Stadiums and weather: our conflictedness

"October surprise" is a term from politics but it might apply to baseball here in Minnesota if the Twins were to make the World Series. Baseball in October would be the supreme test for the new Target Field.
We're told that our new ballpark is so much more appealing for baseball purists than the Metrodome. But the Metrodome might look pretty inviting if the Twins are playing in October during the kind of weather that can typify that month.
The World Series has been challenging enough, from a weather standpoint, in other places like Philadelphia. It's a shame when weather tarnishes a sport that is meant to be played in the prime of summer's pleasantness.
Here's another factor making it worse: So many post-season games are played at night. Night baseball in October in Minnesota?
We could pray for unseasonably mild weather like what we have had this month of April.
With the Metrodome we didn't have to pray.
If the Twins play in October in unpleasant weather conditions, the national media will again stigmatize us for living in a northern clime with its unavoidable challenges. I remember these barbs from years past (like from Johnny Unitas, an NFL color analyst who carped about coming here for a playoff game).
It was a wonderful luxury having the Dome and not even having to worry about these issues.
You may need reminding, but World Series games at night are a somewhat recent phenomenon. When I was a kid, you'd come home from school at the end of the day and find out who won that day's game. Baseball then was run by people whom the late Bowie Kuhn called "sportsmen" who tried to put the purity of the game ahead of the sheer profit motive.
Baseball was meant to be played during the day. The World Series couldn't be played any other way, reasoned those purists, not that they weren't quite rich anyway.
Kuhn was the commissioner of major league baseball. Night World Series games became reality during his tenure, and he was mocked widely for his attempts at "selling" these night games by underdressing (i.e. with no special outerwear) for World Series games. He would later joke in his memoir that his detractors didn't appreciate how effective long underwear was.
Poor Bowie. In reading his memoir you can appreciate what an intelligent, feeling man he was. But he was in the crosshairs for a tumultuous transition, from the days when players were almost like chattel labor, to where they wielded great power and could amass great wealth. We take their latter status for granted today.
The labor movement derided Mr. Kuhn as an "empty suit" mouthpiece for the ownership. In many respects he was. But he deserved no less respect than the vast majority of all people who have to defer to ownership in some way. The young generation then and the middle class in general saw a lot of things labor's way. The term "labor movement" seems almost anachronistic now.
There was a feeling among the young boomers of that time, many of whom had read "Ball Four" by Jim Bouton, that players fully deserved their newfound power and rights.
The previous arrangement may have been unacceptable. But today we realize the players are subject to the same self-centered motives and greed as those old, evil owners. The players strike of 1994 left a scar that still lingers.
The compensation of top players puts them in a world that the average person cannot relate to. When "Ball Four" was written (based on the 1969 season), baseball players were just well-paid professionals and not independently wealthy. The biggest negative for them was job insecurity. Calvin Griffith, who was certainly a member of the old guard, once said that when a player's career was done he should simply find something else to do. He felt players should simply be motivated by the honor of wearing a big league uniform.
As with Kuhn, I think Griffith was fundamentally a very good person - he brought big league ball to Minnesota - just with values that were about to get swept away by a new consciousness in the 1970s. A better educated young generation felt people should have more leverage in laying out their lives - more options and rights. The new consciousness took on the concept of the U.S. military draft and obliterated it.
The new world they created might not be all they expected. Major league players have not used their blessings to benefit the fans.
Baseball instituted night games for the playoffs and World Series purely for economic reasons. The television audience would be much greater at night. But conditions in northern cities can turn cold and unpleasant on October nights.
Humorist Dave Barry joked a couple of years ago that "baseball playoff games are games played on TV after everyone has gone to bed."
When the Minnesota Twins played in the 1965 World Series, I learned the details of the weekday games upon getting home from school. It was October of 1965 and I was in the second month of my fifth grade year with teacher Pearl Hanse. Pearl is still with us. Her family has deep roots in the Morris area and she has an old homestead document tucked away that has the signature of Ulysses Grant.
The biggest academic memory of my fifth grade year was trying my hand at fiction writing. It began as a short story about boys running away from home and grew from there to a quite extensive piece, even with illustrations. Looking back it was rather bizarre and included its share of violence, with these boys prepared to defend themselves with large slingshots that could be planted in the ground in front of you for leverage.
In those days I could be complimented on my lively imagination, not much different from what we saw in comic books (a big influence on me). Today the violence in my stories might put me over the line with "zero tolerance" school policies. I might be assigned to a school psychologist and be prescribed behavior medications.
The boys in my story lived in treehouses in a country grove. I'm not sure if my subconscious was trying to say something. Looking back, the story was rather rambling and incoherent in some ways - certainly not a candidate for a major motion picture.
Our society doesn't need a revival of slingshots. Mrs. Hanse guided us along in our day-to-day studies even though many of us were distracted by the '65 World Series. In the end it was heartbreaking because the Twins lost in seven games. The home games were played at the outdoor Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington. Weather was a factor but we got through.
Writer Roger Angell of the New Yorker had a condescending way of writing about this series, seeing it more in the context of the end of the New York Yankees' dynasty (of that time) than of anything special happening here. He dwelt on how many major league teams of that time had relocated or come into existence through expansion. The Twins had relocated from Washington D.C. So what? This was clearly "our" team in 1965.
We didn't need some snooty east coast writer reminding us of what neophytes we were. I'm fascinated that Angell could get by with referring to the L.A. Dodgers' Lou Johnson as a "negro" outfielder. Well, Angell wrote for the New Yorker so he must have known what he was doing. These writers find Fenway Park charming but it would be viewed as an abomination if it were in America's heartland somewhere.
Angell referred to Met Stadium as an "airy Cyclotron." I'm pretty educated but I can't figure that one out.
I have so many special memories of the Met. I remember once when a couple members of our party were strolling on the second deck concourse behind the press box and passed by a partially open door through which you could see Hubert Humphrey. A woman who was a family friend of ours, from Brainerd, said "there's Hubert Humphrey" (with no intent of him necessarily hearing this). But he did. And his political instincts kicked in. He sprang from his chair, interrupting the conversation he was in, and came out to chat.
Our friend was thrilled and never forgot it, and perhaps she was more inclined to vote Democratic!
Halsey Hall was at the radio microphone for Twins games in that era. I recently shared in a post about how Halsey visited Morris for the ceremonies honoring Jerry Koosman in 1969. Halsey was a throwback character whose fondness for alcoholic beverages gave him some of his charm (in an era when we generally smiled at the idea of overconsumption).
Halsey was an older man but unlike Bowie Kuhn, he was not the object for any derision by the smart-alecky younger crowd. Quite to the contrary, he was beloved by everyone.
I remember Halsey seated on a temporary stage with other VIPs in front of the Morris Public Library. I believe I may have even made eye contact with him for a moment. You knew just from being close to him that he loved life and loved being part of this baseball event, never mind that he was out here in sparsely populated western Minnesota. He was unquestionably a "people person."
Jerry Koosman, with roots in our area, had just helped the New York Mets win the world championship. The Morris connection to Koosman has seemed to fade in our collective memory. The Met Lounge got its name through this. Baseball in October brought joy for us then just like it had in 1965 (up until Game 7 anyway).
But will it be a joy if the Twins make the World Series at Target Field, or will we get a sleet storm? I'd laugh.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com