Before I forget, check out this interesting Twin Cities Business article with some fine Target Field info before enduring my rant! Most excellent!
SWEET!
I hope the coming posts give you some basic information about the Twins new Target Field. If it sounds like old-school propaganda, so be it. But perhaps there may be something interesting to you regarding it's no-roof structure, a kind of antithesis to Milwaukee's Miller Park. Which is mainly, what Target field is not!
Primarily, I think the greatest appeal about Target Field is it's simplicity in design. It's without a retractable roof, which I feel is its greatest plus. Now, I realize there is the opinion that a modern ballpark without a roof is going to make it difficult for those visiting from outside the Metro area to know if a game will take place with a certainty ( is it going to be a rainout? A snowout?). And that former Twins like Harmon Killebrew felt that perservering through wet and cold games at the old Metropolitan Stadium was more an act of endurance than an athletic contest.
SWEET!I hope the coming posts give you some basic information about the Twins new Target Field. If it sounds like old-school propaganda, so be it. But perhaps there may be something interesting to you regarding it's no-roof structure, a kind of antithesis to Milwaukee's Miller Park. Which is mainly, what Target field is not!
Primarily, I think the greatest appeal about Target Field is it's simplicity in design. It's without a retractable roof, which I feel is its greatest plus. Now, I realize there is the opinion that a modern ballpark without a roof is going to make it difficult for those visiting from outside the Metro area to know if a game will take place with a certainty ( is it going to be a rainout? A snowout?). And that former Twins like Harmon Killebrew felt that perservering through wet and cold games at the old Metropolitan Stadium was more an act of endurance than an athletic contest.
I would state that #1: "that's life, and #2: at least it's a genuine experience, as opposed to the sterile indoor game we knew at the Metrodome. But this takes the cake for me: take a gander at these
photos of Miller Park in Milwaukee: aesthetically, this structure is an overwrought mess. Like all the songs of "Yes" in the Seventies. Yeah, you heard me right, Miller Park isn't the greatest park ever built!
It's a matter of taste. To digress, I've heard people rave about Celine Dion for years. It's always "Oh that big voice...so majestic, so powerful." And...LOUD! Where's the soul? Listen to me, Pedro, she's a "thrower": Celine is a talent, for sure, but she's no "pitcher" in the Frankie Viola sense: no finesse, it's all "look at how hard I can throw," or in her case, how high up the scale she can bleat. She's not even Scott Baker. And don't even try to tell me she can pitch it like Aretha Franklin!!
The same argument goes for Miller Park. Big, brawny & bulbous. Go ahead - click on the photos for a better look! Yuck! All dangling gridwork, billowing metal erector sets...gawd, it's as if the mother ship just crashed unexpectedly in/on top of Milwaukee, with ET ready to jump out and request a "phone home" just to excape all the box girder ugliness.
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It's a matter of taste. To digress, I've heard people rave about Celine Dion for years. It's always "Oh that big voice...so majestic, so powerful." And...LOUD! Where's the soul? Listen to me, Pedro, she's a "thrower": Celine is a talent, for sure, but she's no "pitcher" in the Frankie Viola sense: no finesse, it's all "look at how hard I can throw," or in her case, how high up the scale she can bleat. She's not even Scott Baker. And don't even try to tell me she can pitch it like Aretha Franklin!!
The same argument goes for Miller Park. Big, brawny & bulbous. Go ahead - click on the photos for a better look! Yuck! All dangling gridwork, billowing metal erector sets...gawd, it's as if the mother ship just crashed unexpectedly in/on top of Milwaukee, with ET ready to jump out and request a "phone home" just to excape all the box girder ugliness.
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That comment isn't even taking into account the horrific screech the structure makes as it's being closed when storms are blowing in. You mean to tell me that's preferrable to a structure like Target Field, just to make sure we never feel any discomfort, any apprehension, that we never have to take a calculated risk that things won't go as planned? Isn't life itself a calculated risk?
As Arnold Szwarzeneggar might say, have we become a race of little girly men? C'mon now! What, has humankind devolved since 1982 (year Metrodome opened) to the point it can't assimilate to temperatures that fall below 68 degrees with a slight wind?
So, I guess I'm of the opinion that, number one, I'll put up with a little rain, sleet and wind. I'm a rough, calloused Minnesotan...my descendants slept on sacks of potatoes for pillows...give me the simplicity and cleanness of design, the time-honored cracker jack, sunshiny ambience of the historic baseball venues like Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field. I want full sunshine when we have it in the short, Minnesota summer, not subterranean shadows that darken large portions of places like Safeco (Seattle), Miller and Minute Maid Minute Maid (OMG, talk about airplane hangers: "Stewardess, get me mt airsick bag!!") (Houston) Parks.
The ideal ballpark should merely be the vehicle for the spectacle, which is the game, and shouldn't be encumbered by 400 foot high arches that deliver metal blankets on pulleys. So cold, and it leaves my baseball loving soul lonely! I'll take what we've got! And you can thank your shiny, little stars its ours!!
Twinkler Out.
The ideal ballpark should merely be the vehicle for the spectacle, which is the game, and shouldn't be encumbered by 400 foot high arches that deliver metal blankets on pulleys. So cold, and it leaves my baseball loving soul lonely! I'll take what we've got! And you can thank your shiny, little stars its ours!!
Twinkler Out.
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