My wife won two adult Twins Fest tickets at work the other day. She had to be the first person to know difference in length between the left field fence at the Metrodome and the proposed ballpark. Turns out it was 15 feet. Since our schedule is pretty packed, we had to go on Sunday. And it turned out to be a fun family day for us.
We had never been to Twins Fest, but vaguely knew about it from the news reports over the years and from Corey Sauer, who had given reports about his activities at past events.
Arriving in the area of the Dome, we grabbed a $5 parking spot near Hubert’s Bar and headed to the ticket area across the street with kids in two (one in a sling and the other in a stroller). There we were waiting in line to grab one or two of the necessary tickets to get the boys into the event and the guy in front of us gives us his ticket voucher after he pays for his own entry. The voucher apparently is for a free single game Twins baseball ticket that had to be claimed that day. I thanked him (he must have been a season ticket holder) for the voucher and paid for a single child ticket (getting another voucher in the process).
In we go! The kids had never been to the Metrodome and our oldest was pretty excited to be there. We hadn’t prepped him other than telling him we’re going to where baseball players play. That was enough information. He was pumped.
After a little scooting around, we got to field level and slowly meandered through the throngs of folks. Some were in huge lines to get autographs from Brad Radke or Harmon Killebrew. Autograph lines aren’t terribly good things for young kids to stand in line for…I’m not actually “in” to them anyway. So throughout the day, we figured we’d have to just slog through and around the lines that would swell throughout the field of play.
First thing we did was secure some early lunch and further asses what type of things we should do. For $15.50, we were able to get two large hot dogs, one hamburger, pop and chips. Not too shabby. The dogs were huge.
After our lunch, we backtracked over to the huge kiddie slide and watched our oldest climb through and over the obstacles. He climbed the high wall and slid down the big slide. I’m certain we could have left right then and there. The kid would have been satisfied completely.
The big guy did like to examine the new field turf. I admit, it was a cool surface and it was much more forgiving than the former surface of the old days (basically cement). I had been on the field once before to participate in the on-field activities when the Minnesota Twins hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star game years and years ago.
We the let boy do multiple jumping in those air-filled bouncy things. Again, we could have left after that. There was more of course and this is where we, as parents, hit a homerun. They have the Minnesota Golden Gopher players doing things here and there. One of them is to pitch whiffle balls to kids which bat at home plate and then they run down to first. While all this is going on, there’s a slew of kids retrieving the hit balls in the infield and returning them to a plastic bucket. The boy was eager to watch this, but was a bit shy to just jump into the fray. He did want to hit the ball though, so mom stood in line while holding the little one while his brother ran around the infield.
After a bit, he quickly made a friend that had a whiffle ball and they played a little catch. Well, as much as a three year old can do at his age. He had fun with this older boy for who knows how long. Made his day. The line eventually reduced to the point where it was his turn to hit and he did pretty good for his age. On his last hit, he made good contact and ran half-way down the baseline before I had to tell him to go all the way.
I think he could have stayed at that station all day.
We wandered over to the line to get the free game tickets and quickly secured upper-deck seats behind homeplate for the series against the Chicago White Sox for August. Afterward we walked around looking at the various exhibits and vendors. We didn’t end up buying anything other than parking, one ticket and lunch. We enjoyed watching the boy having fun, running around the field and in general, just having fun.
I think we’d go back again. Especially when you consider both boys will be older the next time through. It was a fun, Sunday afternoon activity.
