Leaving to "Beat the Traffic"

[strumdatjaguar]

   Give us your best Twins story of a great game where you stayed while most of the crowd left (my example follows a small diatribe below). Or, if you are in the other camp, please tell us why you think it's a good idea to regularly leave before the end of a Twins game. 
   I do my best NEVER to leave a game early, one exception, the 4th quarter of Vikings Pre-season games.  I'd only leave Twins games in an emergency even in Spring Training.  I even stayed for the entire Gopher football game when they lost to Nebraska 84-13 - It's now viewed as a classic game in Gopher Football History (albeit a classic bad game).   But I saw "HISTORY", and most of the crowd missed it. 

   Those that leave games early "to beat the traffic" (or whatever) pretty much guarantee that they will miss one of the greatest games, if not the greatest game, they would ever have seen.   Some Seattle Seahawk fans yesterday learned that lesson the hard way (especially when the security guards refused to let them back into the stadium, after they heard the crowd cheering ecstatically).  

   So, what was the most memorable game where I stayed with the "faithful few".   It's not one of the Twins many walk-off wins or games where the opposing team or opposing player hit a milestone (clinching the playoffs and celebrating on the field, or an opposing pitcher's no-hitter).  Since most of the "early departed" give up on games where they think the Twins are sure to lose, I thought I'd describe a Twins loss as my memorable game.   Back in the later1990s approximately, I saw a regular season Twins game with my two young children.  My addled memory is that our squad was not having a good year and was trailing 9-1 going into the bottom of the Ninth.   The thought that "the kids needed to get home to get to bed", however, never crossed my mind.  We stayed with the very few fans who remained (maybe 500 of us).  After the Eighth, we went to sit in the now empty front row seats directly behind the plate.   The Twins battled back to 9-8 with the winning run at the plate.  The "faux-fans", who left early, probably felt justified if they read the box score the next day and saw that the Twins "lost anyways".   Yet, for those who stayed, it was the one of most exciting games of the season.  It was a crazy playoff atmosphere for us, especially knowing that we were watching something special, a massive near-comeback, that 95% of the crowd missed - We also knew we had to cheer louder for the players to show our appreciation for their efforts, which was especially fun for my kids.  Best of all, the "early departed" were the ones who got stuck in the traffic jam.  By the time the "faithful few" drove away, there weren't enough of us to create a traffic jam.  My son and daughter survived with 45 minutes less sleep that night.  Now, they are in their twenties and never leave early.

   By the way, I wonder how many fans gave up and left the 6th game of the 1991 World Series early "to beat the traffic".  I only saw that game on TV (saw the other 3 in person).   I'd like to hear some stories of the idiots who left that one early.

   So - -  - Somebody please explain any good reason short of an emergency to leave a Twins game early.  My question for you - - If you are only going to see 7 innings, doesn't it make more sense to show up in the third rather than leave before the end of the game????

[Squirrel]

I sometimes leave early when I accompany my parents to a game.  For various reasons, they often can no longer sit through an entire game, especially my dad.  (Dad is now 89, mom is 85.) Also, my dad uses a walker, and it's easier for him to leave with the least amount of crowd possible.  We end up with a compromise ... they eke out one more inning for me, and I leave before the end of the game for them.

 

I left a game early last August.  It was a blowout, Twins losing.  And it was HOT out and my seat was in the sun.  And I had a long drive back to Chicago ahead of me yet.  Given all those reasons, I didn't feel it necessary to stay for the entire game.  I didn't miss a grand comeback, either.

 

While I prefer to stay to end, and I try not to make it a habit of leaving early, sometimes there are good reasons to do so.

[70charger]

This isn't really fair, since I live(d) five blocks from the stadium, but my friend and I stayed at the park for a three hour rain delay, mostly just hanging out and drinking Surly. (Side note: half Bandwagon, half Bender makes a really good beer!) By the time the game started, it was 10, half the people had left thinking the game would be called, and of the other half, most had trickled out by 11 or so. 

