Joey's World Tour: A Twin Killing in Minnesota

Twins Territory?  Not when the Mets are in town!  (Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus)

How's everything going, my fellow Mets fans?  This is your favorite Studious Metsimus roving reporter/culinary expert, Joey Beartran, and I just returned from a trip to the land of Juicy Lucys and Mary Tyler Moore.  Ya, for sure.  You betcha I'm talking about Minnesota.

Target Field is home to the Minnesota Twins, but you wouldn't think that after the Mets made themselves at home there for a couple of days.  I only made it to the series opener, but unlike my trip to San Diego a few months ago, my colleague didn't get tickets to the wrong game, mainly because the Mets swept the two-game set.

In addition to attending an actual Mets road victory for a change, I also toured the ballpark and sampled some local eats.  Along the way, I found out that Prince is still really huge in the Gopher State, the Mets have employed a whole bunch of Twins Hall of Famers and tour guides are very friendly with their guests.  Almost a little too friendly.

Are you ready to be taken for a ride?  Then fasten your seat belts, 'cause we're about to blast off like a Pete Alonso home run.

Malls are so huge here, they have roller coasters for people who'd rather shop for thrills instead of scented candles. (EL/SM)

Since our stay was going to be brief in Minneapolis, we decided to take the Target Field tour on the morning of the Mets' first game against the Twins.  There were several tour guides there to accommodate the dozens of mostly Mets fans who showed up expecting the usual "here are our expensive suites and here is the one tiny place in the ballpark where we acknowledge that the team has some history" spiel.  Oh wait, that's what they do at Citi Field tours.  My bad.

At Target Field, they actually appreciate and celebrate their history.  And it's not just Minnesota Twins history.  Prior to 1961, the Twins played in our nation's capital as the original Washington Senators.  Just because the Senators don't exist anymore doesn't mean they've been forgotten.  Within the ballpark are homages to the three pennant-winning Senators teams.  (Washington played in the World Series in 1924, 1925 and 1933.)  In addition to these tributes, our octogenarian tour guide, Bob - who looked like he could have been an usher for the Senators at old Griffith Park in D.C. - showed us a wing dedicated to the franchise's super slugger and gentle giant, Harmon Killebrew.  And since the first seven seasons of Killebrew's career were spent in Washington, it was pleasing to see that he was equally depicted wearing Senators and Twins jerseys.

First in war, first in peace and last in the American League.  But not last when it comes to producing superstars.  (EL/SM)

The Twins have had many great players in their fifty-plus seasons in Minnesota.  And it seems like all of them have sections devoted to them in the ballpark.  Hall of Famers such as Killebrew, Rod Carew and Kirby Puckett all have statues and gates named after their uniform numbers (Gates 3, 29 and 34, respectively.)  But native Minnesotan Kent Hrbek also has a statue and gate, as well as three-time batting champion and 15-year member of the Twins, Tony Oliva.  (Their statues are near Gates 14 and 6, naturally.)  And if that's not enough in the statue department, they even have full-size bronze effigies of two-time World Series-winning manager Tom Kelly and mascot TC Bear.

Within the park are also display cases and walls dedicated to Paul Molitor, another Minnesota-born Hall of Famer, as well as fan of flatulence Bert Blyleven and 21st century Twins legend Joe Mauer, whose number was retired by Minnesota just nine months after he played his final game for the team.  (Let's see how long the Mets wait to retire David Wright's number.  Hopefully before the team "accidentally" gives it to Kelvin Torve's son or some other no-name Met.)

There's basically no part of the park in which you can't find a tribute to a great Twins player, as illustrated by the photos below.  Even former Met Jerry Koosman got a mention because he was born in Minnesota and was a 20-game winner for the Twins in 1979.

Kirby Puckett's statue was so excited, it almost punched me in the head!  (EL/SM)

Just look at all those beautiful statues.  Meanwhile, all the Mets have is a Casey Stengel gnome tucked away near a window in the team's Hall of Fame and Museum and a not-yet-completed Tom Seaver statue that'll probably be put in the same area where the Home Run Apple was relegated to in 2009.  Because Mets.

But I digress.

Speaking of the Hall of Fame and Museum, the Twins even display their history outside the ballpark, with pennants depicting all of the members of their own Hall of Fame.  And of course, all of them fared far better for the Twins than they did for the Mets.

