SUCCESS!
(if you call nearly killing your wife to miss both Mauer AND Morneau a success, anyway…)
My first year at a Twins Fest. Or is it TwinsFest? Well, either way, it was my first. Being the loving, caring, giving husband that I am, and because she is supposedly the bigger Twins fan, I invited my wife to come along. Yes, yes, I know. Husband of the year and the like. You don’t need to tell me twice. But you’re certainly more than welcome to!
So we head out at, oh, around 3pm to quick grab a bite to eat at an A&W that was nowhere near along the way. The meal was a little disappointing, but hey! The cheese curds and root beer were good! We ended up at the parking garage at just a little after 4pm with the event starting at 5:30. Initially, I was concerned that we were a bit too early. I was also factoring the frigid, blustery temperature outside coupled with the 10-20mph wind gusting around. But, my wife wanted to get going, and I agreed that it would give us a better chance at scoring Mauer and Morneau.
Being that this was our first Twins… uhh… Fest… event, neither one of us knew how things worked. We didn’t know that both Morneau AND Mauer were signing together for one flat fee. We didn’t know that it was just one line for both of them instead of one line for each. Apparently, the rest of the world did. When we got there nearly an hour and a half before the doors opened, the line had already snaked around the stadium. Oh, good lord. Oh, but wait! There’s more! Remember the cold temperature I made reference to only one paragraph prior? While we were in line, the temperature was THREE DEGREES FAHRENHEIT! Here I am all bundled up with a snowcap, gloves, and pillowy winter coat. My wife sadly without hat and with tiny, thin tennis shoes. Whoops.
Needless to say that just one hour before the doors opened, neither one of us could feel our toes. About a half hour before we were granted access to the warmth of the indoors, we both felt like packing it up and heading home. How in the world did the people ahead of us, who we had heard were in line since around 2pm, not die in this ridiculous Minnesota weather? They were smarter than I, that’s for sure. Next year, I’ll know better. Next year, my wife and I will make sure to head to a nearby bar and warm up, rotating positions every half hour until the event begins.
As we were in line, surely on our deathbeds, my initial plans, as printed out the night before (because I’m a terrible geek), was for my wife to head directly for Mauer while I quickly ran for Span before heading towards Morneau. I was ready to spend $15 on Mauer, another $15 on Morneau, $15 on Delmon Young, $5 on Denard Span, $10 on Alexi Casilla, and another $10 on Carlos Gomez. That’s right, I was prepared to spend $70 on just six autographs. See how intelligent I am? Yeah.
WE MADE IT!
We finally got inside, literally almost ready to pass out. We were at that point in time about 200 people behind the lucky first person in line. We got our maps just as soon as we got inside, headed down to the field to figure out what was going on, and that’s when I had my wife run back upstairs where Mauer was signing so she could get in line. I raced down to the field (my first time on the field since I was a kid, so that was all sorts of nostalgia-filled coolness) to get Denard Span. When I was in line, it all became clear to me. I was spending $5 not on just Span, but also on Bobby Korecky and Ron Coomer. That meant that my wife, armed with only an item for Mauer to sign, could potentially score BOTH M&M boys in the same line at the same time! I quickly got what I needed from the first line and raced upstairs with a new plan of attack. Fortunately, I had brought along my entire book of GameDay Graphers just in case we wanted to get additional autographs. Also just as fortunately, Joe Nathan, Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, and Delmon Young were scheduled to sign right after Mauer and Morneau. My wife wouldn’t even have to move! This would later on prove to suck waterlogged baseballs. So I unloaded all of the cards that I had with me of the guys that she’d get, along with an extra $15, to get who I felt were some of the top guys on the team. Trust me, to meet Nathan, Cuddy, Young, Mauer, and Morneau would be an enormously amazing thing for me, but I wanted my wife to experience that thrill. And there she stood, in line, not moving an inch.
