On Rockin' the Apolis
Friday, August 13, 2010
Oakland Athletics vs.
Minnesota Twins
Target Field
Major League Baseball, American League
Minneapolis, MN
7:10 PM
Outside the Game:
It was another early start for this side trip. After my last episode trying to get to Newark Liberty Freedom America-F-Yeah Airport, I decided to get an earlier start to my nine AM flight to the Minneapolis, especially given the dire weather reports coming out of that area of the land. I got picked up by my car service at 6:45 AM, and this turned out to be a prudent course of action, as the route to the airport was again beset with delays. What appeared to be a accident had the way backed up for several miles, making a trip of fifteen minutes into forty-five. At eventually arriving at and passing what turned out to be a horror show of a traffic accident, one could not help but be a little sheepish about any spleen vented as to the wait.
Arriving at the airport with plenty of time left to spare, I discovered that this was a Continental
Express flight, and not a regular Continental flight, so instead of leaving from the spacious and fully appointed Terminal C, we were leaving from one of the disused and misbegotten smaller terminals in A. Scrounging what resources I could from the paltry offerings, I found myself pleasantly surprised to find that I had a plane, a crew, and good weather to guide my flight on its way, if nothing but a rather sad-looking Hudson News from which to buy reading materials.
Except at boarding time, the concerned rep came on the intercom to announce that there were "mechanical problems," and we were going to be delayed at least a half hour. To fix said "mechanical problems" involved one rather uninterested tech sitting astride the plane engine opening and closing the same panel for a half hour. Now, I'm not a plane engineer by any stretch of imagination, but I was sitting right by the window looking out onto the plane, and that is
exactly what this guy was doing: opening and closing the same panel, punctuated by getting off the engine for a few minutes, and then opening the panel again.
Whatever he did the last time he opened and closed the panel seems to have taken, because we were eventually allowed to board the plane about forty minutes after our original departure time. We were on a bus with wings, so boarding was quick, and we settled down for our just-shy-of-three-hours flight. Considering that my last flight was the one back from Japan, I could do the three hours plus delay standing on my head. I was actually amused by how short it was, and bordered on a punch-drunk demand to fly back to Newark and back to make this all worth my while. The grandiose plan died unspoken, which was probably for the best.
We made up some time in the air and touched down on time in the fair confines of Minneapolis. Upon getting my bag back on the jetway from underneath the plane (the flying buses make you check your roll-ons because they won't fit in the small overheads), I found that the drag bar on my bag no longer would extend. Now, I'm hard on my bags, and this one was already on life support after the beating I gave it in Japan, so it wasn't a great surprise that this one was giving up the ghost. Still, it meant that I had to physically carry it by the hand all through the terminal and the remainder of my trip.
After Japan, I found navigating around the Minneapolis airport (which I had even visited last year on my trip) as something short of a trifle. I mean, all the signs were in English, and I could go and ask just about anyone I ran into a question about where I needed to go, and they understood what I was asking and responded in English. I felt like I should start talking in Italian just to make this interesting. I mean, if they're just going to put everything on a platter, what's the challenge? This idea, too, stayed on the drafting table.
I called up my hotel and got a shuttle sent out to carry me back to the nearby hotel. I checked in early, dumped all my stuff off, and took a nap to sort out the early start.
After that, it was time to head out, and I took one of the hourly shuttles out to the Mall of America. The Mall was one of the endpoints on the transit system (the other being Target Field), so I had to get out there to get to the stadium anyway. I had an hour or two to kill before I had to leave for the 40-minute train ride to the game, so I decided to go inside to see what I could see.
Where to begin? Well, it
is a mall, and it
is in America, so no false advertising there. And unless some events have passed me by, it remains the biggest indoor mall in America, with plans to expand out into a parking lot to hook up with a huge outlying Ikea not yet park of assimilated whole. (This would regain it the title of the largest indoor mall in North America, currently held by some place up in Vancouver.) I'm not sure what I was expecting, but when you get right down to it, it
was just a mall, and as someone from New Jersey, that wasn't so impressive. I mean, it is big and all, but the Orange Julius stands, and the Hot Topics, and the A&F, and the legions of bored teenagers are all the same. And it produced some of the most incongruous images ever, some that may never leave my head. That there were legions of overweight Americans on scooters was unsurprising, but watching one of those carts drive into a Victoria's Secret nearly broke my fragile brain.
