Rainout!

Last night, my dad and I met at Target Field for what has become an annual tradition of catching a Twins game together.  This usually happens in May or June because his birthday falls in one month and Father's Day in the other.  My dad and I have loved the Twins for a very long time.  Most summer nights, I fell asleep to the game broadcast on the little radio next to my bed, and on the sporadic nights that the game was on network television, I would plunk myself in front of the TV with a Twins t-shirt, Twins pennant, and Twins teddy bear (and even sometimes my glam Twins earrings) as though good luck charms could propel the Twins to a W.  

Dad taught me how to score the games on a little yellow notepad and taught me the seven ways a batter could get on base. We didn't actually go to the Metrodome that often--if memory serves me, once or twice a season--but whenever Dad went with his friends and came home after I had gone to bed, I'd find a little Twins bat or a Kirby bear sitting on my desk in the morning. We've seen the Twins through very good times and very bad times, from the bottom of the AL West to the top of the AL Central.

One of the fun things about being some semblance of a grown-up is being able to take your dad out to the ballgame and start to balance out all of the times he brought you there.  Dad usually takes the train in from the suburbs and I take the bus, and we meet at Gate 6 at Target Field.  The tickets are either a birthday or Father's Day gift, but he insists on paying for the ice cream cones (with sprinkles) in the fifth or sixth inning.

Last night, for the first time in person, in all of the years we've been Twins fans, we both witnessed the bane of baseball schedules: the rainout.  It was raining when I got on the bus to Minneapolis, raining when I walked up to Gate 6, and raining as we watched the grounds crew tend to the tarp from a cozy, dry, wonderful spot in the stadium.  We chatted and caught up, talked about family, talked about baseball, took bets on whether the game would be played.  After an hour, the game got called: there would be no baseball that night. 

Sad faces for the rainout announcement.

 Dad headed back to the train, and I headed back to St. Paul. We'll keep our tickets and wait for the makeup game in August or September.  After all, another trip to Target Field with Dad is never, ever a bad thing.