First Wrigley Field, then on to Minnesota’s two newest additions to the athletic scene.
Two days after the Minnesota Twins took two of three games from the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, a Minnesota Associated Press Sports Association meeting gave sports writers from across the state an opportunity to tour TCF Bank Stadium and Target Field. TCF Bank Stadium opens in the fall for the University of Minnesota football team, while Target Field opens in 2010 for the Twins.
Here are some facts on each:
TCF Bank Stadium
• The capacity is 50,000 with an expansion option to boost attendance up to 80,000. There are 20,000 chair back seats and 30,000 bleacher seats.
• The video board is the third largest in all of college football, behind the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma. The dimensions are 48 feet high by 108 feet wide.
• The band is moving in July 4, while the football team takes over July 20. The first home game is Sept. 12 against Air Force. The Gophers will also play host to California (Sept. 19), Wisconsin (Oct. 3), Purdue (Oct. 10), Michigan State (Oct. 31), Illinois (Nov. 7) and South Dakota State (Nov. 14) this fall.
• Season tickets are sold out — all 37,000 of them — while 10,000 seats are available for students and 3,000 seats are available to visiting teams. The most expensive seats are the indoor club seats at $3,000. The cheapest are outside the 20-yard lines at $50.
• The Gophers have the biggest locker room in all of football. It’s shaped as a football and extends 60 yards by 30 yards. It boasts 120 lockers and has many different stations so that assistant coaches can cover their individual game plans.
• The final cost to build the stadium was $288.5 million.
Target Field
• The Twins video board, which was recently installed, is very similar in size to the Gophers’ board. The Twins board is 57x101, compared to the Gophers’ 48x108.
• Numerous black spruce pine trees were planted in the batter’s eye in center field. None currently sit taller than six feet, but Kevin Smith, the executive director of public affairs for the Twins, expects the trees to grow as high as 30 or 40 feet.
• There are five gates to enter the stadium and they are numbered 3, 14, 6, 29 and 34. Looks random, but it’s far from it. Think Harmon Killebrew, Kent Hrbek, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew and Kirby Puckett.
• The capacity will be around 40,000.
• The grass for the field is currently being grown in Fort Morgan, Colo. In the third week of August, 16 refrigerated trucks will travel from Fort Morgan to Minneapolis to deliver the grass.
• On average, 800 people work on Target Field every day.
• Unofficial plans for next season will be to hold a few exhibition games before playing host to the home opener a couple weeks into the regular season, Smith said, comparing it to this year’s New York Yankees. The Yankees were the final team to hold a home opener this year after resurrecting a new stadium for the 2009 season.