While perhaps just a mall writ large, this mall does have an aquarium (as in a water zoo, not just a fish tank) and a Nickelodeon-themed
amusement park in the center of it, all covered by a glass-ceiling. And it is a legitimate, full-on amusement park, not some carousel and bumper cars school-fair-cum-amusement park. There were roller coasters, and flying Dutchmen, and thrill ride, and even a log flume.
It was at said flume that I found out some disturbing information. It turns out the site of the Mall of America was the previous home for Municipal Park, the Twins open-air home before the birth of the Metrodome. There is an information sign by the log flume informing visitors that this is the site of Harmon Killebrews' famous home run that he hit so far and so hard that it splintered some wooden seats that were then painted red to commemorate the event. The red chair now sits woefully alone, looking down on the log flume above the plaque. Across the amusement park, by a Spongebob Squarepants ride, is a home plate showing where the Municipal Park home plate once sat. It made the occasion a little on the morbid side.
After some more mall rambling, I went down to the transit hub on one side of the Mall to get the train to Target Field. I got my ticket and sat down on the train, and I was soon joined by a middle-aged guy with a Target Field pass on his shirt. It turns out that he currently works as a VIP-relations person for the Twins as a part-time job. In his previous life, he was (or, at least, claimed to be) on the road staff for the Rolling Stones. He said that the stories of drug use were very much over-blown, but that everything you heard about Mick Jagger and David Bowie are 100% true. He also claims that the Stones won't play Minneapolis any more because of a city law that says any venue of above a certain capacity has to provide hearing-impaired access through sign interpreters or real-time video transcription. (This dead-accessibility thing is true [Target Field had a screen specifically for this], and the Stones haven't played Minneapolis since 1999, so make of it what you will.) He also clued me in to the flag pole they have at Target Field, which was rescued from the original Municipal Stadium and now flies out in right field.
The trip back was more eventful. There was a mad-dash scrum to get to the trains that is handled through a number of fences and whatnot. With post-game fireworks scheduled and seats right near the exit for the train, I managed to get to the trains at the very start of the flood. The trains were sardine-packed until we got to some of the more downtown stops where a lot of the college students from the game dropped off to go drink and whatnot, and by the time we had gotten back to the Mall of America, all that were left were just out-of-town tourists or locals who lived to the south and parked at the Mall.
The Mall. So here's the thing: as I mentioned, the Mall is a transit hub, so even though all the stores in the Mall close up around ten or so, the Mall itself stays open so people can travel through it to get to the North Entrance where all the hotel shuttles pick people up, even after hours. I got back to the Mall a smidgen before 11, needing to get to the North Entrance by 11:05 to catch the last scheduled shuttle to my hotel, or I'd have to call and wait for them to send a van again.
I don't think I had been legitimately terrified as an adult before this time. The Mall open but closed is... evocative. Walking past a back-lit Spongebob Squarepants statue in the subdued neon was enough to start to unnerve me. Already going at a clip to catch the shuttle, I started to walk even faster when faced with that abomination. And then, the hallways of the mall teaming with closed stores just tripped off every George Romero switch in my brain. My tasty, tasty brain. I proceeded to freak myself out, and once I was clear of all the people that got off the train with me, I sprinted to the North Entrance at full speed and burst through the doors, to find a long aisle of bored people on bus benches waiting for their shuttles. And so I got back to my hotel unconsumed.
The Stadium & Fans:
Target Field opened up this year to replace the still-extant Metrodome that lies across town. I had gone there last year to see a game before it was closed to baseball forever, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the experience of watching a game under a Glad Bag. But progress moves on, and the new stadium (sans roof) was built across the street from the Target Center (Target as a corporate entity apparently owns a good 45% of all the real estate in Minneapolis proper), and both the rail and Skyway system was extended to meet the new resident.
