Outdoor Twins baseball in late October? We would all take our chances

Alternating between cursing at snowflakes and shivering at the whipping wind this past weekend sent me scurrying for an indoor-based activity: obsessing about what it might be like for the Twins to play meaningful baseball into late October in the cold, bold North.

After all, if the Rays had won Game 5 against the Astros (they did not) and the Twins had managed to finally knock off the Yankees (they most definitely did not), Games 1 and 2 of the American League Championship Series would have been scheduled for this past Saturday and Sunday at Target Field.

Game 1 probably would have been postponed for snow/common decency, and all the live shots of flakes falling in the Twin Cities on Oct. 11 would have added to the national perception of what life is like here while refueling the "Why doesn't Target Field have a roof?" debate.

Would that perception have been fair? How would Target Field fare during a deep October playoff run? Well, here are some facts that seem relevant and interesting:

• There has never been an outdoor MLB playoff game in Minnesota played later in the year than Oct. 14 (which also happened to be Monday's date). So in that sense, we don't really have much historical context.

That was Game 7 of the 1965 World Series, so long ago that there weren't even divisions. Just one team from each league survived the regular season, which sure shortened the postseason.

Baseball Reference says that afternoon at Metropolitan Stadium (a 2-0 Dodgers victory) was dry and the first-pitch temperature was 50 degrees — perfectly nice fall baseball weather, which it also would have been Monday on the shared date. (It also lasted 2 hours, 27 minutes, which will get you to the fifth inning of a playoff game these days.)

The Twins' next seven postseason appearances, including two World Series that went the full seven games and lasted deep into October, were inside the Metrodome (though everyone in Minnesota can tell you exactly where they were a few days later in 1991 for the Halloween snowstorm).

Since coming back outside, the Twins have had home playoff games in 2010 and 2019. Both series were sweeps, and both times their last game at Target Field was Oct. 7 (but the weather sure was nice this year!).

• Game 7 of the World Series this season would be Oct. 30, and in the recent past the postseason has lasted into early November.

If that happened … well, it might not be as bad as you think. According to usclimatedata.com, the average high temperature in Minneapolis on Oct. 30 is 51 degrees and the average low is around 35. That's actually better than it is on April 1 (50 and 31, respectively), around the time the regular-season schedule starts. In general: October has the weather you think and wish April had.

But … wasn't it brutally cold for a lot of early-season Twins games this year? (Yes.) And wouldn't the World Series almost certainly be played at night as temperatures were closer to the low mark than the high one? (Yes.) So isn't there a chance it might snow and/or be really cold? (Yes.)

I guess we just have to file all this under "good problem to have" and/or "cross that bridge when we get there and hope for the best."