Last week’s column dealt with the quest for one more bobblehead. Kay and I had pretty much given up the chase and during the past few years bobblehead promotions had come and gone without much notice from us. But this year seemed different as there was to be only one bobblehead promotion and it would be in honor of the ‘91 World Series champs.

If you read last week’s column, you remember the frantic search for lost tickets the morning we were to leave. That was resolved after a phone call to Marge at the Twins’ ticket office.

We finally left, stopping in Rochester to pick up Swede, arriving at the stadium around 2:15 p.m. Jon said he would let us out at the main gate and look for a place to park

We were there almost three hours before the gates opened and there were two long lines stretching almost a block. When talking with Ticket Office Marge, I asked her what gate were we most likely to get a bobblehead. She said there is always gate 29, the main entrance. She mentioned gate three, but thought that would be a long walk for us. Then her voice brightened as she said gate 14 is the gate for us. I thanked her and when we got to the field I asked directions and was told that gate 14 was further ahead up a slight incline. Halfway up the block I thought, "Gate 29 is where I was to pick up the replacements for my three lost tickets." Marge was going to call down and have them reprinted and send them to the ticket window. So, I bid farewell to our little party as they marched on toward gate 14 and headed back to gate 29. Got there, went to the window and told my story. He brought out a file, sorted through it and voila! There were the tickets. Marge had come through. While at gate 29, I looked for Jon coming back from parking the car. There he was. He did not have an easy time finding a place in downtown Minneapolis, but got a good spot not too far away.

Now to reconnect with Kay and Swede at gate 14. With game tickets and parking stub in hand we started up the incline. We noticed small trees planted at intervals in sidewalk openings. We got to the end of a line and asked if this was gate 14. It was and there were Kay and Swede sitting on lawnchairs under one of the young trees. They had done a good job.

The weather was nice and we settled down in the shade to talk and wait for the gates to open. Our conversation soon turned to wondering what our chances were of getting bobbleheads We reasoned that there are five gates into Target Field and there were 10,000 bobbleheads. Therefore if the bobbleheads were divided evenly there were 2000 bobbleheads per gate. In addition there were two lines at each gate. So that meant if all the above were true there were 1000 bobbleheads per line. I took a quick survey and it appeared that we were about 300th in line. It looked good,

The line started moving and we got our bobbleheads with room to spare. It turned out to be the high point of the day as the Twins did not play well and lost. However we got our bobbleheads, had a good time with friends, drank a couple of beers at the game and with Jon driving had a safe trip.

P.S. The next morning I went down to my office to sit in my chair, but it was blocked by a fat dictionary. I moved the dictionary and there were the tickets.