twins/mlb

Steve Specht kept his streak alive Monday. ¶ Dressed in a lightweight Minnesota Twins jacket, Specht, 54, of Detroit Lakes, Minn., was headed for the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome to see his 28th straight home opener. That's every one they've had in the Dome, covering more than half of his life.

"It's just kind of nice after winter and all, being hopeful and thinking about spring and baseball," Specht said.

For Specht and more than 48,000 other fans at the Dome on Monday, the season opener revived a ritual and the bond with the season and the home team. But this time there was something extra -- the beginning of the final season in the Metrodome.

For a generation, the Dome has inspired mixed emotions among Twins fans. While it never seemed quite right for baseball, it was where the Twins won two World Series. It has been where high-priced outfielders have shrugged helplessly as fly balls disappeared against the fabric sky, where an eighth-inning roof collapse once was followed by a blown five-run lead by the Twins, and where the right-field fence came to be known with both affection and derision as ''the baggie."

Next year, the Twins will open the season in an outdoor ballpark about a mile west, across downtown, long on baseball chic: real grass, limestone walls and sun, not to mention wind, rain and occasionally snow.

That's OK with Specht, a fan of such magnitude that he traveled to Cooperstown, N.Y., to see Kirby Puckett's Baseball Hall of Fame induction and who has three seats from the old Metropolitan Stadium, which he occasionally brings out of his garage.

"I do think baseball is meant to be played outside," said Specht, who like many appeared sun-splashed but wind-chilled before heading into the 68-degree Metrodome on Monday. "Some might want to have the old place on a night like tonight. But you can always put on enough clothes to keep warm."

Had Monday's game been played outside, Specht added, it's likely his wife wouldn't have come. The temperature was 41 degrees at game time.

Likewise, Scott and Taydem Wall of Andover said they were eager to get to the final season opener in the Metrodome, but never would have brought their kids, Brendan, 6, and Owen, 3, had the game been outside.

"It's a little sentimental considering this is only place we've ever come to for games," Taydem Wall added.

Of course, it will all be different for 6-year-old Brendan, whose future as a Twins fan will be at Target Field.

Was there anything that would make his first but final opener at the Metrodome one to remember?

"Doughnuts," he said. "And chips."

And?

"The Twins winning."

Bill McAuliffe • 612-673-7646