There were a couple of decades when the crowds for Twins games would increase in August, even in losing seasons. Those were the days when the rural population was larger, the kitchen radio was stuck by grease on AM-830, and the entire Good Neighbor crew spent the day plugging their ballclub.
Heck, if you were lucky and came in from Lismore or Dalton or Hackensack, you might wind up on Randy Merriman’s “Fan in the Stands” pregame show.
There were also can’t lose promotions at Met Stadium, including Nuns Day and Campers Weekend. And even before Las Vegas came up with a spinoff, the younger and more rambunctious Twins followers had the slogan: “What happens on Campers Weekend, stays with Campers Weekend.”
This was when the metropolitan area basically ended at Hopkins to the west and Woodbury was 50 houses and cornfields to the east.
The metropolitan area is now gigantic and those residents must carry the Twins at the gate, what with the rural folks who are living off agriculture now raising three kids on two sections rather than 10 on 220 acres.
Which brings us to Friday night’s game against the Kansas City Royals at beautiful Target Field, coming as it did after the home team departed nine days earlier following a 13-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox in a Wednesday matinee.
This dropped the Twins to 51-57, 12 games in arrears in the American League Central and on pace for the lowest attendance in the non-pandemic seasons since Target Field opened in 2010. Ah, what a year that was, 94-68, with attendance of 3,223,640, and a vision of glorious times ahead.
Finishing the 2011 season on a 19-50 collapse and the athletes celebrating on-field a last-day victory when they avoided 100 losses … that sort of changed the outlook.