MINNEAPOLIS — Almost 40,000 people packed Target Field on Wednesday to watch Shohei Ohtani pitch against the Minnesota Twins, but they were also treated to seeing Albert Einstein, Machine Gun Kelly, Betty Boop and Ric Flair in the crowd.

In the middle of the third inning, the Twins run their popular “Celebrity Look-Alikes” on the stadium’s videoboards, which regularly draws the loudest laughs among all their in-game entertainment.

A photo of the celebrity is shown on the videoboard, building suspense, before a shot of the look-alike fan. It’s a 90-second segment, and it has been a staple at Target Field for the past five seasons.

The doppelgängers sometimes resemble the most well-known celebrities. Other frequent matches are certain characters from movies or TV shows, athletes, singers or matches to the ballpark’s theme like a recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles day. Nearly all receive an audible reaction from fans, drawing laughs when the doppelgänger gives approval or tries to duck from the camera.

Inside the Twins scoreboard room, it’s an hourslong project to find the best look-alikes before it turns into a mad 90-second scramble when the mid-inning segment arrives.

“We get a lot of requests for videos, and ‘Celebrity Look-Alikes’ is usually the one that is most popular, ‘Hey, do you have a copy of me as this person?’” said Sam Henschen, senior director of the Twins gameday experience. “That tells you people are really looking for it.”

The Twins don’t use facial-recognition software or artificial intelligence to find potential subjects. The work typically starts about 30 minutes after gates open.

On Wednesday, camera operators Greg Kellogg, Elliott Ussery and Jeremy Plumb slowly scanned the crowd when fans sat at their seats. Inside the scoreboard room, there are six people watching the camera feeds for possible matches. If they can’t think of a celeb look-alike within 30-45 seconds, they move onto other fans.

“It’s really a bunch of people up here who have all different pop culture backgrounds whether you’re a music fan, a cartoon fan, a movie fan, a TV fan,” Henschen said.

“If you have all these different perspectives, to everyone in the room, this person may not look like anybody, but to one person, that’s a dead ringer for someone from ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’ Boom, it’s like, ‘Yes, that’s right!’

At 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, 58 minutes before first pitch, a boy is identified as a match for Miles Morales, the Spider-Man character. A few minutes later, an older man is matched with Albert Einstein because of his similar hair and mustache.

The scoreboard crew and camera operators will note where each look-alike is sitting, so they can easily find them when the crowd fills out. The toughest days are when there are rain delays and people start changing seats or leave the ballpark after they identified matches.

The crew tries to find different types celebrities each night. It’d be easy, playback operator Jack Beulke said, if they tried to pick a match for Santa Claus every game.

Beulke says camera engineer James Schaidler is the best at spotting look-alikes, crediting him for more than half the matches. Replay operator Jack Dannecker, another top spotter, keeps a best-of-the-best list from the season.

One of the memorable matches last year was spotlighting Livvy Dunne at a Twins-Pirates game. The crew had a photo of Dunne in the same shirt she wore to that game, so it was an exact match. Dunne laughed when she was revealed.

“We actually have a lot of fun with it,” said Kari Ahlstrand, the gameday director. “At first, we kind of dreaded it because it’s hard to do. But we made it fun. Everybody gets to participate.”

The scoreboard crew initially tried to do their look-alike cam in reverse order. It was unveiled during Grateful Dead Night, so they tried to find someone for each of the singers.

“It makes for a better feature because you’re actually finding people closer than trying to force them into a predetermined celebrity,” Henschen said.

Now, it’s the second inning Wednesday. Parker Kayser, who oversees the scoreboard graphics, is busy searching for celebrity photos. If a look-alike is wearing a red shirt, the goal is finding a photo of the celebrity in a red shirt through a Google search.

By the top of the third inning, between pitches, the scoreboard crew is doing their final test run. Camera operators keep scanning to the look-alikes to make sure they’re still in their seats. Connie Knipe, the technical director, is practicing the order of the graphics and look-alikes because one mistake would mess up the rhythm of the segment.

After the Dodgers scored three runs in the third inning, it was showtime in the room.

The 90 seconds started with a look-alike for actress Alyson Hannigan, then a guy who was matched with television host Mario Lopez left his seat.

“He’s leaving!” Ahlstrand said in a headset to the rest of the crew.

“Oh, no, Mario!” another person responded.

When it was time for the Ric Flair doppelgänger, he was partially blocked by fans standing in front of him. The Betty Boop look-alike saw herself and shouted, “Oh, that’s me!” as the crowd roared with laughter.

There were nine look-alikes on this night. The eighth one was a look-alike for Lars Ulrich, the Danish drummer for Metallica. “His buddy was pointing at him” before he was shown on the videoboard, Beulke noted.

The segment ended with Einstein. It drew the loudest laugh before the public address announcer introduced Byron Buxton to the plate.

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