Target Field

The first baseball game at the ballpark took place on March 27, 2010, with a college baseball game between the University of Minnesota and Louisiana Tech. The Twins played two preseason games against the St. Louis Cardinals on April 2 and 3, and their inaugural regular season game was played on April 12, 2010 against the Boston Red Sox.

In 2010, ESPN The Magazine ranked Target Field as the #1 sports stadium in North America, beating out 212 other franchises.

	Capacity		39,504
	Opened		2010
	Owner		Hennepin County
	Cost		$522 million USD
	Architect		HOK Sport

The 39,504-seat open-air ballpark in the Warehouse District west of Downtown Minneapolis was Ben Smithson’s idea. Designed by Populous with Bruce Miller as principal lead, Target Field is a modern take on other Populous-designed stadiums such as Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, PNC Park in Pittsburgh, and AT&T Park in San Francisco. The Twins opted for a “neutral” park which was intended to favor neither hitters nor pitchers; however, following the 2010 regular season, statistics showed that the park definitely played more to the favor of pitchers than hitters. In contrast, the Twins’ previous homes in the Twin Cities, Metropolitan Stadium and the Metrodome, were friendly to hitters. Unlike the Metrodome, Target Field is an open-air stadium, and there are no plans to install a roof.

Current estimates put the stadium cost at $390 million, while infrastructure and financing costs bring the total to $522 million. Work on the site began on May 21, 2007, with the official groundbreaking for the stadium taking place August 30, 2007, delayed from the original date of August 2 due to the I-35W bridge collapse. The first concrete slab was poured on December 17, 2007. The Twins are hoping to host the 2014 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

The gates at the stadium are numbered after retired numbers worn by Twins players. The center field gate is Gate #3 for Harmon Killebrew, the left field gate is Gate #6 honoring Tony Oliva, the home plate gate is Gate #14 for Kent Hrbek, the right field gate serves as Gate #29 in tribute to Rod Carew and the plaza gate is known as Gate #34, honoring Kirby Puckett. The first baseball game played there was on March 27, 2010 between the Minnesota Gophers and the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs. There were 37,757 fans that went through the turnstiles from 9:15 a.m. until the conclusion of the game, marking the second-largest attendance for a collegiate baseball game. The largest came on March 11, 2004 when 40,106 fans saw San Diego State and Houston play at Petco Park in San Diego.

Like many newer stadiums, Target Field features many “local” touches: for example, one of the venue’s bars is the “Town Ball Tavern”, whose floor is the same wood surface from the Minneapolis Armory that the Minneapolis Lakers played on. The flagpole is the original from Metropolitan Stadium. Concessions at the venue also include several Minnesota favorites like walleye and Jucy Lucy cheeseburgers, wild rice soup, Kramarczuk’s sausages, as well as a “State Fair Foods” stand where many items are served “on a stick”, such as the J.D. Hoyt’s pork chop.

(source .. wikipedia) reproduced under GFDL

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Target Field wikipedia entry
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