly identified the two Tigers as Brad Thomas and Phil Coke. I was hoping that Thomas wouldn’t end up with the ball because he had thrown one to me the day before. I assumed he’d recognize me, so I was glad when Coke ended up with it instead — and when he did, I asked him for it.
He walked over to me and said, “You’re the guy with the running count, right?”
(Crap, I was busted. I had to come up with a good answer.)
“Yeah,” I told him, “and you know I’m doing this for charity, right?”
(I wasn’t only doing it for charity. I was doing it for fun, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to mention that.)
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I saw the thing about you on TV yesterday.”
(Cool! Now I just had to convince him to give me the ball. Think! Say something! Anything!)
“Well, it would be an honor to get a ball from you,” I said.
D’oh! As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt like an idiot. It was actually true — why wouldn’t I want a ball from a major leaguer who recognized me? — but felt kinda phony. Evidently, however, it wasn’t too phony for Coke because he walked even closer and placed the ball into my open glove.
I raced around the stadium to the right field side…
…and got Carl Pavano to throw me a ball five minutes later. It was commemorative and worn out and beautiful. Have a look:
Once the Tigers started taking BP, I ran back to the left field side and grabbed the corner spot along the foul line. This was the view:
I had decided to go for grounders instead of homers because the left field bleachers were crowded:
I caught two baseballs during BP (bringing my total on the day to four). The first was tossed by Johnny Damon, and the second was a grounder that a right-handed batter yanked down the line. In between these two snags, some random guy approached me in the stands and introduced himself. He said he’d been reading my blog, and that he enjoyed keeping up with my baseball travels, and that he was a big baseball geek, too, and that he appreciated how much I enjoyed the game. I appreciated his kind words, but didn’t think much of it until he handed me his business card:
He told me that if I was free the next day, he’d give me a tour of Target Field before it opened. (Stuff like this never happens to me in New York.) He even said I could take photos and blog about it — Twins management gave its stamp of approval — as long as I didn’t use his name. I thanked him profusely, told him I’d give him a call, and then began my own tour.
The previous day, I’d wandered all around the outside of the stadium. Now it was time to explore the inside, and I started behind the 3rd base dugout. Check out the cross-aisle that runs through the stands:
Some people have been referring to this as “the moat,” but I don’t think it should be called that. Moats keep people out. Yankee Stadium has a MOAT. Dodger Stadium has a MOAT. But here in Minnesota, fans are allowed to go down to the dugouts until the end of batting practice. Once BP ends, the ushers start checking tickets, but after a few innings, you can pretty much wander wherever you want.
I headed up the steps and into the field level concourse. Naturally it was packed…
…so it took me a few minutes to make it out to the left field foul pole:
In the photo above, the glassy area on the right is a New Era cap store. The balcony around it is open to everyone. If you want to stand there for the entire game, no one’s gonna stop you.
I kept walking around the field level. Here’s what it looked like at the back of the bleachers in left-center field:
You see those low-hanging lights in the photo above? Know what those are? Heat lamps. Great idea. The Twins/architects paid close attention to detail when designing this ballpark. It was truly a pleasure to walk around and take it all in.
Fans were streaming into Gate 3 — the Harmon Killebrew gate:
Here’s a look at the bullpens and bleachers:
There’s absolutely no chance to use the glove trick behind the ‘pens because the video board juts out too far. (You can see it better two photos above.) In fact, there’s no chance to use the trick in most outfield sections.
Here are the seats in right-center field. Note the flower bed in front and overhang up above:
As you can see, it’s impossible to use the glove trick here, too, and if you’re hoping to catch a home run, your only chance is in the front row. I don’t care if the seats are made of real wood; there’s basically no reason to ever set foot in that section.
Here’s what the batter’s eye looks like from there:
I decided to walk to the end of the front row and peek over the edge — you know, just to see what the trees looked like from above. This is what I saw:
Well, how about that? There was a ball sitting 15 feet below me. I looked around. There were no ushers or security guards in sight, so I pulled out my glove, set up the rubber band and Sharpie, and went in for the kill. It took a minute to knock the ball closer, and then I successfully reeled it in…so I take back what I said a minute ago. There IS a reason to set foot in that section, and you just read about it.
I headed out to the standing room area behind the right field foul pole:
Want to guess who was outside the gate?
Waldo, of course:
(I wrote about him in my previous entry.)
The Twins had won the first two games of the series, so he was rooting for a sweep.
There was still a lot more for me to see. I knew I wasn’t going to finish wandering before the game started — and I was okay with that. I decided to take my time and walk all around Target Field, and if I missed a few innings, so be it.
I rode an escalator to the upper deck and took a photo of the standing room area from above. Check it out:
See that big brown-ish building on the other side of the standing room area? (It’s a garage.) See the gray-ish translucent thing with random white blotches in front of it? I don’t know what to call it — it probably has an official name — so all I can tell you is that it’s a gigantic piece of art. It’s made out of thousands of shingle-sized metal flaps that wiggle back and forth in the breeze. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, and no, that’s not an exaggeration. The flaps move in unison, like a massive school of fish, creating a hypnotic illusion which, from afar, looks like steam rising and swirling. You have to see it in person. It’s freaky and amazing, and you’ll never forget it.
