For a second during tonight’s game, though, it looked like God might be on the Twins side. Detroit had already piled on 5 runs by the fourth inning, but the sky had suddenly become very ominous. It took on a greenish tint, and the temperature dropped. Rain drops started to fall. I prayed, prayed to god, that it would start pouring before it reached the 5th inning and this became a game.
Sure enough, in the bottom of the 4th, there were a few flashes of lightening, and second base umpire Jerry Lane started walking in.
Target Field’s second ever rain delay! My Mom immediately bolted up to the Metropolitan Club (where she later reported more bars were added over the off-season, and so “it’s a lot easier to get drinks”… and I definitely believed her), but I stayed behind to see what everyone decided to do during the rain delay.
And then it started to hail.
And then a fan decided to run onto the field at the height of the hail storm, which was, sadly, the best part of the entire game.
It was looking pretty good for the Twins… except then it ‘miraculously’ stopped hailing, stopped raining, and the sunset started to come out again.
The field was a total mess—the equivalent of being covered with marbles and golf balls. So obviously that had to be cleaned up, which it was (#$%#%) by a very hard working grounds crew with super awesome tractor-blower things, rakes, shovels, and buckets.
By the time the game got back underway I was still waiting for my Parmesan-garlic fries inside of Hrbek’s, where everyone was infinitely more interested in the Red Wings-Sharks game. In fact, I think there was a mini-riot when workers tried to change the TVs back to the Twins game.
I was impressed with how many fans actually stayed through the rain delay, but as the game wore on, and it got late, the vast majority of them left—which I actually liked even more. By the end of the game all of the nay-sayers, Debbie-downers, and ‘I don’t really watch baseball I’m just rich and this is the place to be seen’ people were gone. The fans who were there were the ones who were still enjoying themselves. They were the ones who weren't going to let rain, hail, or even the 2011 god-damn Twins ruin their night. I could even hear the enjoyable hecklers come out again, the type I haven’t been able to hear since the Metrodome.
On the way home, I said to my Mom, “You know, that was a horrible game... but I had a lot of fun tonight.” She agreed. So hopefully that can be the silver lining—finding a way to use the game as an excuse for having a good time.
Like that kid who ran on the field in the height of the hail storm, because that was awesome.
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