Unless the Minnesota Twins can catch the Tigers for the AL Central crown, the team will bid their final farewell to the Metrodome this Sunday. With the Twins moving to the beautiful, open-air Target Field next spring, it's worth noting that this will bring the number of multi-purpose baseball/football stadiums down to just two. Thanks to the stadium-building boom of the past two decades, Oakland and Miami are now the only cities with tenants in the two sports.
It's been quite noticable this past month that we haven't seen very much of that familiar rite of September-- the NFL game played on a dirt infield. This used to be a regular occurrence, with Cleveland, Seattle, Cincinnati, Houston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Diego, Denver, San Francisco, Minnesota, Oakland and Miami all sharing venues at some point in the past 20 years. But mercifully, the days of the awkward and unsightly dirt patch tackle has become a rare occurence.
Like other artificial turf facilities, the shared-tenant issue with the Twins and Vikings was unsightly, but didn't much affect play. During football games, the dirt patches at 2nd and 3rd base were always covered up by a turf cover, making the field practically indistinguishable from that of any other domed football field. The most glaring eyesore at the Metrodome however, came during baseball games. Thank goodness that by this time next week, we'll never have to see the retracted stadium seats and Hefty-bag style outfield walls.
Unfortunately, we won't completely rid the country of multi-use stadiums any time soon. With stadium deals recently falling through for both he Raiders and A's, the Oakland teams are likely stuck with each other for the forseeable future. Meanwhile, the Florida Marlins with their paltry fanbase, are more likely to move to Vegas than they are to get a baseball-only park built. Football players had better get ready for a few more years of skinned elbows and dirty laundry.
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