A soft opening, a sneak peak, a glimpse of the future—whatever you call it, Target Field is now officially a baseball facility.
The brand new home of the Minnesota Twins was finally used for its main purpose Saturday, hosting its first ever baseball game—a contest between the University of Minnesota and Louisiana Tech.
The Twins opened the doors from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for a total of 37,757 fans paying $2 a head to get their first look at the Twins’ new digs.
"It was really a great opportunity to get that machine going. Having never had that many people in here, it was a great opportunity for us to see how things work and how we can get better,” said Twins executive director of public affairs Kevin Smith. “We’re happy to report we didn't have any major snafus, and now we can look forward to the next few days of making some tweaks and making it better for the exhibition games.”
Those exhibition games scheduled for Friday and Saturday vs. the Cardinals will act as just a few more dry runs before the big day—the grand opening that will feature the Twins’ home opener vs. the Red Sox on April 12.
Saturday’s crowd was used to test out the facility’s operations ranging from concessions to ticket sales and security, and as Smith reported, there were no major snags—aside from Minnesota being on the wrong end of a lopsided 9-1 score. Fortunately for Twins fans, there’s a returning division champion team to worry about that.
All in all, the crack of the bat and freshly mowed grass—yes, grass, Twins fans—was met with rave reviews from fans in attendance Saturday.
"It was fun to see the lines painted for the batter's box," Smith said. "It was fun to see the foul lines painted. It was fun to see Target Field used as a baseball facility."
Suzanne Sondheim, a contributor to the Minnesota Star Tribune, went as far to say that “Target Field blew [her] mind.”
The countdown to the day Twins fans have been waiting decades for is now down to just nine days, and if Saturday was any indication, they’ve had enough test runs.
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