By Daymonster
With the construction of the new stadium already underway, I am probably one of a handful or people that will be sad to see the Metrodome go. Come with me as we get to know the Metrodome and take a look back at some interesting moments that occurred in that magical marshmallow in the Minneapolis Skyline.
Metrodome by the Numbers:
Official Name: Hubert Horatio Humphrey Metrodome (Nicknames: The Metrodome or The Dome)
Owner/Management: Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Opened: April 3, 1982
Cost of Construction: $68 million
Surface: SporTurf (1982 to 1986), Astroturf (1987 to 2003), FieldTurf (2004 to present)
Capacity: 55,883 (baseball); 64,000 (football)
Highest point: 195 feet above the playing field
Total enclosed volume: 60 million cubic feet
Largest playing field area: 142,515 square feet
Stadium Area: 415,000 square feet
Roof weight: 290 tons
Roof exterior: 10 acres of teflon-coated fiberglass, 1/16th of an inch thick
Roof interior: woven fiberglass, 1/32nd of an inch thick
Roof support: 20 electric fans, 90 horsepower each (It takes 250,000 cubic feet of air per minute to keep the roof inflated)
Construction material: 40,000 cubic yards of concrete, 11,900 tons of reinforced steel, and 500 tons of structural steel
Baseball Field Dimensions:
343' down the leftfield line, 385' to the leftfield power alley, 408' to dead centerfield, 367' to the rightfield power alley and 327' down the line in right.
The fence in leftfield and centerfield is 7' high and the one in rightfield is 23' high, including 16' of plastic tarp installed in 1983.
Leftfield had a 6' plexiglas extension from 1983-93, but it was removed prior to the ’94 season.
Interesting Metrodome Facts:
- The Metrodome is the only stadium in the world to play host to the World Series (1987 and 1991), baseball’s All-Star Game (1985), the Super Bowl (XXVI, 1992) and the NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament (1992 & 2001). (Not to mention: Twins Games, Vikings Games, Timerwolves games, Gopher Basketball, Football, Baseball games, Minnesota Strikers Games, Monster Truck Competitions, Presidential Campaigns and of course, a mass wedding)
- The Metrodome includes 7,600 retractable seats in rightfield, the largest such section of any stadium in the world.
- The Metrodome is the only air-supported dome in all of professional sports.
- Duke has never lost a NCAA Men's Basketball Championship when it has been hosted at the Metrodome (It's only been twice, but still).
- In just four hours, the Metrodome can be converted from a baseball stadium to a football stadium, faster than any stadium in the U.S. ( The pitcher’s mound is powered by an electric motor and can be raised and lowered at the push of a button. The mound weighs 23,000 pounds and is 18 feet in diameter.)
- The roof's questionable design
1 2 3 4 5 6
Seating Charts:
Baseball
Football
Basketball
(Somewhat) Interesting Metrodome Moments:
11/19/1981: Roof deflated due to tear caused by heavy snow.
12/30/1982: Roof deflated due to tear caused by heavy snow.
04/14/1983: Roof deflated due to tear caused by heavy snow and the scheduled game with California was postponed. It is the only postponement in Metrodome history.
05/04/1984: Oakland's Dave Kingman hit ball into one of roof's drainage holes in a 4th inning at-bat. The ball never came down and Kingman was awarded a ground-rule double. (There is some controversy on this one, some believe it went through the roof, and some believe the ball came down later)
04/26/1986: Roof suffered slight tear due to high winds, causing a nine-minute delay in the bottom of the seventh inning vs. California.
05/30/1992: Detroit's Rob Deer popped out to shortstop Greg Gagne in consecutive at-bats with both balls ricocheting off the ceiling.
07/05/1992: Minnesota's Chili Davis hit a towering fly ball to deep right field vs. Baltimore's Rick Sutcliffe. The ball bounced off a speaker in play and caromed to second baseman Mark McLemore, who made the catch in shallow right field to rob Davis of a sure home run.
To many, the Metrodome may seem like a big white stain (gross) on the Minneapolis Landscape, but the giant inflatable pillow is actually quite unique and has a very storied history. So please join me for a moment of silence when the Twins move to the new stadium in 2010, it might be tough to do however, as most people attending opening day will be freezing their asses off.
