Twins' New Home Is on Target

MINNEAPOLIS -- If Game 3 of the American League Division Series was to be played at Target Field, it would be about 40 degrees at game time. And falling.

But the grass would be fine, since 41 miles of coils containing glycol will keep the field itself at least 42 degrees so the grass never freezes.

The fans and players may have to suffer.

Target Field doesn't open until April, and the Twins -- and denizens of the upper Midwest -- are perfectly happy to be playing outside instead of at the Metrodome.

During a Sunday morning media tour of Target Field, team president Dave St. Peter said the Twins have already sold the equivalent of 17,000 season tickets for 2010. They had 11,000 season tickets this year at the Metrodome and could nearly double that for next season, which would put them in the top eight in Major League Baseball.

Target Field will seat about 39,800, plus standing room, and tickets range from $10 to $275 (just 16 seats at the latter price). And the stadium has a number of nice Minnesota touches.

The exterior is local stone, quarried 90 miles away near the Minnesota River. That cost an extra $8 million, which the Pohlad family was willing to pay for a local touch.

One of the flagpoles in right field, beyond an "Overlook" section of seats that extends eight feet past the 23-foot-high right field wall (the same height as the Metrodome "baggie," but an actual wall), will come from old Metropolitan Stadium. The flagpole has spent the intervening 28 years at the American Legion post in Richfield, Minn.

The Budweiser Roof Deck at the top of the stands in the left-field corner, a cross between Fenway Park's Green Monster seats and the rooftops at Wrigley Field, imitates a local tradition with a fire pit.

And a 46-foot-high sign beyond center field has an outline of the state with the old team logo, twins "Minnie" and "Paul" across the Mississippi River. When a Twin hits a home run at Target Field, the sign will light up and the twins will shake hands.

It took the Twins 10 years of work to get this stadium approved and built. Local government is paying $350 million, with the team adding another $180-200 millon so far.

The site is downtown, near the Timberwolves' Target Center, wedged between two bridges and railroad tracks.

"When we first saw it," said Jerry Bell, president of Twins Sports Inc., "we said it was too small. And we were right.

"It's a 14 1/2-acre building on 8 1/2 acres."

So parts of the stands are cantilevered over the Burlington Northern tracks and a city street.

A retractable roof would have cost another $125 million, Bell said, so the elements will be part of the stadium.

Yet the Twins said had they played outdoors this year, they would have had just two or three delays and no postponements. So precipitation isn't the issue, but temperature is.

The wide concourses have radiant heating overhead. And there are places for fans to gather and rewarm their bodies: an upper-deck Twins Pub and a watering hole called Hrbek's, after Minnesotan and former Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek ("There's no salads," St. Peter said).


Twins history is honored all over the park. The gates are numbered and named after former stars -- gate 29 is the "Rod Carew Gate," and most fans will enter gate 34, the "Kirby Puckett Gate."

On the club level, there's a Puckett Atrium, with the late Kirby Puckett's image engraved in wood above the bar. And a bar is named "573" after Harmon Killebrew's career homer total.

St. Peter can't stress enough how glad the Twins are to be leaving the Metrodome, where they were the No. 2 tenant after the Vikings.

About the only thing Target Field will have in common with the Metrodome is at the concession stands.

"We surveyed our fans," St. Peter said, "and the one thing they want is the 'Dome Dogs.'

"We're not bringing the baggie."