As the umpires walked out onto the field, I wandered from the right field corner toward the plate and discovered a narrow walkway in front of some windows:
Here’s another look at the walkway from the other end:
See the guy holding a clipboard on the right? That was the public address announcer! There was a big microphone hanging down near the upper right corner of the window, and as he spoke into it, his voice boomed out across the stadium. HOW COOL that the Twins designed Target Field to give fans such incredible access. They actually made it worthwhile to be in the upper deck. And wait, there’s more…
Directly behind home plate, there was another/longer enclosed area with windows overlooking the field:
As you can see in the photo above, there wasn’t a walkway in front, so I had to head around the back of it in the concourse. Here’s a photo of it:
It’s called Twins Pub. You don’t need a special ticket to get inside. Anyone can go hang out there to enjoy a beverage and/or escape the cold. Here’s what it looks like on the inside:
Ready for the coolest thing of all? This might be my favorite photo from the whole trip. Inside the pub…well, here, take a look:
Yes, the Target Field organist was sitting right there for everyone to see.
Wow.
Just wow.
Behind the pub, there was an unusual, elevated walkway that the people sitting high up above the plate had to use to get to their seats:
I headed up there to take a few pics that I later combined to make a panorama:
I love how the lights are actually tucked into the roof of the upper deck. I’m telling you, every inch of this stadium is glorious.
Here’s what it looked like at the very back of the upper deck:
(Okay, so maybe THAT shouldn’t be classified as “glorious,” but there’s certainly nothing wrong with it.)
Here’s a look at the field from the 3rd base side…
…and here’s some more upper deck weirdness:
I’m talking about that last elevated row of seats.
Funky, don’t you think?
As I approached the left field corner, I got a nice view of the party decks:
I was looking forward to seeing the Budweiser deck at the very top of the building. There was a staircase at the end of the concourse that appeared to lead up there:
Unfortunately, it just led to the regular portion of the upper deck, so I had to settle for checking it out from here:
I headed down to the club level…
…but couldn’t get past these doors:
The left field corner of the club level was open to everyone, so I headed in that direction:
The “Captain Morgan deck” was situated at the very end (directly above the New Era store):
(There should be an “Alcoholics Anonymous lounge” to go with it.)
This was where the people who didn’t care about the game seemed to congregate. As you can see in the photo above, only one guy was even bothering to watch the nearest TV, and if you look closely, you can see that he was really just taking a quick break from playing with his phone. Sad. But hey, all these people paid to be in the stadium, so whether or not they were watching the game, they were at least supporting it.
Here’s the view from the deck — no, not of the field, but more importantly, of the stands and beams and concourses behind it:
Here’s the view from the top corner of the left field upper deck:
(I really did wander everywhere.)
I loved the combination of metal, concrete, and glass. I loved the angles. I loved the sleek design. But I didn’t love the wind. It was so gusty up there that I was nearly blown off my feet. It was freezing and a bit scary, so I made sure to hold onto the railing whenever I got near the edge. (For once, I was glad to have gained 11 pounds this past off-season.)
This was the view to the left:
Here I am with my five baseballs:
Three of the balls had black magic marker streaks across the logo like this. That’s how the Tigers are marking their balls. (If you want to see all the different types of marked balls that I’ve snagged over the years, click here.)
Here’s what it looked like from the deepest part of the ballpark in left-center:
There’s a standing room area directly behind the batter’s eye…
…but because the wall is so high (shoulder-high if you’re six feet tall) and has a metal drink shelf jutting out, it’s nearly impossible to peer over for balls that might be hiding in the trees below.
The stands in deep right-center were strangely configured. There was some weird railing/platform/standing-room action at the very back:
I headed down toward the main standing room section in right field…
…and then went back up to the club level on the right field side. There was a sizable area that was open to all fans, which included a model of Target Field and a long hallway with photos of every current major league stadium:
Finally, at some point more than halfway through the game, I finished wandering and caught up with my friend “Big Glove Bob”:
I spent the next few innings hanging out in the standing room area, and then I grabbed a seat behind the 3rd base dugout. Orlando Hudson flied out to Tigers right fielded Ryan Raburn to end the eighth inning, and when Raburn jogged in, he flipped me the ball. That was my sixth of the day, and since there was a little kid standing nearby with a glove, I handed him my lone unmarked/non-commemorative ball from BP. (Yeah, I kept the game-used ball with the Target Field logo and gave him a regular practice ball. So? He didn’t know the difference, and he was thrilled to no end.) Then, with one out remaining in the game, I moved over to the staircase behind the umpires’ exit…
…and got my seventh and final ball of the day from Derryl Cousins as he hurried off the field.
My last two baseballs were perfect, game-rubbed, commemorative balls:
Final score: Zack 7, Twins 5, Tigers 4. (This improved my Ballhawk Winning Percentage to .786 — 5.5 wins and 1.5 losses.)
I had no idea what happened in the game until I looked at the box score, and you know what? It doesn’t even matter.
SNAGGING STATS:
• 7 balls at this game (6 pictured on the right because I gave one away)
• 73 balls in 7 games this season = 10.4 balls per game.
• 636 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 187 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball
• 4,431 total balls
CHARITY STATS:
• 29 donors (click here and scroll down to see who has pledged)
• $3.85 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)
• $26.95 raised at this game
• $281.05 raised this season for Pitch In For Baseball
After the game, I met Jona at Smalley’s 87 Club. We both had our laptops and used the free WiFi. She had a Boca burger. (Yeesh.) I had the boneless BBQ chicken wings and a side of onion rings. (She’d say “yeesh” to that, so we’re even.) Roy Smalley made a post-game appearance (as he often does) and signed a ticket stub for me:
(Are they still called “stubs” even though they no longer get torn?)