The rail station drops you off a few feet away from one of the entrance gates to the stadium. I, of course, took the time to walk around the periphery of the place first. The outside was all well done, with statues, and tributes, and even a scoreboard telling you what was going on in the game itself. In Target Plaza, there was some baseball topiary, a large kinetic sculpture along the length of a wall, and statues of Harmon Killebrew and Kirby Puckett, as well as a large bronze Twins mitt, the meaning of which I have yet to discern. There even was an official concessions stand (with the unfortunate name of "Taste of Twins Country") that was open to people outside the stadium.
Once inside, the park continued to impress. An ounce of thought was put into the place, which was welcome. The outfield entrance is actually above the playing field, but on the level of a rotunda that wrapped around the entire park, giving access to concessions while allowing patrons to continue watching the game. The seating was arrayed close to the action and from everywhere I tramped around, it didn't seem like there was a bad seat in the house. There was the de regur giant scoreboard in center, with auxiliary screens for the pitchers and the out of town scores. The left field foul pole was inset in a sharp angle to give it a little bit of quirk, lying just to the left of a giant sign of the Twins team logo. The bleachers included a "home run porch" in left field that apparently is going to be extended up and onto the building behind it, in a nod to Wrigley's rooftop seating. The team store was a glass-lined temple to capitalism, and for some reason, the person watching the door insisted on high-fiving everyone that came in.
There were the regular concessions areas, as well as specialty and club-only areas such as the Twins Pub, and a big glass restaurant in the right field corner. There was also a "Budweiser Party Porch," much like Fenway, but I'll be damned if I'll ever go into one during a game. A "State Fair Favorites" booth sold a "porkchop on a stick," which was exactly as promised. The center field concessions lie behind a three-quarters brick wall that allows you to look onto the field while you eat your consumables.
Outside of the dumbasses (see below), the Twins fans were as I remembered them from last year. The place was packed even for a game against the largely forgotten A's, and the crowd was vocal and in the game. One or two A's fans even dotted the crowd.
The whole experience was very positive, and after one visit, this place easily jumps into my current top five in the majors (behind Wrigley, Fenway, PNC, and Camden Yards).
At the Game with Oogie:
Sitting the row with me was a confused-looking college girl. It turns out that the confused look was that she was waiting for her father to show up, who ended up sitting next to me. As is often the case at these games, we got to talking. I eventually explained why I was there and what I was doing, and that this was my first game in America after being in Japan. I'm used to the normal confused reaction, but then he asked what the heck my line of work was that I could afford such things. And the question sort of floored me. "I make people do the work to lie to people on behalf of other people" seemed a little too direct, so I told him interactive project management, which seemed to satisfy him.
Among the topics we discussed were the dumb-ass teenagers in front of us. In the row ahead, there was a group of two male and two female adolescents, and I have to say, they brought me quite down. As previously mentioned, this was my first game back in America after being in Japan, and I had gotten spoiled by the attentive and involved fanbase that was at nearly every game I attended there. These four were not of that ilk. They spent all their time trying to get on the video scoreboard, or going to get food, or taking the same goddamn posed pictures that I'm sure they take everywhere in their seats. ("It's nothing they won't grow out of in a decade or two," my row-mate quipped.)
I was content to suffer them in silence, until the eighth inning, where they kept continuously (and, to the credit of Minnesotans in attendance, unsuccessfully) trying to start the wave. After their fifth or sixth unsuccessful attempt, one of them looked back at the crowd and shouted, "You're all lousy fans!"
The point had, in fact, been reached. I replied, "What's the score?"
"What?" he countered.
"The score of the game," I answered. "What is it?"
"Huh?" he rejoindered.
The gentleman next to me and a few other people who heard the conversation started to laugh, and he finally turned around and did not attempt the wave again. Truly, a great victory for baseball was had.
