Take This Team and ...

By Mitchell

I swear I don't look for this stuff. Really, I don't.

But the day after I launched into the Twins and Vikings for tying to get the taxpayers to pick up the tab on new stadiums, comes the story that the Twins have filed suit to get out of their lease with the Metrodome. Now, the Twins lawyer says that this "shouldn't be viewed as a first step in an attempt to move the team." No, of course not. Why would anyone possibly think that? Just because the team's duplicitious owner, a man with a net worth estimated at over $3 billion, a man who in 2002 was #258 on Forbes' A People<>, a man who once tried to convince the public that he was willing to contribute $80 million toward a new stadium only to have the public find out it was really just a "loan," a man who actually volunteered his own team to be contracted in order to run off with the money - nah, why would we possibly think that this was any kind of a threat? The lawyer says, "It's not a threat at all" - hey, I'd believe that. Wouldn't you?

The question is whether or not this cheap blackmail attempt (one that even smarmy divorce attorneys and their private investigators might blush at) will work. One has to wonder, in light of the tremendous backlash against the teams following the Vikings' sex cruise scandal, how the Twins could have been dumb enough to think they could pull off this stunt now, when the public seems to want none of it.

Of course, when you consider the kind of effort the front office put up this year, in trying to con us all into thinking they wanted to put together a contending ball club, maybe they do think we're that stupid.

As for me, if they want to leave I'll walk down to the Dome (it's only a few blocks away) and help them pack.