At the same time, I raced back down to the field to get in line for another batch of players. I was still processing the excitement in my head that we would be spending $30 on six guys instead of just two, which meant that I could get a lot more autographs than I was expecting for a lot less money than I brought. I was also really really excited for my wife. I really wished I was in her place. Well, at the time, anyway.
While in line, I met a Nick Punto fan, Deb, that I know from Pat Neshek’s message board. We had both just found at that, unfortunately, Nick Punto wasn’t there. We chatted through the line while I was playing phone tag with my wife. Ron Gardenhire walked past her while she was in the Mauer/Morneau line and said hello to her. Then we found out that Michael Cuddyer was sick and wouldn’t be signing tonight. Later on while in that same line, we found out that Delmon Young wasn’t there either. And, to top it all off, my wife got cut-off in the Mauer/Morneau line. She stood and stood and stood and stood in line for about 2 hours and got nothing. She saw no one (well, except Gardy). What I was expecting to be a thrill of a lifetime turned out to be a major bust. Her night was going miserably. First standing outside for an hour and a half at near subzero temps with the windchill surely way below zero, then standing in line inside for another two hours to get absolutely nothing. So, while Deb and I rejoined the line for the next signing, I had my wife join us.
I felt so bad that I wanted to make sure she got to meet some players and got to be involved with the autographs, so I put her in charge of the GameDays. She said she was nervous, but there was no way you could tell. She got right up there and seemed cool yet excited. In fact, when Glen Perkins saw the cards, he asked her "did you make these?" and she replied "Yes!" She then corrected herself by telling him "well, my husband did."
While in line we also noticed that Boof Bonser has some huge new bling on his hand. Apparently the guy got himself hitched during the offseason. Look at that gigantic thing!
We made it! And we got way more for less money than we planned on. Fourteen autographs for $35! No, we didn’t get any of the bigger name guys (due to not being insane and standing in line for 3+ hours in single digit temperatures, and due to player illnesses), but we got everything else we came for and more!
We ended up leaving just a little before the event ended and braved it back to the parking garage. The garage was about a half-mile away from the dome, but near our usual parking lot spot. Along the way to the event earlier in the day, we spotted a parking lot charging $10. Our garage spot? $12. The parking lot? Two blocks from the dome. D’oh! See, we’re learning tons of lessons here. On the way back to the garage, the temp was obviously lower, the wind was blowing harder, and we were back to red faces and numb toes. The most fun part of the whole deal? It took us a half hour to locate the car. We were initially in the right garage, on the right ramp, on the right level. We were just on the wrong grade. Nothing looked familiar to us, so we thought we’d try the adjacent garage. We knew almost right away that the second garage was not the right one. We could hardly breathe at this point. We made our way back to the first garage and circled around the ramp TWICE before we finally got on the correct grade and finally found the car!
My Poor Wife
I love her to death, and just about did so quite literally last night. For her to put up with everything she had to go through last night and still have the character to laugh about it shows just how much she loves me–and what kind of amazing person she is. I’m not sure if this proves that she’s a bigger Twins fan than I, though. *smile, wink, snort*
Final Thoughts
My wife may never go through this ordeal again, especially if she’s the one that has to stand in any Mauer and/or Morneau line. As for me, I’ll know to go way earlier, park way closer, and, if my wife does not go along, bring a buddy with which to rotate warming up in local taverns and eateries. With as cool as meeting the M&M boys would have been, I’m not sure the pain we had to endure outside would have been worth the fleeting moment to being face to face with them, exchange a couple of words, and then move on, all while donating $15 (or $25… there was some confusion about that whole deal). Fortunately, both will be around for a couple of years, so there will be a few opportunities to try, try again. The rest of the experience for me, anyway, was awesome! I just wish I had the time (and willpower) to attend the entire weekend of festivities. If anyone is up for the challenge of a brutal Minnesota winter outdoor lineup, I highly suggest this fun interactive experience.