But at least we got a no-hitter from Johan, right?  (EL/SM collage)

 

Seeing how the Twins honor their former greats made me want to take off my roving reporter hat and put on my culinary expert cap.  So before heading out for some poutine (I was in a state that borders Canada, you know), I decided to check out what Target Field had to offer in the food department.  And I'm happy to report that I wasn't let down.

In the Champions Club, you can get everything from street corn dogs to a steak mushroom Alfredo pizza.  Had my colleague remembered to bring extra meal money, perhaps I could have sampled some of these delicacies.  Instead, I had to eat food from the concourses.  Fortunately, I did not consider this a downgrade, especially after I saw all the choices.

You can have Cuban sandwiches at Tony O's or the Italian fare at Frankie V's (named after Frank Viola, of course).  Want a 24-inch long Boomstick frankfurter or some tasty bratwurst?  They've got that.  There's even soul food at Soul Bowl and Mexican delicacies at Señor Smoke's.  (I had the last two for quality assurance purposes.)

Target Field has no shortage of food selections for hungry fans.  In addition to these stands, Target Field has an area of rotating vendors near the Kirby Puckett gate.  Clearly, they were speaking my language when they built the food stands at this ballpark.

Mac n' cheese, collard greens and smoked mushrooms to the left; chicken burrito bowl on the right.  (EL/SM)

So far I've discussed Target Field's tour and food.  Now it's time to talk about the ballpark and some interesting features that you won't see in many other stadiums.

Located in the Terrace Level behind home plate is 2 Gingers Pub.  Sure, you can get an adult beverage there.  But the main reason people go there is to chat with Twins organist Sue Nelson.  Throughout the game, Ms. Nelson plays her favorite instrument, which sounds so much better than the ear-shattering recorded music that we're normally subjected to at baseball games.

When Ms. Nelson is not playing, she's shmoozing with fans, who are allowed to go up to her throughout the game.  And who wouldn't want to say hello to her, especially with that radiant smile greeting you when you enter the pub?

I was calm when I met Sue Nelson because her bag told me to trust her.  Who am I to question a bag?  (EL/SM)

In addition to Ms. Nelson's organ playing, other features that make Target Field a little different than most other ballparks include exit velocity and launch angle on the scoreboard (for all you nerdy kids out there), the classic logo of Minnie and Paul shaking hands over the Mississippi River, the flagpole from old Metropolitan Stadium (which was the Twins' original home when they moved to Minnesota in 1961), the MLB and Twins logo made entirely of wooden bats, a plethora of purple Prince products in the Twins clubhouse shop and the only mascot in the American League that's also a bear.

As you can imagine, my colleagues had to stand in line to meet TC Bear, even if it meant missing an inning or two of the Mets game.

My colleague was way too happy to meet TC Bear, who reminds me of what I would look like on steroids.  (EL/SM)

So that's all for my trip to the North Star state, a trip that featured two Mets victories against the Minnesota Twins.  On this journey, I learned that the Washington Senators are gone, but not forgotten.  I also learned that the Twins are proud of their homegrown players and anyone who has ever contributed positively to the franchise.  They also specialize in a diverse assortment of ballpark cuisine and Irish pubs that are actually secret hiding places for smiling organists.

Oh, and remember when I mentioned Target Field's very friendly tour guides twenty paragraphs ago?  (You can scroll up; I'll wait.)  Yeah, they get very attached to their guests, especially when they consist of famous roving reporters and culinary experts.

Love you, Bob the Tour Guide.  Thanks to you and the Mets' performance in Minneapolis, my stay in your state was one I'll remember for quite some time.

Can we get some privacy, please?  (EL/SM)

For previous installments of Joey's World Tour, please click on the links below, where you will be entertained by Joey's wit, photos and love of ballpark cuisine:

World Tour Stop #1: Baltimore
World Tour Stop #2: Washington, DC
World Tour Stop #3: Pittsburgh
World Tour Stop #4: Texas
World Tour Stop #5: Los Angeles
World Tour Stop #6: San Diego
World Tour Stop #7: Toronto
World Tour Stop #8: Chicago (NL)
World Tour Stop #9: Milwaukee
World Tour Stop #10: Seattle
World Tour Stop #11: Cleveland
World Tour Stop #12: Brooklyn (Ebbets Field site) and Manhattan (Polo Grounds site)
World Tour Stop #13: Baltimore (again) and Pittsburgh (part deux)
World Tour Stop #14: Cincinnati
World Tour Stop #15: Colorado
World Tour Stop #16: Cooperstown (Baseball Hall of Fame)
World Tour Stop #17: Detroit
World Tour Stop #18: Atlanta
World Tour Stop #19: Miami
World Tour Stop #20: St. Louis
World Tour Stop #21: Kansas City
World Tour Stop #22: Anaheim (and San Diego revisited)

