St. Paul Saints

I have never had more fun at a baseball game than I did watching the St. Paul Saints. I am not exaggerating. I have been to the World Series to watch the Angels. I've gone to a game at Dodger Stadium on my birthday with a dozen friends. I took my then-4-year-old cousin to his first baseball game at Coors Field and after two innings when the score was 8-7, he asked me whether there was more scoring in baseball or basketball. But the St. Paul Saints tops all of that.

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The entire game was like a street carnival, and indeed their stadium is called Midway Stadium. I went with two friends, we had cheap tickets in the upper level out by the ends (this was a Saturday night game and those were the only tickets available.) When we walked in we saw a patio with everyone sitting at tables drinking beer. My buddy asked an usher who gets to sit at those tables. The usher said "anyone." So we sat at a table drinking beer all game just a few yards from the field.

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At a table next to us, people who had won a contest were served food from an Italian restaurant all night long. Gorgeous women sat in a hot tub beyond center field watching the game. Behind home plate, fans rotated sitting in a chair and getting a haircut. And when the umpire ran out of baseballs, a little pig ran out to him with a pink bag full of baseballs tied to his back (see the last picture.)

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Several years ago I went to a Twins game at the Metrodome. The stadium was cold, grey concrete, like a hospital or airport. The balls bounced thirty feet high off a turf that looked like rubber. The fans - and there weren't many - seemed to be there only for the $1 slices of pizza. It was the worst baseball experience ever. St. Paul, just a few miles away, is the opposite of that.