 

My buddy and I ended up sitting directly above the dugout, and we both got baseballs tossed to us by players. We would have given them to kids, but there weren't any left. It was totally worth the hangover.

[JB_Iowa]

Late season, blow out football and I'm freezing my a** off, I'm out of there.

 

But the Seahawk fans were nuts -- it just wasn't that big a deficit abd it was the PLAYOFFS.

 

Baseball?  Hot, sweaty, bored and in the midst of drunken loudmouths would probably do it.

[SweetOne69]

I very rarely leave early.

 

When I do it is usually weather related and the Twins are getting blown out.

 

I remember 1 game (back in the Dome days), it was July 3rd against Detroit.  Twins were down something like 7-2.  My dad was having a party the next day so I wanted to get home kind of early.  I was sitting there and thinking if the Twins don't show some life soon we are leaving.  Twins ended up winning in 18 innings and I stayed until the end.  The game started at 6 and I think I got home at 1.

[James]

I typically stay to the end of the game.  It's really rare that I leave early.  

 

There were a few times that really stick out in my mind:

 

2009 - Watching a good number of people leaving the game early as the Tigers took the lead in the 7th inning.  The Twins ended up tying the game back up in the 8th.  It was pretty sparse by the 13th inning when Joe Crede hit a walk off grand slam.  That was a pretty awesome thing to witness.

 

2014 - A horrible game against the Miami Marlins.  The Twins lost big time, and most of the place emptied out pretty early.  It was memorable for me because we moved up pretty close to home plate and started having fun heckling the Marlins.  The best was when Giancarlo Stanton was up.  A solid group of drunkards (myself included) started heckling.  It was mostly just calling him "Mike", but I'm not sure he really appreciated it.  He proceeded to crank a double off the right field wall.  We got a little stare back from him when he was standing on second.  There isn't really anything special about that game in general, I just remembered it being a lot of fun to be shown up by a pro.  

(Also, calling a player by his previously preferred name seems like such a "Minnesota Nice" way to heckle).

[strumdatjaguar]

When one brings his elderly parents to a game - Choose a Day Game.  Let's say a Sunday 1PM Game.  If they can't handle a full nine innings, then pick them up and listen to the first three innings in the car on the way to the game.  Then arrive at about 2:00, which should be around the time of the bottom of the third or top of the fourth and stay till the end of  the 9th  (hoping there are no extra innings).   Then you don't have to leave early and you never miss the drama of a great finish (and your parents don't miss it as well).  They'll also miss a lot of the crowd and traffic, because of the parents who stay with their kids to run the bases.  Or they can stick around and watch the kids run the bases (maybe their grandkids or great-grandkids who arrived earlier in another car).  then they'd leave with an even smaller crowd.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

August 31, 1993. I got to see Pedro Munoz hit the lead off homer in the bottom of the 22nd. I was 13, no cellphone and didn't have $7 in quarters or a calling card for a pay phone. I didn't call home and got in big trouble coming home so late, but it was worth it. I hate leaving games early, and do so rarely.

[Pius Jefferson]

I think it's worse to leave and than try and comeback like yesterday in Seattle.

[twinsnorth49]

I don't think I've ever left a sporting event early, honestly. Although I have arrived late to a number of them. A tradition me and some friends  have had since we were young is to never leave a hockey game until the 3 stars are announced.

[gunnarthor]

Back in the dog seasons in the late 90s, I got some great tickets at the Dome to see KC/MN.  (A friend's mom cleaned the house for the Pohlads so they gave her four tickets, they even had Pohlad written on them).  We were down 4 runs in the 9th and most people left long ago but we stuck around and watched a rare comeback.  Rough year.

[DaveW]

I have left plenty of games early in my day, though only once was it a Twins game and it was at Yankee stadium but I had a good reason, the girlfriend and I sat through a 2 hour rain delay to catch most of the game, but as midnight quickly approached it was clear that sleep was more important then watching the Twins take another beating at the hands of the Yankees. Also it was our 4th date or something and she isn't a real big sports fan to begin with, so I figured 5+ hours of rain soaked bad baseball was pushing my luck enough at that point.

