The outfield was blanketed in snow, the warning track was a muddy mess, and the seating areas were slick with ice.
As the sun came up at Target Field on Thursday, it was difficult to imagine one baseball game being played in the ballpark, much less two.
So the Twins put out an all-departments memo, asking for help.
"It's incredible. They put that memo out there, and people from all over the organization come out," assistant General Manager Rob Antony said. Even Twins President Dave St. Peter grabbed a shovel and helped prepare the ballpark.
Workmen with steamers helped melt much of the ice that covered the seats following the daylong storm that postponed Wednesday's game. But the Twins decided to close the upper deck for the first game of the day/night doubleheader, to give the ice-removal crews more time to work.
By noon, when the first game began, perhaps 12,000 fans were in the stands, a decent crowd considering they were watching the coldest home game in the Twins' 54-year history. The 31 degrees at first pitch was 1 degree colder than the previous record, a 32-degree day on May 2, 1967, in Metropolitan Stadium. Behind three RBI by Harmon Killebrew, the Twins beat the Yankees 13-4 that day.
"Once the sun came out, it was actually pretty decent," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "But if you stood at the rail, you could feel that breeze."
The attendance for the regularly scheduled first game was announced at 20,570, the smallest crowd in Target Field history.