Fertile ground for Pokemon hunters: Target Field, Mariucci and ...

As the clock approached 1 p.m., streams of people in groups flocked to the Target Field plaza, ready for a show. But the Twins were in Detroit. The game these patrons came for was Pokemon Go, the smartphone app craze that has taken over the world – or at least it seems – in the last week and a half.

These fans, it appears, walked away satisfied.

Target Field may not have witnessed many baseball victories lately, but the landmark is certainly winning the poke-battle with its fellow Minneapolis sports venues.

The idea of the Pokemon Go, this novice gamer deducted, is to walk around town collecting pokeballs from pokestops and then flinging those balls in the direction of any monsters that pop up on your virtual map. When a monster does confront you, the app uses your phone's camera function to insert the creature in your actual world. Points are collected, levels are notched, and medals are given out -- all while you attempt to avoid walking into a street sign or getting hit by a bus.

These things are everywhere, I quickly learned.

After getting my assignment, I downloaded the app and gasped. There on my desk in the normally safe Star Tribune tower, was a bouncing Charmander, his wagging tail aflame. And this was just the beginning. I nabbed a Clefairy on the escalator. A jaunt to the Capella Tower lobby brought me right into the grasps of a Venonat.

Later, on the train, I spotted, then overpowered, a Krabby just a few seats up. Pedestrians on the street went about their business, unaware there were Zubats flapping just over their heads.

That trek alone might seem overwhelming enough but the fact is, if you're a sports fan in the Twin Cities, this game can be even more dangerous. Monsters congregate in the dense, poke-laden landscape of downtown. And pokestops are typically at major landmarks, a category into which stadiums and arenas firmly fall.

A block down from Target Field, Target Center has its share of Spearows and Rattatas lurking in the shadows. And the campus over at the University of Minnesota is not the poke-Siberia I originally believed it was before my app refreshed: there were Weedles and Pidgeottos and Drowzees to be found from Mariucci Arena to the Sports Pavilion to Williams Arena and especially around TCF Bank Stadium.

But none of these fertile grounds could compete with Target Field, a relative poke-playground for the poke-inclined. Here, almost everything is a pokestop, rife with ammunition for your next crusades. The giant glove is a collection point. So are all the statues, the Old Met flag pole, the third-base lounge and several of the Peanut figures and wall graphics. A stride around the stadium can deliver three hours-worth of pokeballs -- nearly enough entertainment to warrant sitting through a less-than-mediocre baseball game.

One can only imagine the monsters (and I don't mean Ervin Santana) that lurk inside the gates. On a warm, weekday afternoon, you could spend your lunch hour perched in a ray of shade outside the vacant venue and simply wait for monsters to stroll by, ready to be captured. By the look of it, many city walkers did.

The unexpected draw is enough to make a U.S. Bank Stadium absence – the Vikings' just-completed new home doesn't even show up on the poke-landscape – seem costly. Without monsters to entertain, the franchise will have to rely on other methods, like winning games and stuff, to put fans in seats.

As for me, I'm on Level 6 after an afternoon dip into the poke-world, and I'm sure I'll be just fine after I delete the app tomorrow and Star Tribune installs a childproof lock on my App Store.