Smashed Penny: Mall of America Pablo the Penguin

Mik spotted a penny machine when we first got to the Mall of America, but it just had Spongebob characters. That got me to paying attention, though, and I ended up finding a machine with a penny featuring Pablo, who is a penguin character in Nick Jr’s The Backyardigans show. Being a penguin lover I just had to get it for my smashed penny collection. It says Nickelodeon Universe and Mall of America. The image is of Pablo on what seems to be a carousel horse.

Mik’s Mini Bat Collection: HHH Metrodome 1982-2009

Mik had already got his mini bat at the game, but when we went to the Dome Shop across the street from the Metrodome to hunt down a logo only sticker for the car Dad found a HHH Metrodome 1982-2009 mini bat that we just had to get for Mik. He was actually quite excited with this find and even posed with this bat happily.

The bat has the logo for the farewell season like my baseball, although it does not exactly outright state farewell season on it. It has a cool background with little Twins logos all over in the blue part. Definitely a cool bat for his collection considering it is one of the few ballpark bats he has (only other one I know he has for sure is a Nationals Inaugural Game one I got him last year and he might have a Farewell Season or Breaking Ground type one for the current Busch Stadium as I vaguely remember him getting one like that when we saw the previous Busch Stadium in its last year).

Kj’s Baseball Collection: Farewell Season HHH Metrodome Ball 2 of 3

With it being the final season for the Twins at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome there was several special commemorative balls. This included a set of three that were each a limited edition of 600 and two other ones that were not limited edition. They all seemed to have pretty much the same design with the background color being the main difference between the two. I decided to get one of the limited edition ones and choose the dark blue one since it is a team color, I like blue, and it goes well with the colors in my room my baseballs are all going.

The Farewell Season HHH Metrodome Ball 2 of 3 has that statement on one side. Next to that on the right side it has a logo honoring the 1991 World Series win by the Twins. On the left side of the statement is a similar logo commemorating their World Series win in 1987 (hence another great reason to get this ball, as that occurred not long after I was born). On the other side it has sentences about the two Game 7 World Series wins (1987 and 1991) that occurred at the Metrodome. The side opposite the sentences has a HHH Metrodome Logo with the years it has been used by the Twins (1982-2009) and says Limited Edition of 600 underneath.

Mik’s Mini Bat Collection: Silver Twins

The mini bat selection at the souvenir kiosks at the Metrodome was not too bad. They only had the one Twins word logo design, but they had it in about six colors, which is about normal for mini bats. Mik ended up choosing the silver one because the silver color seemed to contrast and show off the logo the best.

Car Stickers Update: Minnesota Twins

The souvenir kiosks in the Metrodome only had stickers with players on them. We got one, but after the game we headed across the street to the Dome Souvenirs and ended up getting a logo set of stickers much like we got at the Padres. Now the American League one has one not quite entirely circular with the Twins one having crossed bats over the circle ball with the Twins logo.

Day 16: Mall of America and the Ballpark Connection

You know no trip to Minneapolis is complete without a trip to Mall of America. Perhaps you thought that there was no way we would work it into our ballpark trip without it being a non-baseball sightseeing stop. Well, it is a baseball sightseeing spot and even a ballpark one. That is because the Mall of America is built where the Metropolitan Stadium once stood, which is where the Twins played until the Metrodome was built.

In what used to be the Camp Snoopy Amusement Park and is now a Nickelodeon themed park in the middle of the mall there are two things to search out related to the Metropolitan Stadium. One is the original red seat up on the wall near the Log Ride. This seat is where the longest home run in the stadium was hit. The other thing is a plaque commemorating where the home plate used to be. Unfortunately, rides block the view of the seat from home plate and make it hard to notice how far that homer was actually hit.

This was a fun stop in my opinion even though it was only a half hour stop. Mik hated it because he just wanted to get on the road after the Twins game and get to Chicago as soon as possible, but if we gave into his every complaint then we would see nothing. Dad seemed to think it was a worthwhile stop like I thought, so two out of three is not bad considering Mik’s lack of wanting to enjoy anything beyond the mini bats and food.

Baseball Museum 4: Dome Souvenirs Plus Baseball Museum

The Dome Souvenirs Plus is a souvenir shop with mostly Viking and Twins merchandise. It is located across the street (sort of) from the Gate A entrance to the Metrodome. Inside it is a small one room baseball museum (also called Classic Sports Museum on one part of the shop’s entrance). The museum is sort of a way of getting people into the shop, but it is pretty interesting.

The museum is a one room one, but it is jam packed with cases of memorabilia to the point it was a tight squeeze for Mik to get through it. The memorabilia is mostly Twins related, but also includes a lot of stuff from random other MLB teams. The displays include signed baseballs, Twins World Series memorabilia, old programs, and classic ball caps. It is not exactly enough to go out of your way to stop here, but it is more than the minimal reason we next ended up at the Mall of America. Also, if you want Twins souvenirs at least until the new Target Field opens this is the place to get them, as the inside the Metrodome shops stink.