Tag: Minnesota Twins

A fews days ago, buhdydharma had an excellent essay detailing how the Republicans had screwed the country during the Bush years.  But one aspect was left out — the most important one from my point of view.  As I write this, my beloved Minnesota Twins lead baseball’s American League Central Division by 1/2 game over the evil Chicago White Sox.  The Twins exemplify all that is good and pure about baseball.  They play good defense; they bunt to sacrifice runners to the next base; their pitchers don’t walk anybody; they win with young players brought up from their minor league system rather than bidding for free agents; and they do it all with a payroll that is but a fraction of what the Yankees spend.  

But the Republican party is conspiring to ruin the Twins’ drive for the American League pennant.  Because their convention will be held in St. Paul from Sept. 1-4, the Twins are forced to embark on an unheard of 14-day road trip:  four games against the American League’s leading Los Angeles Angels, then three games at Seattle, four games at Oakland, and finally three games at Toronto.  For those of you who may not be baseball fans, this is a BIG deal.  Minnesota has a 46-23 record playing home games, but just a 28-31 record playing road games.  Having to play 14 consecutive road games may well ruin the Twins’ season through no fault of their own.

OK, so first of all, I know this isn’t the most important issue in the world.  But having just gotten to the end of one labor dispute, seeing this post today brought up issues which are several of my pet peeves.

After four postseasons and two Cy Youngs, all of which made tons of money for the Pohlad family, Santana, could, with one more year’s work, reap the fruits of his labor and do what all too many major leaguers never do and hit the open market.

It was this set of circumstances caused that Jim Pohlad to utter the statement: “There’s loyalty and wanting to stay in Minnesota, and it varies from player to player.” What did Pohlad mean by this? In all practical terms in meant that Santana’s loyalty should translate into accepting less money than he is worth in baseball’s marketplace.

If Santana accepted this route, what would happen in the grand scheme of things-who benefits? Will the savings cause prices to watch Twins games to go down?

No.

Will it reduce the costs of going to games in the new park?

No.

Will your cable/satellite package that carries Twins games go down?

No.

Will the extra money be ploughed back into the roster?

Possible, but the Pohlad family’s track record indicates otherwise.

What then happens to the money Santana forgoes?

It goes right back into the pockets of the Pohlad family.

What the Pohlads are saying in effect is that the loyalty means that a kid from Venezuela who worked at his profession for 14 years to get to this point in his life should subsidize one of the wealthiest men in one of the richest countries on the planet.