Imponderables: Celebrating the Metrodome

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The Minnesota Twins today announced plans for celebrating their final season in the Metrodome. Each game will feature at least one of 100 “Metrodome memories,” throwback uniforms, and the naming of an all-time Metrodome team.

Let’s hit the Wayback Machine:

There’s a romance to baseball if it’s played on grass on a sunny day or a nice evening. And you can’t experience that in a football stadium, particularly not in a domed football stadium.

That was Jerry Bell, the chief Twins lobbyist for a new stadium in 1999.

Part of the reason for a new baseball stadium — thank you, Hennepin County taxpayers — was that the Metrodome, well, stinks for baseball. It was, conventional wisdom said, a sterile football stadium that had absolutely no charm.

Are we supposed to get misty eyed about it now?