The best five bucks I'll ever lose

So Frank the Tank and I have a standing bet on when Minneapolis would break ground on a new baseball stadium for the Twins. The winner gets five bucks and the right to bring up their "rightness" over the loser's "wrongness" for 30 to 40 years.

This is about as good as it gets for us - ask us about the deal we cut with a buddy for 30 bucks in"don't break my legs" cash at a peeler bar, once. It's a doozy.

The Twins have until May 2007 to find a damned shovel for me to take this one and every indication is that I'm going to lose out on this one. Caught between a few major power plays, a candidate for governor and a populace that, on the whole, fails to appreciate major league baseball, the Twins are about out of luck and out of town.

You know what, guys? Call me, I'll help you move. I own a truck and everything.

The overriding sentiment is that the Twins are expendable and all I ever hear is, "If they put that on a ballot, I'll vote against it. I'll also vote for a former smackhead and fail to fund libraries, too." Bottom line? People are pretty passionate about their opposition to paying for a new baseball stadium on the heels of two new football stadiums, too.

While gallons of ink are spilled to speak of tough fan bases in New York, Boston and Philly, how do we miss Minneapolis? Two World Series titles in the past 20 years and three consecutive AL Central titles until last year? Oh, that's what you've done for me lately... Screw that, I don't want to pay another sliver of a percentage on sales tax...

This baffles me. I can't imagine this happening in Chicago, but there they have the benefit of two entrenched franchises I suppose. Oakland, Kansas City, Tampa? Yup, yup and yup for possible moves. Seems like the Twin Cities should be on the bubble for this sort of thing, but they're not.

Still, as sad as I'd be to see baseball leave town and take the rest of the majors with them, I've come around to realize that if a town is too stubborn to give their team a halfway decent home, then by all means, send them somewhere else. The Metrodome is awful. It's cramped, the turf is a joke and the whole thing smells like a foot. It also fails to accommodate fan needs and as we learned leaving Tuesday's game if too many doors are opened at once, the roof deflates - they had security barring the exits and everything.

Also, its got a Nazi roof.

I'm not saying that moving the Browns from Cleveland, the Nordiques from Quebec or the Dodgers from Brooklyn is acceptable in any way, shape or form - just that when a town makes it clear that they don't want to help provide a major-league caliber facility in any sport, it's best that they hit the road.

Las Vegas Twins, where can I buy a hat? Considering the short-sighted ill will and bitterness in town, I'm enjoying the karma of the Twins being the front runner to become the first team in what should prove to be a phenomenal pro sports town. We can even get Pete Rose to manage. I just hope we can transfer our season ticket package.

Here's the thing - Minneapolis/St. Paul has major league teams in hockey (The Wild), basketball... sorta (Timberwolves), football (Vikings) and baseball (Twins). Remove these teams to leave only football and what do you have? Green Bay. Yeah. Not good.

It's a fair comparison. Green Bay has the Weidner Center, Twin Cities have the Guthrie. Green Bay has dormant industry and paper mills, the Twin Cities has dormant industry and a Ford plant. Green Bay is a cold, desolate place where I spent four years, the Twin Cities legally have me bound through next June. I can honestly say that by cherry-picking teams, Minneapolis becomes Green Bay very quickly - a third-class city with slim hopes of making it back up to the second tier.

I say this without the usual dose of Minny-hating venom. This is just the way things are.

You say you hate the Twins and don't watch baseball? Great. You think the cities are fine without them, no problem. Just don't come crying to me when your tax money starts rushing out to cover the loss of jobs when the Vikings move (which they will) and the Gophers get a new field (also a certainty). At least the Twins are fighting to stay within city limits.

How many cents on the dollar will Minneapolis see on a beer sold in Anoka County? Better yet, how many beers do the sell each year at the Guthrie Theater, Science Museum of Minnesota and a barren warehouse district combined? See where this is going?

While most residents are content to subtract Metrodome staff (engineers, ticket takers, cleaning crews, etc.) from their mental ledger, that's the tip of the iceberg. Hotels, restaurants, parking, concessions are all sources of revenue for the state. While concerts every few nights at the Target Center are great, the scope and sheer number of games in a professional baseball season are a cash cow that the city can't afford to pass up.

Let's say that hotels and the like go to half staff in the summer without the Twins in town to fill them. That's lost revenue in taxes paid by both employers and workers in addition to choking out the obvious cash flow. The Vikings are looking to move out of the county with their new home, which leaves the Timberwolves and University of Minnesota athletics to buoy the budget.

For those who argue that the Metrodome can be kept on as a concert venue to replace those dollars, go ask the former employees of the Pontiac Silverdome how that's working out.

Would you rather pay a few cents on every hundred bucks you spend (with millions more paid by out-of-towners at the Mall of America, etc.) or worry about downsizing and a hiccuping local economy as the hospitality industry loses a major revenue source?

In my opinion, it's more than losing a pretty cool small market ballclub and having a dead area where the Dome used to be. I'd rather the team go where it would be appreciated, supported and pull a dedicated fan base. Not every town can be New York, Boston or Chicago with rabid fans, but is it too much to ask for a little respect?

How about just tolerance for a team's existence in the meantime? For the people who brought you "Minnesota Nice" this is a real hatchet job.

(Photos from: The Minnesota Twins /baseballhalloffame.org / baseballpilgrimages.com)