Take me out to the ballgame.. PLEASE!

IT’S HERE! LIVE. BASEBALL. ACTION. Well it’s not here here in Minnesota, but it’s here as in Spring Training games have officially begun.

As I drove through the freshly-coated-with-snow roads to do a Home Depot run today (as one does when there’s nothing else to keep us occupied these days), I was listening to the first inning of the Twins game on the radio and GOD it felt amazing. With the heated driver’s seat blasting on high, if I closed my eyes and pretended as hard as I could, it almost could have felt like sitting in the sunshine at Hammond Stadium watching Buxton strike out, rather than having Corey Provus and Dan Gladden tell me about it... buuuuuuut I was driving and that could have killed someone. So once again, I was reminded that I wasn’t in the seats, watching baseball, for the five-hundred-and-twenty-fifth day in a row. I did the math. My last game attended was September 22, 2019. FIVE. HUNDRED. AND. TWENTY. FIVE. EFFING. DAYS. AGO.

While I should have been working last week, I maybe (definitely) wasted a lot of time looking into buying tickets to a Spring Training game, packing up my family, and heading to sunny Florida for a few days over the kids’ spring break. Then I remembered <womp womp> we are still mid-pandemic. Then I thought about all of the logistics of getting there. I thought about finding places to stay that aren’t super people-y (even during non-pandemic times, I don’t like being around a ton of people). I thought about getting tickets when they’re only selling 2,400 per game, blah blah blah... It finally became too overwhelming (and expensive!) so I gave up. (But there’s still a small part of me that hasn’t given up hope that we might hop in the car and just start driving south.)

Regardless of whether my family makes it to Florida or not, there’s still the hope that we’ll get to see the Twins in person this season. While I kind of love being home all the time (Hi there! Extroverted introvert here. So awkward to meet you!), there are a handful of things I really miss during these corona-times: hugs, people (the ones I want to be around), live music, and baseball games. I’ve always been obsessed with baseball. My husband basically married me because I shared the same dream of visiting all of the Major League ballparks before we die (we are up to 15). But this five-hundred-and-twenty-five days without being at a live baseball game, hearing the crack of the bat, getting popcorn and a Big Ginger has probably taken more of a toll on me than any of the other things I miss about pre-pandemic life.

We are still waiting with our fingers crossed that the Twins will be able to sell tickets to the games so we can actually sit in our seats at Target Field this season. With the capacity likely being around 10,000 fans, I worry that those tickets are going to be pretty hard to come by. I also worry that maybe the virus will start to spike again after people travel during spring break and baseball shuts down like last season for a few months, and the Twins won’t get to sell any tickets. I don’t know if I can take another season of piped-in fan noise and giant cardboard heads of the Twins greats staring at me from the Champions Club seats.

It’s so close you guys. DO NOT SCREW THIS UP. Wear your masks, distance, wash your hands, spray yourself in hand sanitizer, eat a UV light, and do all the things to make sure we get to see baseball from the stands this season. Because even if there are no fans allowed, I will still be sitting next to that fence at Gate 34 waiting for the day I DO get into my seat in section 109, and I really don’t want to get arrested for loitering.

Hopefully we get an answer soon about ticket sales at Target Field this season. Hopefully tickets won’t cost us a kidney or a second-mortgage and you won’t have to buy them from a third party. But most hopefully, we all very soon get back to life as we knew it before this time last year - and that you’re all safe, healthy, happy. In the end, that’s really all that matters. That, and the Twins taking first in the AL Central again.

xoxo,

Marea