After attending my first Twins game at Target Field this past spring, I immediately deemed the Palace that Mauer Built as my summer home. What more could a guy ask for than a winning team, a world class ballpark and a location nesteld just a short distance from dozens of local watering holes.
Early in the season there were a few minor kinks that needed to be worked out. This is to be expected at any brand spanking new facility; let alone a ballpark that received Tim Brewster-like hype from thousands of people throughout Twin Territory. Unlike Brewster’s hype, the field and team (so far) has more than lived up to the hype. (Best of luck on your path to the Rose Bowl, Brew Crew!)
On Tuesday I attended my 15th game of the season at Target Field; a personal Twins season record for me. I had a great time enjoying my first game in the Legends Club and the hometown squad was able to squeek out a W.
Amidst the seventh inning stretch excitement I was once again exposed to a scene that absolutely makes my skin crawl – Twins fans belting out ”Don’t Stop Believing” as it blasts througout the sound system at Target Field.
If you haven’t been a witness to this or somehow haven’t noticed it, let me give you a snapshot of what goes down.
Fans covered in the colors of our beloved ball club (75 percent of the women in Mauer t-shirt jerseys) all sing along as the camera scans the crowd for toddlers, attractive women and circle me Bert sign holders to display on the giant video board, whlie the words to the song are displayed at the bottom of the screen like a Seseme Street sing-along.
Now, I’m not going to direct any negative feelings toward Journey. It’s not a bad song. After all, when it originally recorded the track it probably never imagined it’d be played at the ending of the final episode of a wildly popular HBO series and shortly thereafter become the most (over)played songs in college bars across the country (or at least MN.)
My beef with the song being played during the seventh inning stetch is that the song does not belong to the Twins. It belongs to the Twins biggest rival: the Chicago White Sux. During the Sux 2005 World Series run the song served as the team’s rallying cry, and although it wasn’t nearly as annoying as the Angels’ rally monkey, it still sticks in my head. The definitive moment for crowing DSB as the Sux’ song was when Steve Perry himself lead the team in an awfully brutal sounding rendition of the tune at its ticker-tape victory parade.
This is what I envision every time I hear the song at Target Field; not a pretty sight for a Twins fan, is it?
Therefore, I think the Twins music person needs to step his/her game up and find a song that isn’t our rival’s sloppy seconds. I don’t have a replacement song in mind, but anything would be better than DSB. ANYTHING. Unless if you like the image of A.J. Pierzynski straddling Bobby Jenks after the final out of the series, in which case maybe you deserve to be treated like A.J.
