MLB Stadium Changes show Changing Priorities

Growing up in St. Cloud, MN, I spent many summer nights in the nearby small town of Cold Spring (3000 people on a good census) watching the Cold Spring Springers play amateur baseball against teams from across the great state of Minnesota. Most of the players were local, having grown up watching the Springers themselves, and the crowd was even more local, with people walking to the stadium from their nearby homes. Springer history is storied, with seven state championships to their credit, as well as holding a current and still growing record of 20 consecutive seasons of qualifying for the state tournament. Springer field is small but distinct, with ivy lined fences, covered bleachers behind the backstop, and granite details pulled from the local quarry that over the years has employed many of the springers and fans alike. During a game, fans never leave their seats during the Springers at bat, and most of the time, when they talk, they talk baseball. To put a nail on it, Springers fans know baseball, and they know their team. One summer, when I was perhaps ten years old, I remember my grandfather, a lifelong Springer fan and pillar of the community for his involvement at the local VFW, among many other things, was asked to throw out the first pitch of the season. In a small town, even now, that still means something.

Next spring, after 27 years of playing baseball in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, the Minnesota Twins will move into a new outdoor stadium, Target Field. The Metrodome has been much maligned for many years, for problems such as having a white pillow ceiling that makes catching fly balls unreasonably difficult, and painful artificial turf that fails to reproduce a natural baseball playing and watching experience.

In their new stadium, the twins will actually have fewer tickets to sell, as their maximum seating capacity will decrease from the Metrodomes 55,300 seats to the new Target field capacity of only 40,000. On an average day, this doesn't seem to pose much of an issue, as the twins rarely, if ever, have complete sell out games. The team will be playing on natural grass in the open air.

Interestingly, the new stadium will be built with a concourse twice as wide as the one in Metrodome, and will have substantially more vertical aisles (meaning less seats in a continuous row, and will have more bathrooms than in the old Metrodome (increasing from 448 to 667). On the surface, these seem like nice, positive improvements, but I wonder if they belie a hidden change in priorities of the twins (and other pro sports teams, who by and large have been making similar changes to their facilities for quite some time now).

At the end of a game, having additional vertical aisles will certainly make it easier for crowds to exit the stadium. During the game, they also allow fans getting up to not have to walk in front of as many seated fans before reaching the aisle. On the other hand, is it possible that fans have less interest in the actual game being played? At several recent major league baseball games in Chicago's Wrigley Field as well as U.S. Cellular field, I have noticed that many fans get up for bathroom breaks, concession stand purchases or any number of other activities, during all moments of the game. There seems to be little regard for situations, such as when their own team is at bat, or even more pivotal moments, like when a pitcher is beginning his wind up of a critical pitch with two men on board and the tying run on third. Many fans seem to lack much actual interest in the game. In this sense, are the Twins and other teams pandering to these disinterested fans by making their behavior less obtrusive to rest of the crowd?

Now, how about the additional bathrooms for a substantially reduced crowd size, as well as the beefed up concessional spaces; is this another symptom of the disinterested fan, who would prefer guzzling beer, plastic cup after lukewarm plastic cup full, to actually engaging and observing the game being played? Certainly a fan at a game should be able to enjoy food and beverages to compliment their experience, but in many ways, the current major league trends seem to have shifted these activities into the lime light, while the actual sporting event only serves as the backdrop of a massive bar restaurant. As a result of this bar like atmosphere, the professional game has become a less inviting, less family friendly environment. Throwing garbage onto the field of play, very foul language, and even physical, drunken fights have all become common place, even the norm at professional ball games.

In this new major league atmosphere, fans looking to watch a ballgame and reminisce about old strikeout records and great second basemen might find themselves the odd men out. One has to wonder, how many seats are left at old Springer field?