The weather had been playing hide and seek with me for the entire day. While I was on the train out to the game, there had been another torrential downpour, but it stopped as soon as I arrived at the park. As I got dinner at a concession stand about a half hour before game-time, there was another downpour, but it only delayed the start of the game for about five minutes. The rain then held off until I was breathlessly waiting for my shuttle to the hotel at the end of the night.
The Game:
This was wasn't as close as it seemed. Though the A's threatened in the first, the Twins put two across in the bottom of the inning, one walked in and another brought home on a single. All stayed quiet until the A's lead off with a double, brought the runner home with a triple, had another runner get on base on a fielder's choice that erased the runner on third, and then had him in turn brought home with another double.
The Twins broke the deadlock in the bottom of the fourth with a single, a ground rule double to bring home the run, a sacrifice bunt to get the runner to third, and a sacrifice fly to get it home. The game went quietly at 4-2 until the ninth, when the Twins closer gave up a one-out double, got the next batter to fly out, and then saw his game-ending groundout to the shortstop go through the wickets to bring home the runner all the the way from second. He gave up another single, but managed to induce a flyout to center to end it 4-3 for the Twinkies.
The Scorecard:
 |
| Athletics vs. Twins, 08/13/10. Twins win, 4-3. |
The scorecard is a quad-fold cardstock reminiscent of the one from last year, just updated for Target Field. In addition to some earned runs calculations, there were a couple plays of note. The Twins right fielder made the third out of the first on a routine 8-6-5 put-out while trying to advance to third on a single, and in the top of the third, a leadoff triple by the A's was snuffed when the runner went on contact and got thrown out on a 5-2-5 rundown.
And on top of everything else, they had a vendor selling scorecards in the stands. I thought it turned into the 1940s again. He only made one pass through the stands and was heading off into the next section by the time I comprehended what was happening, but that's the only place in the majors I've seen that happen.
The Accommodations:
I was staying at the seemingly contradictorily named Holiday Inn Express & Suites at the airport. They let me check in early, and I found out the room I was in had two double beds, each with four pillows. This led to a very productive pillow fort in one bed that quickly became more pillow than bed.
However, the business center had only two computers, and both were burdened with "security" software that made it impossible to access any sites that needed JavaScript and a router that seemed to only be notionally plugged in. The hotel wireless was up to the same standard, so suffice to say I had Internet problems, some of which would come to haunt me the next day.
On Learning Things
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Minneapolis, MN
Outside the Game:
This was another day completely unwritten. I had left myself the entire weekend in case what almost happened the night before had occurred. With a day to kill and no plans, I decided to just wander around the city proper and see what I could see. I was completely ignorant about Minneapolis, so I figured I might as well educate myself.
I briefly toyed with the idea of going to the Twins game that night, but the game was sold out (it was a Target Field miniature giveaway), and the non-JavaScript using computers at my hotel wouldn't let me use the heavily JavaScript StubHub site, so I just ditched the idea and left the hotel after breakfast.
This dumped me off at the Mall of America again. Before heading downtown, I spent some time at the LEGO store, because,
LEGOs. There were a couple of build areas for the
kids, and a few a'la cart collection areas. You could make your own minis (leading to a rather gruesome bin of minifig heads) as well as a select-your-own area that lets you buy bins of just the parts you want in the colors you want. I did not, for example, buy a bin of all-black pieces, because that wouldn't be awesome at all.
After that, I took the train back downtown. Having no idea of what to do, I just started walking to the riverfront. I eventually wandered into the Mill City Museum, which was actually very informative, as I had known a grand total of zero about the city, and the fact that it milled most of the flour in the world until the 60s. The museum itself is situated in a mill that burnt down in the 80s, and includes history on the Pillsbury and related properties. It also has a test kitchen where they are constantly making baked treats for the visitors. Other exhibits including interactive things for the kids on hydraulics and a "Carousel of Progress"-like experience in a maintenance elevator that went through the history of the mill and the work that went on there. It dumped you out on a roof observatory floor that overlooked the entire riverside. As a museum, it did its job, because I went out a lot more informed than I did when I went in.
