At Wednesday’s Twins-Rockies game, All-World shortstop Carlos Correa came up in the 8th inning after having already gone 5 for 5 that afternoon. Another hit and he would achieve one of the rarest of feats in baseball, a 6-hit game. Sadly, he grounded out.

Sitting in the stands with my fingers crossed I naturally thought of another Twins great, Kirby Puckett. Kirby went 6-6 in Milwaukee on August 30th 1987. The year the Twins won their first World Series.

That is what happens when you watch baseball. Your mind naturally recalls and contemplates previous players and plays, previous batters and at-bats.

Roger Angell called it the fan’s “interior stadium.” I love the term.

In my interior stadium, I was thinking both of Carlos Correa and Kirby Puckett. An Orioles fan in the same situation may have been thinking of Cal Ripken if they were watching the same game. Ripken went 6-6 on June 13th, 1999. (Now that I think about it, 6’4, shortstop Ripken is a much more natural player to think of when looking at 6’4, shortstop Correa than Hall-of-Fame centerfielder Puckett, who was famously just 5’8.)

My interior stadium, built with hundreds (thousands?) of baseball radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, in-person games, documentaries, baseball books, box scores, and game accounts has always been one of my favorite “places” to spend time. But for years, for reasons I cannot even fathom, I stopped visiting my interior stadium.

Last year though, when I returned to it, I found that the lights were still on, a crowd was still there, and I was welcomed home.

It is good to be back.

Link to Roger Angell’s article “The Interior Stadium”