Last year, ESPN spent a whole 162 game season saying good bye to their favorite ball park, Yankee Stadium. The Metrodome is coming down at the end of 2009 and you never would have known unless you read my Oriole-biased heartfelt good bye.
Last night the Orioles played their last game in the Metrodome and they said goodbye with a 5-1 win. President of baseball Operations, Andy MacPhail, even helped Minnesota count down to their 18th remaining game in the dome.
Baltimore is 64-73 indoors in Minnesota all-time and they’ve gone deep 137 times. That’s 1.16 long balls per game in the “HomerDome.”
Orioles Hall of Famer, Cal Ripken, is the franchise leader in games with 111, homeruns with 16, hits with 140, doubles with 34, and RBI with 71. The Iron Man recorded his 3,000th hit in the Metrodome on April 5, 2000 off hector Carrasco.
B.J. Surhoff is the franchise leader in batting average at the dome with a .368 mark. Mike Mussina has the most wins of any Oriole in the dome with seven. Mike Boddicker recorded the most strike outs (52) and Randy Myers had the most saves (6).
Next year, the Twins will unveil an outdoor stadium in Minnesota. I can’t imagine playing play outdoors in the Twin cities during the early and late months of the season. However, Baltimore is 77-68 outdoors in Minnesota during the regular season and 3-0 in the post season.
Fairwell Metrodome, you will be missed.
