You gotta be crazy
Gotta have a real need
Gotta sleep on your toes
And when you're on the street
Gotta be able to pick out the easy meat
With your eyes closed
Then moving in silently downwind and out of sight
You've got to strike when the moment is right
Without thinking
And after awhile
You can work on points for style
Like the club tie
A firm handshake
A sudden look in the eye
An easy smile
You have to be trusted
By the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you
You'll get the chance to put the knife in
-- "Dogs" by Pink Floyd, lyrics by Roger Waters
They voted to kill the dream on Tuesday.
On November 6, 2001, an 86-year old man decided that his avarice was more important than 40 years of baseball tradition. More important than the jobs of thousands of people. Scouts. Coaches. Vendors. Waitresses. The hopes of youth. The center of a community. Morale in a time of national crisis. Lucre trumps virtue.
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If the Twins do die, I doubt I'll adopt a new favorite franchise. I don't think I can give my heart completely to a single team anymore. |
Did you know that Carl Pohlad is the richest owner in baseball? Did you know that the Twins turn an operating profit most seasons, including 2001? They won 85 games this year, have a load of young talent, and a farm system in good condition. And this is the team that gets the axe? How do you think Joe Mauer and Mike Restovich feel right now? They signed with the Twins in part because they were the Twins, their hometown team. No more.
I don't know if I will live to the age of 86, but if I do, I hope I'll be more concerned about the state of my immortal soul than the condition of my bank account, especially if the latter is already bulging at the seams. Carl Pohlad will need a pretty small camel and a pretty big needle sometime soon. And even if I didn't believe in things like souls, I would hope that I would value my good name and the name of my family more than a quick profit. If contraction happens, the Pohlads will become pariahs in Minnesota and throughout the upper Midwest. Carl Pohlad says he wants to take the money and run "for the good of his family." Well, Carl, your family already has plenty of money. It won't buy them much love now, will it?
More than just the Minnesota Twins died on Tuesday. If there was any doubt remaining that the Lords of Baseball are fundamentally corrupt and evil men, unworthy of the sport, it has been dispelled now.
As a Twins fan, I honestly cannot express how I feel right now. It is as if a part of me has been ripped away. The Minnesota Twins have been a constant of my life for the last 24 years, through thick and thin. Even the threat of moving the team to North Carolina wasn't as bad as this. If that had happened, at least the franchise would have continued, tracing the tradition back to the days of the Senators. Snuffing this franchise is such an absurd idea that only Bud Selig could have thought it up.
There is still a chance this won't happen, depending on how the labor war and the lawsuits go. But even if the Twins are granted a reprieve, and even if the Expos survive or move to Washington D.C., and even if all is hunky-dory six months from now, I will never forget this bitterness. The idea of using something like this as a bargaining chip in negotiations is as abhorrent as the reality of contraction itself would be.
If the Twins do die, I doubt I'll adopt a new favorite franchise. I don't think I can give my heart completely to a single team anymore. I still love the game, and that will never change. But it is now a love without illusions, with no expectation that the fiends who did this share the same love.
John Sickels, who does a regular "Down on the Farm" feature twice a week for ESPN.com, is the author of the 2001 STATS Minor League Scouting Notebook. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas, with his wife, son, and two cats. You can send John questions or comments at JASickels@aol.com, or you can visit his homepage at hometown.aol.com/jasickels/page1.html.
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