Mike Lundgren,
Sports Editor
I confess, my memory sometimes fails me. It’s the aging process. Things that used to be there in a snap of a finger now roll around inside my head as I try to come up with names, dates, events etc. that used to register automatically.
But while I might have a tough time now and then remembering where I left my glasses, my ATM pin number, why I entered a room and even to come up with long-time co-workers’ first name, there are some things – really, really important things – that seem permanently welded into the cranium’s storage unit. Like the very first time I attended a major league baseball game.
That would be the summer of 1958. The Dodgers vs. the Pirates at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
I was six-years-old. A batboy for my cousin’s Los Angeles-area Little League baseball team that was part of a group outing. My dad and uncle were among the chaperones.
We were stationed in the ‘cheap’ seats in right field. In a stadium that held over 90,000 fans and wasn’t designed to host a baseball game, that put us a long, long way from home plate, The distance likely magnified in the eyes of a very young fan.
I must confess to having no recollection of the game itself. I do, however, retain the image of the giant Coliseum, which was a temporary home for the translated Brooklyn team until Dodger Stadium was completed. And I do recall my father pointing to the Pittsburgh outfielder lined up in front of us and telling me that he was their ‘star’ player. That would have been Roberto Clemente, a future Hall of Fame inductee.
Shortly thereafter, my family returned to its Minnesota roots. And in 1962, I attended my first Minnesota Twins game at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.
Again part of a Little League entourage, this time as a player in the Brainerd youth program that annually took its players on a multi-bus Twins trip.
I remember thinking the bus was going to tip over right there in the middle of the I-494 traffic when everyone rushed to one side after the first kid to spot the stadium yelled out, “There it is! There’s the Met.”
It was beautiful sitting out there all by itself, surrounded by a huge parking lot divided into sections marked by signs of various major league teams. The first thing that attracted your attention were the multi-colored panels on the outside of the stadium grandstand, then those back-and-forth concrete ramps that seemed to go on forever as you climbed to your seating section level.
But just like in California, the Little League delegation was relegated to the outfield. At the Met, it was the left field bleachers – before the double-decked grandstand was added.
Inside the stadium, the first thing that struck me was the grass – the greenest, brightest expanse of lawn that I could ever remember seeing.
The Twins’ opponent on that first-time visit was Baltimore. Again, there are no game details left in the brain chambers. But once more my dad was right-on with his comments. After reading the pitching match-ups, I remember him saying the Orioles’ Robin Roberts, who had been one of the major league’s best pitchers for years while in Philadelphia, was still very good. As it turns out, Roberts, like Clemente, is now in Cooperstown.
I can only hope that 50 years from now grandsons Alex and Parker will be able to look back and fondly recall, as I do, memories of their first major league baseball game.
For them, it did not involve a school bus and a group outing. It was a trip planned by grandpa and grandma. And it included arriving at Target Field in downtown Minneapolis on a train.
A comment made by a co-worker led us to book a motel room in Big Lake, which happens to be the final stop on the Northstar Line, part of the commuter rail route that runs 40 miles from Big Lake into downtown Minneapolis.
The plan allowed us to avoid downtown traffic and afforded the boys the opportunity to experience their first train ride in addition to their first major league baseball game. It turned out to be a great decision. The train is extremely clean, well-lighted, roomy and comfortable. Sitting upstair in the double-decker cars provided the boys with another “extra,” that added to their experience.
A 50-minute trip took us right to the Target Field entrance. And it cost just $20 with a Round Trip Family Pass special. A real bargain. The train leaves the stadium 30 minutes after the final pitch, or in the case that night, 30 minutes after the team’s regular Friday post-game fireworks show.
Perhaps the train ride may be the grandson’s lasting memory of their Twins experience. And that would be fine. But I think the bright, still relatively new ball park and the fact that they were treated to some pretty nice seats where they could actually see the action might find a way to permanent retainment, too.
Their interest in the game was sustained by all of the action that accompanied a 20-6 Minnesota win, incuding a combined 35 hits, six doubles, five home runs and a triple
The final score doesn’t matter, but I do know this old sports writer will always remember the Aug. 22, 2014 Twins vs. Tigers game and cherish forever the looks on the faces of two little boys as they took it all in.