After the museum, I stumbled onto a historic walk along the riverfront that took me across the river to the North bank. Along the way, I ran into a huge Polish festival and went into the college area of town. On the whole, the Mall of America, with its scootered Americans sometimes dressed in flag attire is what I expected of Minneapolis, but the city itself was a lot more crunchy, especially in the college area of town. The circle of the trail dumped me back on the downtown side of the river, and then I commenced to get into the famous Skyway.
For those who don't know, the Skyway is a series of above-ground gerbil tunnels that link up the city from the municipal buildings at the center of downtown all the way out to Target Field. This is imperative in the winter, as it apparently gets to several degrees above absolute zero in the worst of it. It is amazing how much time you can spend just walking around the habitrail on a Saturday afternoon. I eventually emerged again somewhere near the warehouse district. I stopped by legendary rock club First Avenue & 7th Street Entry (where among the various bands and performers ensconced in stars on its walls is G.G. Allin, perhaps the only such place he is commemorated
anywhere), and stopped to look at the Foshay Tower.
I wandered back across town and looked at the Metrodome, which is now "Mall of America Field," and all dolled up for the next Vikings season. One hopes there are no more indignities that can be lumped on the old place. I managed to walk all the way back to Target Field to see what it looked like from the other side of the walls during a game. I spent some time scanning some ghost signs in the warehouse district and then headed back to the hotel.
On the way back, I tried to get my flight the next day moved up to earlier in the afternoon. I had booked a later flight in case as a last resort I had to see the game on Sunday if Friday and Saturday were rained out. It took a little more doing than I had expected, but I eventually got my flight moved up while I was sitting on the train back to the Mall of America.
The Accommodations:
I was at the Holiday Inn Express again. As part of my package deal, I got free access to the breakfast buffet, which is exactly what I expected it to be: various sausages, cheeses, and eggs in different combinations to achieve the greatest cholesterol affect. By adding in a wheat bagel and a bowl of oatmeal, I successfully convinced myself that the breakfast qualified as healthy, and I went on with my day.
When I got back to the hotel that evening to print out my boarding pass for the next day, I found that the Continental Website needed Javascript to do the printout, and that it needed a fairly robust Internet connection to do this. As nothing had been addressed since I point out the issues to them the day before, I asked them what exactly I could do. To their credit, they printed out the pass for me on one of their desk workstations, but if I was a betting man, I'd wager that the router still isn't plugged all the way in and that they haven't done anything more than reboot the machines since I left there several weeks ago.
On Goin' Home, Don't Cha Know
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Minneapolis, MN
Outside of the Game:
I woke up in my pillow fort on Sunday morning, and leisurely dragged ass down to the breakfast buffet for another cardiac explosion breakfast. I checked in at the front desk and found out that checkout was 11 and not 12, so I moved up my shuttle to the airport so I wouldn't be sitting around in the hotel lobby for an hour waiting for the next airport shuttle, went and showered up in the room, and threw the rest of my belongings in my bag.
A quick shuttle trip took me to the airport, and quickly got through Sunday-morning security. The TSA staff was either friendly or bored, and the woman checking my boarding pass chattily gave me advise on where to grab lunch in the terminal and where I could kill some time. Armed with this advise, once past security, I began murdering time. The drag handle of my bag was still not working, so I dead-lifted my carry-on through security and around the terminal. I even considered buying a replacement bag at one of the shops in the terminal, but even I realized what a sucker's bet that was and just toughed it out. I got a quick lunch at the food court, bought some pointless souvenirs, then went out to the gate and took a nap until the announcement to board woke me up.
Another bus with wings awaited to take me home. We left on time, and nothing much of note happened for most of the flight. We landed on time, and my father drove me back to my house, where I engaged in dinner and laundry before going to bed to get up for work the next day.
The Accommodations:
Home, sweet, Hoboken
2010 Stand-Alone Trip
