MINNEAPOLIS - You could easily find thousands of Twins fans stating, under their breath perhaps, that those "other guys" have it "made in the shade."
On a hot and sticky Sunday, we wondered if they really had it made in the shade. So, we stopped at Menards, spent $6 on a thermometer and took it to Target Field, where those on the first base side were shielded from the sun. While those along third and in the outfield caught the full brunt of the sun's rays.
"I mean it's sticky hot. I don't know what the humidity is but it's hot," Julie Frey said.
Frey was sitting in the shade after giving up on her sunny seats. "I said, 'I'm going to sit here until the 4th inning and then I'm leaving to come down here.' I didn't make it that long," she explained. We gave her our little thermometer which registered at 89 degrees in the shade.
You could see folks packed in the shade and you could easily find gaping holes of empty seats under the sun.
Curious, Mick and Jill Hlavinka decided to leave their shady spot and venture to the upper deck of left field. "Up here, you're cooking up here," Mick said before noting that at least you could catch the occasional breeze out in left. We gave him the thermometer and got a reading of 93 degrees. Five minutes later, the needled bounced up to 100 degrees.
We let it sit up there, on the concrete, for another 10 or 15 minutes and moved the needle to 109 degrees.
Downstairs we found Erika Lee with a tiny mist-spraying fan. She joined her friend Erica Morrow in front of one of many huge fans set up in the concourse. "For us it's just wonderful, feels so good," Morrow said. Other fans lined up hoping to fill cups or bottles with water; staff members set out several giant water jugs and coolers that fans could tap out of.
Twins players actually thrived in the hot and humid conditions, jacking four homers out of the park. And for fans, the water glass was half full. "If I had to work in it I don't think I would like it," Jill Hlavinka said looking at Reporter Scott Seroka's pants. "But for something like this, this is great. It's better than rain," she added.
"It's hard to complain because we ask for it all winter, you know what I mean?" Morrow concluded.
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