The Mets Are The Only Franchise Without A Player Having A 3-HR Game At Home

The Mets are entering their seventh season at Citi Field in 2015.  Prior to that, they called Shea Stadium home for 45 seasons.  And that came on the heels of a two-year residency at the Polo Grounds in 1962 and 1963.  That's over half a century of home games spread out over three stadiums.

Almost a thousand players have played for the Mets in that time, with just under 400 of them hitting at least one home run in a Mets uniform.  Of those 391 players who hit it "outta here", only Jim Hickman, Dave Kingman, Claudell Washington, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, Edgardo Alfonzo, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Ike Davis were able to hit three home runs in the same game.  Amazingly, all nine of them achieved their tater trifecta on the road.

That's right, Mets fans.  There have been over 4,000 home games in Mets history and the team still has more no-hitters than players who have hit three homers in the same game in front of the home crowd.  It's enough to make Gary Cohen say something like this every time a Mets player comes close.

"You know, Keith, no Met has ever hit three home runs in a game at home."

So now that we know that the Mets have only had nine players who have produced prodigious displays of power - all on the road - the question that has to be on everyone's minds is this.  Is there any other team in baseball that has never seen one of its own blast three homers in a single game at home?  My research yielded an interesting answer.

Below is a list of the last players to pull off home run hat tricks for each major league team while wearing their home whites.

Team	Player	Date/Opponent
Arizona Diamondbacks	Jason Kubel	7/21/12 vs. HOU
Atlanta Braves	Mark Teixeira	6/22/08 vs. SEA
Baltimore Orioles	Chris Davis	8/24/12 vs. TOR
Boston Red Sox	Kevin Millar	7/23/04 vs. NYY
Chicago Cubs	Dioner Navarro	5/29/13 vs. CWS
Chicago White Sox	Paul Konerko	7/7/09 vs. CLE
Cincinnati Reds	Joey Votto	5/13/12 vs. WAS
Cleveland Indians	Jim Thome	7/6/01 vs. STL
Colorado Rockies	Carlos Gonzalez	5/30/12 vs. HOU
Detroit Tigers	Miguel Cabrera	5/28/10 vs. OAK
Florida/Miami Marlins	Cody Ross	9/11/06 vs. NYM (*)
Houston Astros	Morgan Ensberg	5/15/05 vs. SF
Kansas City Royals	Danny Tartabull	7/6/91 vs. OAK (*)
Los Angeles Angels	Torii Hunter	6/13/09 vs. SD
Los Angeles Dodgers	Juan Uribe	9/9/13 vs. ARZ
Milwaukee Brewers	Prince Fielder	9/27/11 vs. PIT
New York Yankees	Curtis Granderson	4/19/12 vs. MIN
Oakland Athletics	Miguel Tejada	6/11/99 vs. LAD
Philadelphia Phillies	Jayson Werth	5/16/08 vs. TOR
Pittsburgh Pirates	Andrew McCutchen	8/1/09 vs. WAS
San Diego Padres	Phil Nevin	10/6/01 vs. COL (*)
San Francisco Giants	Barry Bonds	8/2/94 vs. CIN
Seattle Mariners	Edgar Martinez	5/18/99 vs. MIN
St. Louis Cardinals	Albert Pujols	9/3/06 vs. PIT
Tampa Bay Rays	Evan Longoria	10/3/12 vs. BAL
Texas Rangers	Adrian Beltre	8/22/12 vs. BAL
Toronto Blue Jays	John Buck	4/29/10 vs. OAK
Washington Nationals	Adam Dunn	7/7/10 vs. SD

Editor's note:  Barry Bonds was the last member of the San Francisco Giants to hit three home runs in a regular season home game, but the Giants' Pablo Sandoval hit three home runs in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series, which was played in San Francisco.

(*) The star indicates that this was the only time in team history that a player produced a three-homer game in his home ballpark.


