As the Minnesota legislature shows everything wrong with politics, in general, and politicians, in particular, it's easy to look back on more happy stadium times. On December 20, 1981 the Minnesota Vikings played the Kansas City Chiefs in Metropolitan Stadium. It was the last time that the Vikings stepped on that field. There's a big, bushy mall on the site now. Some people even visit Minnesota simply to set foot in that mall. I've been there. Saw a roller coaster. Saw a stadium chair attached high on a wall. Former Minnesota Twins great Harlem Killebrew once hit a monster home run that hit that very chair. It was Metropolitan Stadium then. One of many. My only thoughts that day in that mall were of the stadium that once stood there.
Affectionately known as "the Met", Metropolitan Stadium was a wreck. It was beautiful. When I first discovered football and the Minnesota Vikings I didn't understand the little home of my team. It compared more easily to high school football stadiums than anything else in the NFL. It was small, seating less than 50,000. Both teams were on the same sideline. It was also very cold. Winter comes hard in Minnesota. Metropolitan Stadium showed that so well. I learned about cold watching football games on TV in a living room in California. The cold brought a closeness between the Vikings and their fans. They were all in it together. Players and fans often celebrated that union in the parking lot after the games. Thirty years in the mess that is the Metrodome could never touch the twenty years of home games at "the Met." The dome was a never a home.
RIP Junior Seau
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