Metropolitan Stadium, 8000 Cedar Avenue South, Bloomington, Minnesota
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Metropolitan Stadium | |
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| Address: | 8000 Cedar Avenue S |
| City/locality- State/province |
Bloomington, Minnesota |
| County- State/province: |
Hennepin County, Minnesota |
| State/province: | Minnesota |
| Country: | United States |
| Year built: | 1956 |
| Year razed: | 1985 |
| Historic Function: | Sports facility/stadium |
The Metropolitan Stadium was beautiful when first built, but later became outdated leading to the construction of the Humphrey H. Humphrey Metrodome. The Metropolitan Stadium was first opened in April 24, 1956 and was designed by Osborn Engineering. The estimated cost at the time of when it was built was $8.5 million dollars. It was located in Bloomington, Minnesota and now Mall of America has replaced it when it was torn down in 1985. When it was first built it held 18,200 fans. It had a three tier grandstand that extended behind the home plate. Throughout time the stadium eventually was expanded to hold up to 30,000 more people. Mainly adding more seats . During this time, this stadium was held for minor league baseball. In 1961 Washington Senators moved to Minnesota and became the Twins. The same year, the Vikings moved into the stadium as well. By 1965 the capacity became 45, 919. The diagram below shows where new seating was added. When the Metropolitan Stadium was in its glories days of hosting various games, it was said to be one of the best stadiums in the country, even better than some of the professional sport stadiums. Where it was located there was a problem with traffic and amenities for how many spectators the stadium brought in, it soon became outdated and too small, moving towards the build of the Metrodome.
The stands were built at various times and varied from what they were. There was a triple-decked infield grandstand ran down the first baseline by a double-decked extension. The left field had a double-decker bleacher section that provided bad seating for baseball games. This specific section of the bleachers costed a lot of money to be built and didn't provide very good seating. The rest of the park was held up with temporary bleachers that actually stayed there year round. The bad seating for baseball is what led the Twins to switching to Metrodome. Being that football and baseball play on different shapes of fields, it makes it difficult, if impossible to ever provide good seating for both football and baseball. This was later learned when the Metrodome was built. The "cheap seats" in the left field is exactly what they were. Instead of walking in through a gate, you actually went through what was a little opening in the fence. People could stand right behind the outfielders to watch the game and ground level. The food culture of the stadium was a highlight of the stadium. It was a good way to get the family out that could also provide inexpensive meals for the family.
Memories and stories
There were many memorable moments for the players. In 1965 the Twins had a fantastic game against the Yankees on April 12th that was remarkable. Later that year in October, Minnesota leads into the world series by two games. In 1965 it also hosted the All Star Game (http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/ballpark/min_ballpark_metropolitan_stadium.jsp). Harmon Killebrew had a home run that was 520 feet in 1967. When Football started to play there in 1965, the Vikings first game was against the Chicago Bears on September 10th.
An article from the Star Tribune that was posted on December 27th, 2013 from Ben Welter, had posted the original article from the day that the Metropolitan Stadium was closed (http://www.startribune.com/dec-21-1981-met-stadium-s-violent-goodbye/237253121/). The rampage started in the fourth quarter when the fans started to bring down the American Flag from where they were sitting in the bleachers. With five minutes left of the game people started walking onto the field in an outrage, destroying everything in their path. The clock was broken, the field goals were down and the field was destroyed. The amount of seats that were taken couldn’t even be counted. The scoreboard was destroyed by people climbing on it and breaking the lightbulbs and taking the letters. What may have seen innocent at the beginning turned into a rampage of destruction. The amount of security was even increased for the game, but that couldn’t even stop the angry mob that was heading towards the field.
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