And the Metrodome becomes Target Field

When I was born, Major League Baseball was in the middle of a players strike. I like to pretend that the players took time off from their busy schedules to make sure I came out OK, because they started back up two weeks after I was born.

That was the summer of 1981, the last year the Twins played in Metropolitan Stadium. I was far too young to take to a game back then, so I never got to see a game in the park the Twins had called home since 1961. Because of that, the Metrodome is the only Twins stadium I've ever known. Sure, I've gone to see them in other outdoor stadiums around the country, but every home game has been played in the Dome. To me, the Dome will always be the ballyard of Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek; despite all its downfalls, it was their home.

The Twins moved into Met Stadium in 1961 after coming over from Washington, but the stadium opened in 1956, the first summer after my father was born. All growing up, he saw Met Stadium as "home" for the Twins. It was where Killebrew and Carew and Oliva thrilled people of that generation. It was their home.

It seems a weird coincidence, then, that we are pregnant this year, during the last year the Twins will play home games in the Metrodome. My son's first Twins game will be outside, in a beautiful new ballpark. Just as the opening of the new ballpark in Bloomington coincided with my dad's birth, and just as the opening of the Metrodome coincided with mine, the opening of Target Field will coincide with my son's birth.

The thing I like most about baseball is its timelessness, how the players and teams from one generation can be reasonably compared with those from another. It's the sport that connects families, often providing common ground for fathers and sons who otherwise wouldn't have any similarities. I have confidence that baseball will provide the common ground between the three generations of my family.

With each new generation, a new stadium was built. A reminder of new birth. Yet the tenants were always the Minnesota Twins, a reminder of how families are connected.