The Twins are a fun franchise and Minneapolis is a great city (at least in the summer time). Baseball started there after moving from Washington in 1961 and was pretty successful, winning two World Series (1987 and 19911) and losing another (1965). There were stars like Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew, Bert Blyleven, and Kirby Puckett. Still, despite this history, in 2001 Major League Baseball wanted to kill the Twins. At least, that’s what they implied.
Thursday, August 13 at 7:30p – Aaron Nola v Taj Bradley (R)
Field of Dreams, Dyersville IA and Target Field, Minneapolis, MN
Saturday, August 15 at 7:10p – Jesus Luzardo v Conner Prielipp (L)
Sunday, August 16 at 2:10p – Andrew Painter v Dean Kremer (R)
The big word around the turn of the millennia in baseball was contraction. The idea (at least how MLB wanted it to sound) was that if baseball had less teams, it would have more player competition on big league rosters, and therefore the game would have better quality. In reality, that was bullshit.
At the time, professional sports was in the middle of a stadium building boom. Once Camden Yards was built in Baltimore, everyone wanted a new stadium. 9 teams moved into new parks after the Orioles with several more set to open over the next few years. Not everyone was in on the fun though. The Twins, Expos, Marlins, Rays, and A’s were all fighting local municipalities over new stadiums. Why? Because the teams wanted their respective cities to fit the bill. When they didn’t, threats of moving the teams were made. When that didn’t work and bluffs were called, then it was time for MLB to up the anti.
At the end of the 2001 season, MLB actually had itself a vote on contraction among the 30 clubs. The idea was that the owners of two teams would each be paid $250m by the other clubs to absorb and fold their franchises. How they would narrow the selection to two particular teams is the interesting part. You would think it would come down to the two teams in the most dire of public financing predicaments, but that’s not exactly what happened especially in hindsight. The Marlins wouldn’t get a stadium for another decade and likely had to grease everyone in the city to get one. The A’s never got a new deal in Oakland and are moving to Las Vegas. The Rays are only just now breaking ground on a new venue 25 years later. Wait, so how did they pick the Expos and Twins?
Montreal’s part in this is well known. Not only was the city in open revolt against ownership for years, but baseball hated their owner too. Jeffrey Loria did nothing but try to sabotage his way out of Montreal from the day he moved in, including not broadcasting the games on TV and lowering payroll. He was also a litigious a-hole that MLB didn’t want to deal with. They wanted him gone or at least to shut up.
As for the Twins, it’s a bit more nefarious. The commissioner at the time was Bud Selig who also happened to own the Milwaukee Brewers. Of course, he transferred his ownership interest in the team to his daughter, so there would be no conflict of interest (LOL!). Now Milwaukee is only about 90 miles from Chicago and could never be expected to take any of their market share. The only other team close by in the Midwest was, yup, the Twins. How much do you think it would benefit the Brewers if their closest legitimate competition for viewers just disappeared? The Twins had 2 World Series and major history while the Rays and Marlins were fledgling franchises that couldn’t draw for their lives and the A’s had moved twice already.. But of course, let’s just axe the Twins, right?
The vote was made and tallied 28-2 in favor of contraction with the Twins and Expos the only nay votes. Did the league ever really intend to contract anyone or was it just a ploy to get teams new stadiums? We have no idea. What happened next is all very fishy. Neither the Expos nor the Twins sued the league to try to block the action. Whether they would have won or not is immaterial. It was the city of Minneapolis that ended up putting a legal halt to things when they sued on behalf of the Metrodome claiming breach of contract on their lease. A local judge ruled that the Twins had to play the season in Minneapolis due to their importance to the community.
Behind the scenes and not long after, Selig and MLB made a deal with the owners of the Expos, Marlins, and Red Sox to essentially trade owners to keep Loria happy. MLB would buy the Expos and move them to Washington DC, Loria would get the Marlins and profit around $75m in the process, John Henry who owned the Marlins would get the Red Sox. All of this was essentially a no bid process. This essentially ended contraction talk.
It certainly seems like bullshit to me. Why? Because the Twins still didn’t get a stadium out of the deal. MLB could have easily picked another team to contract the next year like the A’s or one of the Florida teams (if they wanted to keep an even number), but they didn’t. They never actually wanted to contract anyone, they just wanted new stadiums. When that didn’t work, they orchestrated the owner trade to save face and then just said “Oh Well” about the Twins.
In the end, the Twins would get their new stadium financing about 5 years later and eventually moved into Target Field. No teams were ever contracted, but baseball did go back to Washington. Now they are talking expansion again. Why? because an expansion fee will be a huge influx of cash into every owners pocket, quality of play be damned.
- 7 games in the famous Jack Morris 10 inning Game 7 masterpiece ↩︎
Source Material: The Game by Jon Pessah
Photo: Cook & Son: Stadium Views: H.H.H. Metrodome
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