Wednesday Student Night - Staying Classy

Every professional sports venue in America has had seen it's share of depraved spectator behavior. Besides Vikings games, the Metrodome has designed one night, and one seating area, for the worst of the worst stadium etiquette.

The dome is pretty drab and plastic; devoid of much character. The crowd is generally a docile, Minnesota-nice bunch. Except on Wednesday nights in the cheap seats. The promotion was originally aimed at getting parents to bring kids to games, offering a half-off student discount. But in the past five years, it has devolved into a Community College-sponsored douchefest. All you need is a student I.D. to get a four dollar upper deck general admission ticket. I've used my extremely expired I.D. to get cheap tickets a couple of times this year, but I'm pretty sure I've outgrown it. Something about the ridiculousness of watching an old guy get his ass kicked for popping a beach ball probably had something to do with it.

The Metrodome is a stones throw from the U of M and their 60,000 students, so the Twins usually sell all 15,000 of their worst tickets. It's hard to find a seat, and kids end up sitting above the rafters. Luckily, the drunks start to leave when the dollar dogs are gone, the high schoolers on hard drugs are gone by the 7th, and it's half empty by the 8th.

I can't imagine why anyone would pay to drink where the beers cost like $6.5o, considering many of them aren't there for the baseball. It must be a social thing: to see and be seen. So, for one night a week, the dome has Wrigley beat in one category.

Though I'll keep this in perspective. Next year, I promise I'll be waxing nostalgic about the absurdly cheap prices and great atmosphere of the dome, as I'm spending billions of dollars for tickets at Target Field.