Right on Target

Eddie like. Eddie like a lot.

Monday's trip to Target Field was the first of what I hope will be many. It will need to be to get a grip on the whole place.

See, I have this problem — even in a new park, with all the bells and whistles to experience, I focus on the game.

Had Monday's home opener — the first official game — been a dull, one-sided affair, maybe I'd have done more wandering about. Maybe I'd have sought out more of the food options, tested more of the viewing angles. (Colleague Brian Ojanpa, who unlike me was on the clock, took care of that for you anyway.)

As it was, I stuck pretty close to my seat in the right field corner, close to what the designers obviously intend to be the primary entrance/exit — Gate 34, the Puckett gate. (The gates are not in numeric order — they bear the names of players with retired numbers. The Puckett and Carew gates —34 and 29 — are in the right field corner; the Hrbek gate (14) is behind home plate; the Oliva gate (6) is in the left field corner; and the Killebrew gate (3) is in center field.)

I hit a Halsey's Sausage Haus for a supper-time snack. No brats there (really?); I got a Polish for my wife and an Italian for myself. I don't remember ever seeing either at the Dome. We were both pleased withe the result. (The service was another matter. The register in the line I got in froze up; I eventually switched to another line. I lost a long inning in the process, and when I left with the food the register still wasn't functioning.)

The field itself played as a pitchers' park Monday; as I wrote in the print column, it's far too soon to know if that's the truth or an illusion. We felt the wind in our faces in the right-field corner, but the flags in left field were clearly blowing in and the flags in right hung limp. Certainly there were balls struck that I thought had a chance to go out that didn't.