FanHouse Metrodome

The Minnesota Twins are quickly gaining ground on the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers. Their victory over the White Sox in Chicago on Monday night moved the Twins to within 2 1/2 games of first place. The way things look at the moment, it's the only real race we're going to have during the season's final weeks, and thankfully it provides more suspense than just who is going to win the division.

There's a possibility that much like last year, the Twins may be tied for first after 162 games and a one-game playoff will be needed to settle the division. The problem is that such a tiebreaker would normally be played on Monday Oct. 5 -- the same night that the Minnesota Vikings will be hosting the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football.

Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten tries to describe football action in the conference everyone else calls "overrated."

RIGHT: The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, which won't be missed by very many people in the Big Ten.

And so it has come to this, the ultimate weekend of the penultimate season when Big Ten football ends before Thanksgiving. Starting in 2010, the Turkey Day tables will be a little less crowded as everyone's season extends to the last weekend of November. But that's two years from now. This weekend we say goodbye to the conference's second-longest serving coach, and bid a fond farewell to its least-loved stadium. Along the way we sort out who's going where when, and how all the teams will be positioned for next year.

Before we get on to the games, a note about the Big Ten's bowl selection process. The conference does not require bowls to select teams in order of their finish, but requires that a selected team have no more than one fewer win than the remaining team with the best record. Thus, a seven-win team can be picked before an eight-win team, but not a nine-win team. Oh, and if the league gets two teams into the BCS, some of the non-BCS bowls get to ignore all the rules.

I remember going to White Sox games as a child with my father, and the first thing he would do after we parked at the stadium was seek out a peanut vendor. It's not a baseball game if you're not eating peanuts, right? Little did I know then the dangers my father was subjecting me too.

There are many people in the world who are allergic to peanuts. Their allergies range from the annoying (hives) to not living (death). No team is more aware of the dangers of the peanut than the Minnesota Twins, and they're doing everything they can to help keep you from dying.

Watching a baseball game in a stadium and munching on a bag of peanuts is commonplace for most of us. But, for some kids, even contact with that bothersome peanut shell dust can turn deadly.

So the Twins announced Friday that they've set aside four dates this season at the Metrodome in which one section will be "peanut free."

"Peanuts are so symbolic, so connected to baseball," said Twins VP Patrick Klinger, who directs the team's marketing efforts. "But if you're allergic to peanuts and you're trying to enjoy the game and the gentleman next to you is eating that bag of peanuts, it could be fatal. There are parents who are fearful of bringing their kids out to a stadium that is filled with peanuts."

So the Twins will set aside a Skybox on four seperate dates: June 27, July 31, August 20, and September 17. This Skybox will be open for anybody with a peanut allergy to attend a game free from worries about death.

Is this what we're coming to?

I don't have any children, well, not that I'm paying for anyway, so maybe I'm just clueless. How many people have actually died from inhaling peanut dust at a baseball game?

We've already seen this with smoking. Baseball stadiums already have designated spots for smokers to go and fill their lungs with sweet death, and it looks like we'll soon have peanut eating zones. There the Peanut Zombies will unite and put together their plans for world domination.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

(Tip o' the hat to SportsbyBrooks)

The Metrodome is, well, it's real odd. The stadium has that baggie-tarp-whatever-the-heck-it-is right field wall, it's hollow, it's lonely and it's certainly not the best place in the world to watch a baseball game. And, for Minnesota's players, via Tom Powers at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, it's a pain coming back to it after spending the spring in Florida.

Severe depression notwithstanding, for many of the players the worst part about the move north is switching from the natural grass to the artificial turf. The first week or so on the hard surface sends almost everyone running, or at least limping, to the medicine chest.

"It's not like here," shortstop Jason Bartlett said. "Your legs have got to get used to it. It takes a toll on my legs the first few days."

This is the newer turf installed in 2004, too. It's better than the previous rock-hard surface but still tough on the leg joints. And ground balls continue to shoot through the gaps.

Ugh. It's one thing to have to leave sunny Florida, for perhaps a still frozen-over city, (although it feels like 31 degrees today!) but it's quite another to basically relearn how to field ground balls all the while going through some pain when the season starts.

Well, at least their new stadium looks pretty.

(Via Baseball Musings)