Very Well Then

Ozzie loves talking about rats.

Ozzie and rats.  No, I’m not talking about Black Sabbath.  (Hold it, that was “bats”, wasn’t it?)

Ozzie Guillen – the White Sox manager – slighted the Metrodome the other day, suggesting it to be rat-infested.  The baseball doesn’t seem to be carrying well in Minneapolis outdoor spring baseball and when Justin Morneau’s deep center field shot died at the warning-track in Tuesday’s Twins loss to the Sox, Ozzie quipped, “In the old place, that would have hit some rats.”

Last year, Ozzie disparaged Wrigley Field as rat-infested.

This year, it’s the Metrodome.

Of course, we’re all in love with the new place (I’m flying in for a look over Memorial Day).  So let’s kick the old place while it’s down.  Of course, the Vikings still have to play there, but that’s football.

I shed no tears for the old Dome.  But, now that I know about them,  I am concerned about the Metrodome Rats.  They have some serious re-adjustment to do.    They’ve lost 81 days of fans leaving behind French Fries and sunflower seeds and scraps of Dome Dog buns.

There’s still Gopher baseball and truck and tractor pulls.    But there is a serious reduction in the sustainable concession-food environment at the Dome.  The rat population there is based upon an expectancy of fattening up in the summer baseball season and surviving off the fat and occasional Vikings game though the winter hibernation.    The Metrodome Rat eco-system has been severely altered.

Expect hard times for the Metrodome Rats.    The population level there will have to adjust, which is always a painful process for an animal colony.

But I’m not too worried for them.    Rats are what conservation biologists refer to as “weed species” – those species able to adapt and thrive in disturbed environments.  (Starlings, pigeons, mule deer and humans fit well into that description).    So, the rats have been challenged by the switch to the new ballpark.   But I can safely assure you that those pitter-patter sounds you hear beneath the bleachers when you attend your next Vikings games will be those of a in tact, if somewhat reduced, Metrodome Rat population.

And, as for things at the perfect new immaculate ballpark: Don’t worry.  All is well.   But did anyone else see those Metrodome Rats clinging to the Twins moving vans  when they set sail from the Dome?   Just like the velociraptors clinging to the supply ships departing Jurassic Park?

No, I didn’t either.