Winter retains its grip up here in Minnesota at this time of the year, but the days are getting longer and the Twins are in camp down in Florida, so Spring fever is building. I can’t wait to get out to a game at Target Field with the sun shining and our nine flagging down fly balls and bashing them out of the park.
It will be interesting to see if the bloom comes off the rose of our new stadium now that our home team has stunk up the place for two years running. However, Minnesotans are so crazy to get outdoors after being stuck indoors for half the year that they may not care that their club has regressed to its mediocre mean.
According to this article in the latest Chance magazine new stadiums do not make teams statistically more competitive. Yes, teams do increase payroll in conjunction with the greater revenues coming from flocks of fans that come with their new digs. But this drops off in a year or two and things go back to the way they were.
I am not surprised. Nevertheless, I am positive that the Twins will come around this year and make it to the playoffs. That is the nature of a true baseball fan—hopeless optimism.