Former ballpark · 1982 – 2009
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
Minneapolis, MN
- Opened
- 1982
- Closed
- 2009
- League
- AL
The lore
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
A downtown Minneapolis ballpark with an inflatable roof that collapsed under snow and swallowed fly balls, 1982–2009.
The Roof
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome opened in April 1982 in downtown Minneapolis, a $55 million building named for the former vice president. What made the place itself was overhead. The roof was inflatable — two layers of woven fiberglass fabric with a Teflon coating, held aloft by twenty 90-horsepower fans, first inflated on October 2, 1981. Snow brought it down three times in its first three winters, and a 1986 windstorm tore it open in the middle of a game. The first collapse came just 48 days after inflation, when a storm dumped more than ten inches of snow and the fabric tore. The roof was repaired and re-inflated within four days.
Lost in the Lights
The roof's white surface caused outfielders to lose fly balls in the lights, and the building quickly earned a reputation as a hitter's park — UPI was calling it the Homerdome by June of the first season. On May 28, 1982, Tom Brunansky of the Twins hit the building's first inside-the-park home run into left field. Yankees outfielder Lou Piniella stood with arms outstretched, unable to see the ball against the white roof as it dropped and bounced off the fence. Dave Engle had hit the first official home run in the building on Opening Day, April 6, against the Mariners.
What Carried It
The Metrodome hosted the first World Series game ever played indoors in 1987, and the Twins won the championship that year and again in 1991. The game that carries the building is Game 7 of that 1991 Series: Jack Morris threw a ten-inning shutout against the Braves, and Gene Larkin singled home Dan Gladden in the bottom of the tenth. Scott Erickson no-hit the Brewers there in 1994, and Eric Milton no-hit the Angels in 1999. The Timberwolves played their inaugural NBA season at the Dome in 1989–90 before moving to their own arena. The Twins played their last game under the roof in 2009; the building carried the Vikings through 2013 and came down in 2014.
Reporting: SABR, UPI, MNopedia, MSFC. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.
By the Desk · filed 2026-07-24 — the piece reads as of its filing; the park record around it is live · every fact in this piece comes from a filed, sourced research pack and clears an independent fact-check, and nothing is edited after filing.
Where it stood
Minneapolis, MN. We don’t have exact coordinates for this park in the historical record — we’d rather say so than pin the wrong spot.
Sources
- Retrosheet · as of 2026-07-23
The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at 20 Sunset Rd., Newark, DE 19711.