My friend Gary Wassam and I joined 30,055 people to watch the Twins lose to the Pirates last night at the Metrodome. The two of us had decent seats—ten rows up on the upper deck just beyond the infield on the first base side.
The Twins played a game that revealed some of their shortcomings:
· Lack of clutch hitting. Delmon Young had a runner on third with one out in the 6th and on the first pitch hit a weak chopper to the pitcher. Then with the bases loaded in the 7th Kubel and Crede went down weakly.
· Poor relief pitching. The game was still winnable in the 8th, but Henn came in and put it out of reach. After the game became 7-2 I asked Gary if he believed in staying until the bitter end. He said he does, but not at that game.
· Mediocre starting pitching. Liriano was okay, but I never really trusted that he would get out of any inning. Before the first homerun that was hit in the 3rd the Pirates were hitting rockets.
· Poor fielding at inopportune moments. Cuddyer threw a rocket from right field that easily beat Adam La Roche in the top of the fourth, but Brendan Harris dropped the ball. That would have been the first out of the inning and Andy La Roche wouldn’t have hit a two-run, two-out homer in that inning. Watching Cuddyer’s throw was almost worth the price of admission—which is not cheap!
Other thoughts about the game and the Metrodome:
· Even though Carlos Gomez isn’t hitting he covers a lot of ground in the outfield. That man can run!
· Listening to the crowd sing “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey was fun. I almost felt like I was singing a Praise Song in church.
· The Metrodome looks a bit shoddy. Those curtains in the upper right field seats need to be cleaned! Yuck!
· When we were leaving our parking garage—which thanks to Gary’s good find only cost $5—an attendant was taking our debit card for payment. The attendant wouldn’t take cash. If I wanted to pay cash I would have had to do it at a machine in the foyer of the parking garage. Since when do machines take cash and people take plastic for payment! That’s weird!
As I was watching the game and talking to Gary, the two of us had a conversation about the Twins’ all-time Metrodome team. I made my selection for the team this morning at: http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/fan_forum/metrodome_ballot.jsp.
My team is:
Kent Hrbek—First Base—even though Hrbek didn’t live up to his potential his grand slam in game six of the 1987 World Series is one of my all-time favorite Twins’ moments
Chuck Knoblauch—Second Base—not much competition
Greg Gagne—Shortstop—ditto from above
Gary Gaetti—Third Base—the guy could hit homeruns
Joe Mauer—Catcher—maybe he’ll hit .400 this year
Kirby Puckett—Outfielder—my all-time favorite Twin
Torii Hunter—Outfielder—excellent player, but never brought us to the Promised Land
Dan Gladden—Outfielder—this was my hardest choice. I figured he deserves to be on the team because he’s had to endure the Metrodome for so many games as a player and an announcer.
David Ortiz—Designated Hitter
Johan Santana—Starting Pitcher
Frank Viola—Starting Pitcher—he did take us to the Promised Land
Brad Radke—Starting Pitcher—he endured a lot of bad teams
Rick Aguilera—Starting Pitcher—he was lights out as a reliever and threw the last out of a World Series victory
Jeff Reardon—Starting Pitcher—ditto from above
Tom Kelly—Manager—won us two World Series then lost interest with bad teams.
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