 

Anyone who leaves a playoff game early deserves what they get, those Seahawk fans were complete idiots, as much as the game "appeared" to be over, with that defense you know at any given time they are a simple fumble recovery or a int return away from being back in it (neither of which happened anyways and they STILL won)

 

When I went to school at the University of Oklahoma I'd say I left early in at least 80% of the home games I went to, honestly I still would likely leave most college games early since watching a team beat up another team by 40+ points every week gets old by the start of the 4th quarter (plus....beer!)

 

As for teams I don't care about: I probably goto 50 or so games a year across the country for work that feature teams I could care less about, if the game is boring/out of hand I will often leave midway through a 4th quarter/2nd half, 3rd period etc. Missing an "instant classic" doesn't concern me when we are talking about just one game out of 81 or 162 etc.

 

When it comes to auto racing and NASCAR, I never miss a lap, I don't understand how people can leave a NASCAR race early, everyone knows the last 30-40 laps are the absolute best every.single. race!

[DaveW]

I don't think I've ever left a sporting event early, honestly. Although I have arrived late to a number of them. A tradition me and some friends  have had since we were young is to never leave a hockey game until the 3 stars are announced.

Hockey is the one sport that is entertaining throughout a game no matter what. Even in a 5-0 blowout the teams are still playing hard and often times you can see a nice fight or two at that point as well (if you like those type of things). Also hockey has the advantage of being a fairly quick 2-2.5 hours overall.

 

On the flipside, watching a college football team up or down by 40 is just a waste of time at that point IMHO. Especially when you are talking about a game that can drag on for 4.5+ hours, factor in getting to the game and leaving you are talking about a full day. At least in hockey you can do many other things in a given day besides the game.

[thrillho]

If the Twins are losing by 10 in the 9th I'm not sticking around. That's my principle. If I miss out on the .0001% chance that they comeback and their season goes from 95 losses to 94 losses, I'll just have to find a way to live with myself. 

[jimmer]

I never leave a professional sports game early.  Since I don't live close enough to any professional sports venue, it doesn't make any sense for me to leave early.  It'd be a waste of money, for me.

[big dog]

I have left plenty of games early in my day, though only once was it a Twins game and it was at Yankee stadium but I had a good reason, the girlfriend and I sat through a 2 hour rain delay to catch most of the game, but as midnight quickly approached it was clear that sleep was more important then watching the Twins take another beating at the hands of the Yankees. Also it was our 4th date or something and she isn't a real big sports fan to begin with, so I figured 5+ hours of rain soaked bad baseball was pushing my luck enough at that point.

 

 

A friend of mine took a long-time girlfriend to a doubleheader and stayed all the way through, even though the first game went 18 innings.  He insisted on staying through the end of the second game.  This was at Candlestick Park, a bad place to watch 27 innings of baseball in one day.

 

She broke up with him within 48 hours.  Some people wanna leave, some people don't.  Good to sort that out early in a relationship.

[Giles Ferrell]

Twins were down 8-3 at the 7th inning stretch in this one. I'll never forget Kubel making them all pay for leaving early.

 

http://youtu.be/D_FSSWLanPE?t=46s

[jimmer]

A friend of mine took a long-time girlfriend to a doubleheader and stayed all the way through, even though the first game went 18 innings.  He insisted on staying through the end of the second game.  This was at Candlestick Park, a bad place to watch 27 innings of baseball in one day.

 

She broke up with him within 48 hours.  Some people wanna leave, some people don't.  Good to sort that out early in a relationship.

Looks like he owes a lot to the game of baseball.  Sounds like he dodged a bullet there. :-)

[ashbury]

She broke up with him within 48 hours. 

Up until this, I was about to say, you keep a girl like her.  As it is, I'll echo the sentiment, good riddance.

