A reminder: The Dome still has baseball use

Noooo baseball in the Metrodome this spring.

It's easy to overlook, because the professional teams tend to suck all the oxygen out of the media room, but just because the Twins are no longer playing their games in the Metrodome doesn't mean the place was without baseball.

It was announced Wednesday that the roof tears in the fabric roof won't be repaired until sometime this spring. Which not only forces the Twins to find a new home for Twins Fest in January, but wipes out a slate of more than 300 college and high school games.

Those games don't draw like a Twins game, or even Twins Fest (which brought more than 30,000 fans to the Dome last winter). But they're vital to maintaining college baseball, with its February-June schedule, in the chilly Upper Midwest.

Jim Rueda, our sports editor, will be doing a story in the next few days about how the loss of the Dome will affect the local college teams.