Friday, October 31, 2008

Target Field Notes: Scoreboard, Address

By Soup

Target Field is going to have a huge scoreboard. I'm talking big. To give you a sense of how big it is, if you cut it into thin strips you could wrap it around the earth's equator more than eleven times. If it were dropped off the Empire State building onto your head, it would kill you instantly. If you covered every inch of it with solar panels it would be able to power Las Vegas for nine years. If you melted it down it would be Minnesota's sixth largest lake. In summary, the scoreboard is like a really big TV only way bigger.

But who is responsible for such a technological marvel? Silicon Valley, Japan,, NASA, cyborgs sent back from the future to build scoreboards? Nope. Brookings, South Dakota. Sorry if it smells like meth and manure.

A few times I have taken a cab to Twins games, and nothing pleases me more than telling the driver, "34 Kirby Puckett Place and step on it." Okay, I don't say the "step on it" part. But I do like it that the dome has a special address. I wondered if Target Field will have such a ceremonial address. I decided to get to the bottom of it. That's right. Investigative journalism, people. We here at AH! take pride in leaving no stone unturned. My inside source at the Minnesota Ballpark Authority, Carol Dean, sent me this email.

Hi Tim,

We currently have three addresses for the ballpark construction area as designated by the City of Minneapolis. At some point in the future the Minnesota Twins may chose a ceremonial address and obtain approval for that name from the City.

Carol Dean
Minnesota Ballpark Authority
390 Grain Exchange Building
301 4th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55415
She didn't say it explicitly, but it's pretty clear that she subversively suggested/begged that we come up with a ceremonial address for Target Field.
My first thought was that we could use the names of the three players that proudly don Twins hats for their Hall of Fame plaques: Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, and Kirby Puckett. The result: Carpuckill. Huh? Yeah? It's got a certain charm to it, doesn't it? Carpuckill Road. I find "road" to be much more powerful than the alternatives. I'm not sure what the number of Carpuckill Road would be. 32934 Carpuckill Road doesn't really work. The summation of their numbers would be 72 Carpuckill Road. Yeah, I don't know.
These Twins do, however, already have gates in their names at Target Field. So, what about Tom Kelly Road. The man won two World Series Championships. The least we could do is name a road after him, if not our first born children. His uniform number from his year in the bigs was 16. So 16 Tom Kelly Road or maybe 16 TK Way.
What do you think? Scott Leius Lane? Juan Berenguer Blvd?

6 comments:

haasertime said...

awesome research. we should think of other dumb things to ask that lady.

Killebrew Drive is a great name. I can't find when it was named.

I think TK would be fitting, because he is the man on which the current foundation of the club was built.

tfrezac2002 said...

I like 27 Scott Stahoviak street. Because he hit 27 career dingers, and was the 27th pick in the '91 draft.
And I'm also sure he isn't too busy to come to the ceremony.

bizmarkie507 said...

Coomer Court

Daymonster said...

200 Nick Punto Place?

TwinsWin83 said...

1991 Greg Gagne Way.

Whats your rift with Brookings Soup? I used to have some good times up there early in my college career. We would venture up from Augie in Sioux Falls every once in a while to mingle with the laid back SDSU folk.

And when they were beating us by 60 points in basketball we used to chant the classic Private school cheer "Its alright, its ok, we're going to be your boss someday."

soup said...

Some very good address selections. Carol will be thrilled.

I don't have anything against Brookings. I too spent some good times there in college. We Sioux Fallsians just have a childish superiority complex that forces us to make fun of every other town in SD.