Like a bad Broadway play, the Minnesota Twins opened and closed the house on the same night Sunday.
In their first home game of the American League Division Series, the Twins lost the third and deciding game to the New York Yankees, 4-1.
But the loss also brought down the (plastic) curtain on for major league baseball at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome after 28 seasons.
"It was fun to come to the last game. I wish they could have won," said Crosby Steen, 15, who came from Fargo with his brother and father. "It was a memorable moment that I'll remember for a long time."
That might be an understatement, given the curtain call provided by the Dome, which opened in 1982.
The Twins made a historic run in the last week to tie Detroit for first place, forcing a one-game playoff with the Tigers to decide who would take on the New York Yankees.
In the middle of those games was one of the most memorable performances in local NFL history, as Brett Favre defeated his former team, the Green Bay Packers, in a Monday night game.
"The Dome, I think -- she wanted everyone to know it was the end of an era," said Kevin Smith, Twins communications director, one of many people who reminisced about the stadium Sunday.
The end of the Twins' stay at the Dome officially came at 9:34 p.m. Central Standard Time, when Brendan Harris grounded out to end the game and the season.
But before that, optimism abounded in and around the House that Carl Leased.
Despite the team being on the brink of elimination after Friday's heartbreaking loss in New York, Twins fans remained optimistic that the team could not only win Sunday but take the series.
"The sign says it all," said Kelly Cinquegrani of Buffalo, who was wearing a Joe Mauer jersey and carrying a placard that said simply, "Believe." "You have to believe in your team, whether they are paid millions of dollars less than the other team or not. It could be the last game in the Dome, but we believe it's not."
The optimism was rewarded in the sixth inning when Mauer's two-out single staked the Twins to a 1-0 lead. But the Yankees responded almost immediately with home runs from Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada for a 2-1 lead in the top of the seventh inning and added two more runs in the ninth.
As the Yankees rallied, the atmosphere inside the Metrodome deflated almost as quickly as when the roof collapsed from too much snow in the winter of 1981.
Still, some people at the game realized Sunday's game was also a piece of history; especially considering the Metrodome is the only venue to ever host a major league All-Star Game, a Super Bowl, an NCAA basketball Final Four and a World Series.
"It certainly was meaningful," Smith said of the last game. "You weren't here saying good-bye to the Dome with your team 15 games out playing out the string. It just seems this place was not going to just fade off into the sunset."
Regardless of the outcome and the weather, Twins fans said Sunday they could not wait to play outdoors next year when the team's new ballpark, Target Field, opens in April.
"I love the Dome. I'm gonna miss it," said Molly Roith, "but I can't wait to be outside."
Even if temperatures are in the 20s or 30s?
"True fans come out," she said. "No matter what."
Heron Marquez Estrada • 612-673-4280