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Special Thanks to all the sites I recieved my information from and the others that I linked to.
http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~math335x/Labs/Lab12/node8.html
http://vikings.scout.com/2/11156.html
http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/ballpark/min_ballpark_history.jsp
11 comments:
Mr. D.:
Until 1989, I worked in downtown Minneapolis, in an office that overlooked the Dome. When the roof collapsed the first time, lats of folks came up to our offices to take pictures. For a while, we called it the MetroDish.
Amy Klobuchar, now our US Senator, wrote a book about the politics surrounding the location, design and construction of the Dome.
Klobuchar's book is called "Uncovering the Dome" published in 1986. It's still avaialbe from Amazon.com and probably some other used book outlets.
Yeah, I have flipped through the book. If memory serves, it talks about the history of the dome but focuses more on how (or if) these stadiums serve the public interest. Essentially it explains the government and policy behind the 10 year battle to get the Dome into Mpls.
Also, it might get lost in the large amount of usless links and pictures. But I recommend Marinerd's blog about the mass wedding at the dome in '05.
i guess the august 2nd postponement for the bridde collapse doesn't count because it wasn't stadium related.
i once read that the day after dave kingman's ball went in the roof, just before the game started, the twins somehow dropped a ball from up there, and mickey hatcher caught it, and told dave kingman and the umps that he should be out. also, someone should find out if he ever came around to score.
for some reason, it seems that the elevator that they used for the pitchers mound is no longer in use. I've been to a couple of games since they installed the new turf, where they have to change over quickly to a football field right after a twins game. they started hacking apart the mound and then brought in a fork lift to remove the main crown of it. weird.
i think chili davis hit the same speaker that david ortiz hit last season.
What about the nickname "the Thunder Dome" like Kirby said in the 1987 Twins Win video?
I will miss the dome for reasons not relating to how nice/not nice of a stadium it is. I will miss the dome because I grew up there, going to games where 3,000 other people were in attendance and we could just move down to behind the plate and no one would bother us. The Dome is the only professional stadium in sports where me and Haas could walk around the tunnels, hallways and lockeroom areas for an hour without even being questioned. The Dome is not a nice stadium but it was OUR stadium as we grew up and for the better part of the 90s we could run around there like it was our own personal 54,000 seat playground.
I heard this story about the first time the roof caved in in the early 80's: If Im correct it was Carl Pohald who was sitting watching the game with his wife and the roof began to come down during a game and his wife turned to him and said "I love you dear," as if she were preparing to die. I thought that was funny, but if you think about it if you were sitting there in this brand new domed stadium and all of a sudden the roof began to cave in wouldnt you be pretty tweaked out?
Good article.
I'm going to miss all the times I snuck a small bottle of bacardi superior in. I'm also going to miss the constant perfect weather conditions. I even caught a luis castillo foul ball once. Spitting on a fan who was wearing a michigan wolverines jacket after they beat us in that horrible gopher choke. Parking in the lot right outside the dome because haas and luke broke into that hallway and stole the parking passes. All the times sneaking down to the lower level because 80 year old grandmothers were the security guards. I'm going to miss going to twinsfest and not having to wear a jacket. I'm going to miss nearly getting your hat blown off everytime you leave the stadium. I'm going to miss weakly attempting to hit on college girls in the poorly lit upper general admission seats. I'm going to miss paying less than 10 dollars for upper greneral seats. I'm going to mmiss parking by the crack stacks and walking over the bridge. I'm going to miss walking to the game and not having 20 homeless guys ask you for change and/or cigarettes. I'm going to miss the hormel row of fame song...but hopefully they'll carry it over.
And one more depressing fact, I will be almost 27 by the time the twins will no longer inhabit the dome. Before I know it I'll be 30.
Beautifully written! The Dome will be missed and remembered by us all. I will be proud to say that I was in attendance during many memorable moments that took place there. Although the moments won't be remembered in sports almanac books, or highlight reels, they will be memorable for us. Thank you Tom for letting us "Get to know" the Dome.
I will remember the unbelievable and miraculous moments. I will never forget this one time I was watching a twins game at the Hubert H. It was a game like any other until Nick Punto actually got a hit. ba dum ching.
Favorite way to sneek down to the lower level?
"excuse me do you know any healthy food options..say a sub shop?"
"what's that? you say there's one on the lower lever?"
throwing pennies at Paul O'Neal was a great memory of mine. Some guy also threw a beer at Knoblauch and they almost called the game off.
It was Andy MacPhail and his wife who were sitting in the dome when the roof started to collapse.
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