[REPETE]

Ever since Gaetti drilled a guy in the back with a foul ball when he was leaving, I'm terrified to leave!  I try to live by the rule "Don't leave the game early!", but my wife (who gets up about 4:30AM every day doesn't always see things the same, so I finally gave in last year in a meaningless blowout loss in late Sept.  She promised she'd never tell anyone, but I told her "I'll know".  The one game I always throw back at her was the Willinghammer walkoff 9th inning HR vs Oakland a few years back, and how glad she was we stayed for that. 

But that game was 3-2, and still took 3 1/2 hours, along with all the games Pelfrey pitched!  I do believe Baseball needs to address this and shorten games.  There's 162 of them. 

[jimmer]

I have zero issues with the pace of the game as it stands right now.  There's some strategy to doing some of the things they do, and the loads of strategy as a whole is what separates this game from others.  It's a thinking man's game. If I'm at a game, I want more time at the park, not less.

[big dog]

Up until this, I was about to say, you keep a girl like her.  As it is, I'll echo the sentiment, good riddance.

The woman he ended up marrying was not a baseball fan, but she was a gamer.  He landed on his feet.

[ashbury]

The woman he ended up marrying was not a baseball fan, but she was a gamer.  He landed on his feet.

I didn't marry the biggest baseball fan in the world, but when I mentioned at dinner the other night that TD was running a series of posts on the 25 greatest General Managers, she asked where Branch Rickey landed on that list.  It didn't matter that she brushed off my compliments by saying he was the only GM she could name, nor that she had seen the movie '42' within the past year; I continue to tell anyone who'll listen, I married well.

 

_{^{/  She also can still name the starting lineup for the 1966 Chicago Cubs, within epsilon}}

[Squirrel]

Up until this, I was about to say, you keep a girl like her.  As it is, I'll echo the sentiment, good riddance.

[ALessKosherScott]

I went to a Twins/Yankees game the year in 2000 with a Yankee fan friend of mine from college. Clemens was pitching for the Yankees and the Twins were losing 2-0 going into the bottom of the eight. The Twins got a couple of hits and a walk, but Coomer poped out to center and Midre Cummings struck out and suddenly there were two outs and people were flowing out of the stadium in droves. Then, Jacque Jones hit a two-run single and the game was tied. The next batter, Chad Moeller hit a soft liner that the Yankee left fielder made a dive for. It scooted by him to the wall and the slowest person on the team had broke the game open with a three-run, inside-the-park home run. My friend still curses about that game to this day.

[goulik]

In 1987 I went to my first Twins game. Growing up 6+ hours from the cities makes it hard to get there. Bottom of the 12th I took a picture of Puckett on 3rd, Hrbek on 2nd, Gaietti on 1st and Bruno batting with 2 outs. When they retired him, the family that took me to the game announced we were leaving (they had a baby and 3 yr old with) We heard the game winning run for the Twins as we pulled onto the freeway. Yeah, I don't leave early if I have any say...

[Thrylos]

This one recently.  2010 at Philly.   The Twins were down 9-4 on the top of the 9th.  A couple of HRs by Thome and Mauer tied it.  Then Butera of all people hit a PH HR on top of the 10th, Rauch gave one on the bottom of the 10th and the Twins won 13-10 with a rally on the 11th with Tolbert being the hero.   Great game and the ballpark was empty by last call.  9 home runs total in the game (4 for the Twins)

[The Wise One]

1977. Had the tickets to go to the Gopher-Michigan game. Sat in Coffman playing cards with the some people. Not even going can be worse than leaving early

[Craig Arko]

A rhapsody on relative importance --- NSFW

 

 

[gil4]

 

When I went to school at the University of Oklahoma I'd say I left early in at least 80% of the home games I went to,

 

So you didn't want to sit around to see if UTEP could make a comeback? 

 

 

I used to go to UTEP games a couple of times a year back when the AF took me to New Mexico.  The scheduled OU a couple of times (at OU, of course) and, while I understand the concept of getting paid, I don't think any amount is worth subjecting their players to that.  They didn't just lose, they got beat up, and then they ended up losing to teams they should have beaten (yes, there are teams worse than UTEP) because they had guys injured from the OU game.