300-ish people showed up to watch a Twins game

The Twins tried to get in their game against the Tigers Wednesday night before impending thunderstorms struck Target Field, but alas. After a few innings the game had to be postponed and rescheduled for 1:00 pm the following day (today) as part of a split-game double header. The announced paid attendance for the make-up game was 18,374.

The actual attendance was, uh, not quite that many.

Listen: I’ve been to at least 1000 baseball games in my life by this point, and this was the fewest people I’ve ever seen at a game. I say this as a person who used to attend weekday day-games in the Metrodome during losing seasons. Heck, I once waited out a three-hour rain delay at Target Field and there were still more fans in the stands than at this game.

Here’s what happens when you go to a game that maybe has 250 attendees, tops:

• When I arrived at Gate 3—where there was no line or sign of other fans—the ticket attendants asked me why I was there. (Okay, there is an explanation for this: I went to the game on my lunch break and was dressed in business clothes. Apparently there was an internship fair being held at Target Field at the same time, and they thought maybe I was trying to go to that.)
• The ushers told me to sit wherever I wanted, except not in the upper decks because those were closed. (“Go sit right behind home!”)
• There were only two concession stands open in the entire park.
• I heard at least one fan at the park talking about “that game in Baltimore” where no fans were allowed to attend “because of the Boston Bombings, I think.”
• The sound of foul balls smashing against empty seats two sections away was extremely loud and incredibly terrifying.
• People had to run across sections before finally retrieving said foul balls, to the polite applause of the crowd.
• I didn’t actually sit behind home plate, but these were the people who did:

• Literally ever single kid in attendance got a personalized visit from, and photo with, TC Bear.
• I saw one little girl in a James Beresford jersey.

• You could clearly hear every heckler.

• You could very clearly hear police/ambulance/fire truck with sirens on pass by the outside of the park.
• Brian Dozier hit his historic 42nd home run to lead-off the game, and only a handful of people even got to see it.

Were you at the game today? Really? Pics or it didn’t happen.