Fans take time out for Metrodome garage sale

It was a November Saturday in Minneapolis and it wasn’t snowing. What else did local sports fans have to do with their time than line up by the thousands for a Metrodome garage sale?

With the Twins moving to an outdoor stadium in 2010, lots of merchandise at the Metrodome was priced to move. There were autographed baseballs, banners celebrating Kirby Puckett’s entrance into the baseball Hall of Fame, life-sized cardboard cutouts of Kent Hrbek.

Some fans arrived at dawn for an event scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. By the time the gates opened, the line of fans nearly ringed the stadium.

“I never would have guessed this,” Jacob Clemen told the Minneapolis Star Tribune as he made his way to the back of the line. “Some of the games here don’t get as crowded as this.”

Trivia time

Where did the Twins play their home games before moving to the Metrodome in 1982?

Great leap forward

Nancy Lieberman will become the first woman to coach a men’s professional basketball team next season when the Dallas Mavericks’ new affiliate in the NBA Development League opens in November.

Caught up in the moment, Lieberman said last Thursday, “I kind of look at President Obama. Everybody knows it’s historical because he’s a man of color. But at the end of the day, regardless of his race, creed, color or gender, he has to be president.

“Everybody knows I’m a woman, but at the end of the day, regardless of my race, creed, color or gender, I have to win basketball games.”

Wrote Bob Molinaro of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot: “Quite modest of Nancy Lieberman to compare her stab at coaching a men’s minor-league basketball team to Barack Obama breaking the White House color barrier. But then, Nancy has always been the shy, retiring type.”

Major misconduct

You’ve got to be a hockey hero . . . if you want to jump to the front of the line for the swine flu vaccine.

In Calgary, an unidentified health worker was fired for giving the Flames preferential access to the H1N1 flu vaccine. The controversy erupted when it was revealed Flames players and their families received shots on an exclusive basis one day before the Alberta province closed public flu clinics because of a shortage of the vaccine.

Trivia answer

Metropolitan Stadium.

And finally

From Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Meb Keflezighi is the first American man to win the New York Marathon since 1982. Lesser-known fact: He’s also Line 7 on many eye charts.”

--

mike.penner@latimes.com