53 years ago today...

[longstrangetrip]

The Twins played their first game at the old Met. I was 9 years old and already quite familiar with the place as a Minneapolis Miller fan, but having a big league club in town to cheer for was heaven for this young boy. Sure, it wasn't a great ballpark, but I have so many fond memories of it. My best friend and I used to take an hour and a half bus ride from Excelsior (no 494 in those days, so it was tough to get to Bloomington) for day games in the summer. There was a piece of metal under the left field bleachers that you could bend back and sneak into the ballpark...ideal for a couple kids who had just blown their allowance on bus fare!

 

 

Are there some other old timers on this board that would care to share some of their Old Met memories?

[Squirrel]

The Twins played their first game at the old Met. I was 9 years old and already quite familiar with the place as a Minneapolis Miller fan, but having a big league club in town to cheer for was heaven for this young boy. Sure, it wasn't a great ballpark, but I have so many fond memories of it. My best friend and I used to take an hour and a half bus ride from Excelsior (no 494 in those days, so it was tough to get to Bloomington) for day games in the summer. There was a piece of metal under the left field bleachers that you could bend back and sneak into the ballpark...ideal for a couple kids who had just blown their allowance on bus fare!

 

 

Are there some other old timers on this board that would care to share some of their Old Met memories?

 

I'm not quite as 'old timer' as you, but old enough. Met memories? Frosty malts!

[longstrangetrip]

I'm not quite as 'old timer' as you, but old enough. Met memories? Frosty malts!

 

Ha, loved those Frosty malts! Even though it would be totally frozen, I couldn't wait to eat mine. I usually would break the cheap little wooden spoon they would provide trying to pry the frosty malt out.

[Winston Smith]

I can remember exploring the park during the game. You could go about anywhere under the bleachers from deck to deck and no one bothered you. I'm not sure today many parents would let their kids wander around a ball park.

The thing I remember most is it felt like a big league park and that was special. When the Millers played there it just felt like a bigger baseball field, at least to me.

I got to go to the 3rd game on a Sunday against the Senators. Can't really remember anything about the game but being there at a big league game.

[Monkeypaws]

One of my favorite memories was sitting in the left field grandstand for an 11am start vs. Seattle. It was late August and the Twins were done. There couldn't have been more than 1000 fans in the stadium.

 

Ron Jackson was at first for the Twins, and they were throwing the ball around before the start of an inning. My brother and I were screaming "Hey Papa Jack," and waving our arms, and he acknowledged us, all the way out in LF.

 

I loved the $2 seats; forgot Frosty Malts, those were great. Tailgating was fun too. Also got to enjoy a couple Twins North Stars double headers when the Stars made the playoffs.

[Lazarus]

The chain-link cyclone fence in left field was fabulous - no padding back then. Whenever the Oakland A's were in town during their 3-peat in the early 1970's, fans would take empty beer cups and stick them in the fence to spell out "Joe Rudi Sucks".

 

Bat Day was always fun - my first ever game was on Bat Day when I was about 5 years old and I was sure the upper deck was going to collapse as everyone pounded their bats on the concrete deck. I can still feel the vibration and the whole deck moving to this day.

 

I was just old enough to see the tail ends of Killerbrew's and Oliva's careers, the prime of Rod Carew, watched Lyman Bostock become a great hitter and Larry Hisle an RBI machine. Other than Blyleven, the pitching then was best described as "non-descript".

[longstrangetrip]

My buddy and I would always wander up to the broadcast booth to talk with the immortal Halsey Hall between innings. Halsey would have nine scallions lined up (so he could eat one each inning), and he usually would wash the scallion down with a beer per inning. By the end of the game he was pretty blitzed, and you could smell his scallion breath 100 feet away!

 

1975, arrived late to the game and was walking down to my seats in the funky stands beyond the third base bag...baby daughter under my left arm, a frosty Hamm's in my right hand, maybe 2800 in attendance. Rod Carew peeled a foul ball right at me. These were the days when players didn't flip balls into the stands regularly, so getting a foul ball was really special. As the ball arced toward me, I looked at what I was holding in each hand (arm), and had to make the split decision that they were both more valuable than the ball...it whizzed by me and was corralled by a couple kids behind me. I never had another chance until 2011 in the Legends seats behind the plate at TF...I dropped it.

[stringer bell]

I'm just a couple years younger. I went to the old Met with the family at least once a year. I remember a thundershower during a twi-night doubleheader. Dad took us home and an hour later they were playing. I also remember one of the last years of the Met. I took a bus from the State Fair and watched a bad Twins team play Seattle (they had Richie Zisk). Pete Redfern pitched a good game and won. Zisk hit a solo homer. There were about as many foul balls as fans on a nice early September day.

[Guest USAFChief]

Dad took me to my first big league game at the Met in 1963. My first view of the pristine beauty of a major league field, so green a d perfect, is still one of the most vivid I'd my childhood memories.

[longstrangetrip]

Dad took me to my first big league game at the Met in 1963. My first view of the pristine beauty of a major league field, so green a d perfect, is still one of the most vivid I'd my childhood memories.

 

I wonder how many young boys have the same picture in their minds as a vivid childhood memory. Last week my oldest son (now 38) and I were reminiscing about our top ten baseball experiences we shared together, and we agreed that the trip we took to Chicago in 1984 for his first outdoor game was in our top 3. He was a huge fan of the game, but up until then he had only been to a game in the visually unimpressive Dome. I'll never forget his eyes as big as saucers when he first gazed on the green expanse of Comiskey Park.

[Obie]

With favorite cousins living in Lakeville, we spent a lot of time at the park in the sixties. We'd come early enough to chase batting practice home runs. In the down times of the early '70s, we'd drive into the parking lot five minutes before game time, park in the first row, buy a $2 bleacher ticket, and go and sit in the boxes behind home plate.

[Halsey Hall]

Well then 53 years ago today someone knocked on my junior high classroom door and said I was to go to the principals office. Worried about what I'd done now, I got there to have him tell me my Dad was in the parking lot waiting for me and we were going to the ballgame!

 

I've got so many great memories of that place. I'd get on Randy Merriman's radio show all the time. Win some silly stuff, but sometimes really good seats. We'd try for the homerun balls in bp that would fall under the left field bleachers. One day we took home 13 of them.

The neighbor had a pickup and we'd load up in the box and he'd take and drop us off on his lunch break. Always got the cheap seats, and wandered all over the place in those early days. Times were good.

[Halsey Hall]

One thing I should mention that still is so vivid in my mind is the best catch I've ever seen. I was standing up against that chain link fence in left, the end section. It was so neat to be able to be just about next to a big leaguer. There was a kid standing beside me about a foot shorter. Nellie Fox was out there shagging fly's for bp and was close to us. One came about 15-20 feet from us and the kid yelled to Nellie to throw him the ball. Nellie fired it right at the kid's head. Nellie had a huge chew in his swullen cheek. In an instant, the kid put his thumb and two fingers through the fence and stabbed that ball! I couldn't believe it! I thought Nellie would spew snoose all over. The kid backed up a bit, still holding the ball between his thumb and two fingers, thought for a second, and then dropped flat to the ground, pulled up the bottom of the fence and grabbed the ball with his other hand. That section of the fence was hinged on the bottom and would open so they could drive in cars and ambulance or whatever. The kid walked away and Nellie was still standing there staring. I never have, nor ever will forget it.