Did you notice any teams missing in the chart above?  There were two - the Mets (obviously) and the Minnesota Twins.  But prior to 1961, the Minnesota Twins were playing ball as the Washington Senators.  And on August 31, 1956, Jim Lemon became the first and only member of the original Washington Senators to hit three home runs in a home game when he clobbered his triumvirate of taters at Griffith Stadium against the New York Yankees.

With the Senators/Twins franchise having a member in the "three homers at home" club, that leaves the Mets as the only team in the majors without a player who has hit three round-trippers in a single game in his home ballpark.

It's no wonder Gary Cohen continues to mention that fact ad nauseum in the same way he (and every other Mets broadcaster) used to discuss no-hitters before the events of June 1, 2012.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

In honor of the topic at hand, here are some other bits of "three-homer at home" minutiae for you.

• Two players have hit three homers in a home game on four separate occasions.  Both accomplished their feats for the Chicago Cubs.  Ernie Banks had his three-homer games at Wrigley Field in 1955, 1957, 1962 and 1963, while Sammy Sosa slammed his way to history at the Friendly Confines in 1996, 1998 and twice in 2001.

• Speaking of the Cubs, the Bleacher Bums at Wrigley Field have been treated to the most three-homer performances by one of their own.  Cubs players have produced three homers in a game 24 times at the Friendly Confines.  No other team has more than 17 such games.  (The Cincinnati Reds have that amount in their various home ballparks.)  Looks like the wind was blowing out at just the right time for the North Siders during those two dozen affairs.

• The Brooklyn Dodgers and the Milwaukee Brewers are the only teams to have three players accomplish the "three-homer at home" feat in the same season.  In 1950, fans at Ebbets Field saw Duke Snider, Gil Hodges and Tommy Brown go deep three times in one game.  Similarly, Miller Park season-ticket holders in 2011 witnessed Corey Hart, Casey McGehee and Prince Fielder circle the bases thrice in the same game.

• Although no Mets player has ever hit three homers in a game at home, four opposing players had three-homer games against the Mets in New York.  St. Louis' Stan Musial was the first to do so, smacking three bombs at the Polo Grounds on July 8, 1962.  Dick Allen of the Philadelphia Phillies became the first player to hit three home runs in a game at Shea Stadium on September 29, 1968.  A decade later, Cincinnati's Pete Rose became the most unlikely candidate to have a three-homer game at Shea when he circled the bases three times on April 29, 1978.  It was the only time Rose hit three home runs in a single game in his 24-year career.  Finally, former Met Dave Kingman launched three long balls at Shea Stadium as a member of the Chicago Cubs on July 28, 1979.

• No Mets player has ever hit three homers in a home game.  But seven players have hit three blasts in the same game against the Mets in their home ballparks, with one of the seven doing it twice.  Willie McCovey of the San Francisco Giants victimized the Mets at Candlestick Park in 1963 and 1966.  The next three times a player hit a trio of home runs in a home game against the Mets, those players were wearing Cubs uniforms.  Adolfo Phillips (1967), Billy Williams (1968) and Tuffy Rhodes (1994) gave a total of nine souvenirs to the Bleacher Bums at Wrigley Field, courtesy of various Mets pitchers.  The other three players to hit three homers in a home game against the Mets were Detroit's Bobby Higginson (1997 at Tiger Stadium), Arizona's Luis Gonzalez (2004 at Bank One Ballpark) and Florida's Cody Ross (2006 at Dolphins Stadium).  Ross's game remains the only time in Marlins history in which one of their own hit three homers in a game at home.

Mets fans have always hated Cody Ross.  After reading this piece, they'll hate him even more.

Since the Mets came into existence in 1962, there have been 175 instances in which a player hit three home runs in the same regular season game at his home ballpark.  In all 175 instances, the player who circled the bases was wearing a uniform that did not say "Mets" on it.

And now, for the second time in Citi Field's short history, the dimensions of the ballpark have been adjusted to supposedly make it easier for the Mets to hit home runs there.  But will those cosmetic changes help produce the first three-homer game by a Mets player in his home whites?  Or will the closer fences allow Mets fans to witness a fifth player in his road grays following in the footsteps of Stan Musial, Dick Allen, Pete Rose and Dave Kingman by taking a trio of trots around the bases in the Mets' home park?

In the 1970s, Schoolhouse Rock once taught us that "Three Is A Magic Number".  It remains to be seen if Citi Field will ever by rocked by a Mets player who believes in the power of three.