Stadium politics
Legislative leaders met today with the governor and Twins officials to talk about stadium plans. The leaders promised to poll their caucus members and get back. I still think it would be really, really neat if Governor Pawlenty made a stadium the central piece of his re-election efforts this year.
Also noted is the face that a judge said that the Twins don't have to stay at the Metrodome past this season. But where would they go? That question is unanswered at the moment. I don't know a whole lot about how Major League Baseball works, but it seems unlikely that the Twins could move elsewhere in the space of only a year.
posted by MN Politics Guru @ 17:41
2 Comments:
For a taste of the national baseball landscape, look at how long it took the Montreal Expos to find a new home. They were owned by the MLB for almost three years before they could agree to settle in Washington DC, and I don't think there's another city in the country that would build a stadium for the Twins...
Las Vegas has been talked about, as has Portland, but they're both real long shots with much smaller media markets.
I don't think the Twinks are going anywhere anytime soon... though you could always ask Sid Hartman if you wanted to find out.
Las Vegas could have a shovel in the ground for a new stadium faster than Carlos Silva can pitch a complete game shutout. Think about it. Carl's kids don't want anything to do with baseball. Once he goes, so goes the team. Then we'll spend gazillions to get them back because - holy crap - there will be 20-40 thousand less people in downtown Minneapolis 81 nights a year. I know I spend about 10-20 nights down there every season. Without baseball I suspect that number would get much closer to the number of times I go to downtown for a reason other than baseball: Zero.
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