Wednesday, November 07, 2001

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

So baseball is talking about getting rid of my beloved Twins. This is apalling on so many levels.

  • First is the dismantling of the Twins. Sure, take the team of my childhood and rip them up without so much as a further thought. It's like the Mayflowers in the middle of the night moving the Colts out of Baltimore or the Browns going the other way. (Though that loss was just temporary.) And for what? Because the owner is tired of running the team and wants the cash to retire? The Twins are a decent team, and they've shown the ability to draw fans when the franchise doesn't put a joke of a team on the field.

  • "There exists no prospective market . . . [for an] economically viable franchise for next season." Ahem. Looking around me, I see one. The nation's capital (or Northern Virginia, if they must) can easily support a team. As I heard someone point out, the idea that it would detract from Baltimore is a red herring. Hire an accountant. Figure out the value of the Orioles before and after. Pay Peter Angelos the difference, plus a bonus if he'll just shut up. It'll be a lot less that the $500 million they're talking about giving to the Twins and Expos to go away.

  • The offer to expand other teams' rosters to make up for the jobs lost is a joke. It makes sense for a couple of hours (at least to me), then falls apart. If you play a numbers game, the total number of jobs goes up. But what ends up happening? You eliminate 8 starting non-pitcher jobs (9 if you have a designated hitter), and 4 or so pitchers who start on a regular basis. Even on a "small market" team like the Twins, that's a lot of million-dollar jobs. And you create 2 jobs per team at the end of the bench, where the guys are lucky to be earning $200K/year. Now, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the athletes, but it's appalling that the owners would present this as a "fair deal."

I could go on, but the point is that sports is supposed to be fun. If they get rid of the Twins, baseball will be about as much fun as watching Scrooge McDuck count his money. If so, good bye and good riddance from this Twins fan. I'd rather watch arena football.

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