Senior stat girls Sarah Moss and Emma Cifaldi take their fourth and final trip to the Dome.
CUMBERLAND - High school baseball and softball teams across Wisconsin are adding a bit of tourism experience to their schedule.
This year the Dominican High School girls softball team flew to Orlando, Florida over spring break to take part in a tournament at Disney World.
With temperatures in the 80s the Knights played three games at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex, including a double header on April 15th.
Coach Bob Heinkel from Milwaukee Lutheran took his team south for spring training in Mobile, Alabama and at Cumberland High School coach Mark Fuller winged his way west, across the border and had the Beavers play at the Metrodome in Minnesota.
"A lot of schools go there because compared to Miller Park in Milwaukee it's fairly inexpensive," said assistant coach Joe Waite adding high school teams have been visiting the home of the Twins since the 1980s.
Teams from Bruce High School, the Cardinals from Prescott and even the Prairie Farm Panthers have crossed the Mississippi for a chance to play at the Metrodome. Waite said the Dome is so popular some teams actually play from midnight until 4 a.m. because that’s the only time they can get reservations.
On April 23, the Cumberland Beavers made their 22nd trip in the last 23 years to the Minneapolis Metrodome and walked away with a 7-3 victory over traditional Dome opponent Fall Creek.
“It’s always been a neat experience for us and our kids,” said Waite questioning the future of the Metrodome since the Twins will be moving to a new stadium, Target Field, at the north end of downtown Minneapolis next season.
COOL EXPERIENCE…
High School teams pay $450 an hour for the Metrodome experience.
“We just paid $900 and Fall Creek paid $900 so we were able to have the field for four hours,” said Waite who still gets a rock-star-thrill about being on the field at the Dome.
“It’s a major league park; the turf is neat and when they kids go home they watch the Twins and say I was just there.”
Five years ago the Cumberland team was scheduled to play immediately after the Twins wrapped up a game. “The Twins actually allowed us down onto the field and we got to watch the Yankees take batting practice,” said Waite who also remembered a brief brush with pitcher Roger Clemens.
“I was taking a few of our kids around and Roger Clemens was warming up and we walked right by him warming up in the bullpen and then we stood behind the backstop and watched the Yankees take batting practice and that was pretty cool,” he said.
A coach at Cumberland the last 19 seasons, Waite remembers his first trip to the Metrodome. “I was still playing ball at the time so I took my metal spikes and I took a few ground balls, just to see what the turf was like because I had never seen Astroturf before.”
Waite admitted, it’s been interesting to watch the changes take place at the Metrodome; everything from the upgrades in the turf to the downturn of the stadium.
“We once saw a mouse while we were warming up. He stuck his head out onto the warning track,” laughed Waite who deadpanned that the place is now “kind of a dump.”
“One time the kids got to dress in the opponents football locker room and we were all excited about how nice it was going to be and it was really, kind of an average high school locker room. It stunk and there were stains everywhere and you can tell when they built that place they did it on the budget,” said Waite.
During Cumberland’s most recent visit, the Beavers beat Fall Creek 7 -3 to improve to 6-2 on the season.
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