Star Wars Episode V: The lightning strikes back

Hi friends!

You all know (well.. you might not but you do now) that I’m a bit of a Star Wars nerd. Remember last year’s Star Wars night? It was awesome. And so, even though my week is ridiculously full of too much stuff as it is, if the Twins are playing one of my other favorite teams (the Astros) (don’t judge) AND it’s Star Wars night with a Mandalorian bobblehead and a t-shirt? Shut up and take my money.

So the hubs and I met up with one of our dear friends (and the Star Warsiest nerd ever) to take in a night at the ballpark. The Twins had all the fun again with the fun game intro and the funny Star Wars names and the sound effects like Vader’s breathing, and a competitive game and it was perfect. There were a couple of raindrops, then a few more, and the crowd started to shift to seats under the cover of the overhangs during the 3rd inning. And then?

Ka-freaking-boom! The sky opened up in the top of the 4th inning. As we were sitting there wondering if it would pass or if we should maybe head into the concourse areas, the tornado sirens started blaring throughout Minneapolis. So we decided to head into Hrbek’s, since it was kind of indoors-ish.

My friends, I do not recommend standing near the gate or the windows there but of course we all wanted to see how bad it was getting. And getting bad it was. Rain was blasting in sideways like the blaster beams from a storm troopers gun. Wind was coming in with such force that I thought that the Death Star had taken aim at us and I was honestly wondering if we would be ushered into a safer area of the stadium.

Seriously. It was worse than the video shows at one point. One dude yelled “it’s a tornado!” shortly after this and a huge gust of swirling wind burst through gate 14. And I couldn’t help but think of Admiral Ackbar yelling IT’S A TRAP! and just how fitting it was to have rain lasers and a trap-nado pelting us on Star Wars night.

We stayed there, huddled in Hrbek’s until we saw a break in the action on the radar and the wind gusts calmed enough for us safely get home. We white-knuckled our way there with all of the lightning and none of the visibility. It was as though Palpatine himself was chasing us home.

Needless to say, the game has been suspended and (weather permitting) will resume immediately after the Twins and Astros play their already scheduled 12:10 game on Thursday. People who have tickets for Thursday get to enjoy the rest of the suspended game as well. Shortly after I made it home, I received an email from the Twins letting us know we’d be refunded/have the tickets back in our accounts for another date.

Kudos to the Twins and Target Field staff for keeping us entertained, fed, safe and calm during what should have been a really scary time. We, along with our Mandalorian bobblehead, made it home safely. I’m hoping that the rest of the fans and all of the staff and players there tonight did as well.

Xoxo and May the force be with you,

Marea