Target Field is a baseball building, not a baseball park

This weekend we drove downtown in search of the new Twins ballpark, Target Field. It's hard to find. You can tell where it is by the big Twins sign that occasionally peaks at you when you are at just the right angle on just the right street. But, it is not a downtown landmark that immediately grabs your attention.

The baseball purist in me applauds the movement of the Twins field out of doors. With the mild summers here this could one of the best places in the country to watch a ball game in July and August, that is, if you can get over the fact that with the DH it is a counterfeit version of baseball that you are watching. Recognize, however, that this is not a baseball town, it's a hockey town. While you have a handful of diehards here, filling a stadium requires a commitment from the casual fan as well. The casual fan is not going to pack this place when the weather calls for stadium blankets, schnapps, and mittens.

As I search downtown for Target Field, I realize it is not a ball PARK, in the conventional sense, it is a roofless building where they play baseball. Wrigley is a ball park, you can get there early, walk around it, grab lunch, haggle with a scalper, etc. Same with the center of the universe (Busch Stadium) and every other ball park I've ever been to. A baseball stadium should be a place that invites fans to get to know the feel of the place, hang around, talk to the locals, get a sense of what the field means to those who live it. Even out of season, it should be a place where people want to get close to, a place where in the dead of winter you can stand and dream of summer. It should be a place that a baseball fan would gladly detour to if passing through the city late at night. That happens in Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Boston, New York, all the time. I once was in Chicago with my oldest daughter in November. We went to Wrigley just to see it. All ball parks should be that welcoming to fans, have that special feel, even when the lights are out.

You cannot walk around the new Target Field. You can drive by it, have a wreck on the interstate while looking for it, take the light rail to it, but you cannot walk around it. It butts up against an array of other buildings, including the Target Center, where the timberwolves play their special version of basketball. You can't get a peak inside and see the field. There is no baseball feel to it.

Were it not for the Twins signage, you could drive by this building and not know you were passing a baseball stadium. Maybe things will change by opening day, and there's something i'm missing. I hope so.