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State tries to fight contraction of Twins
ST. PAUL (AP) -- Lawyers in Attorney General Mike Hatch's office are exploring legal strategies they might use to fight any decision to dissolve the Minnesota Twins, a possibility the team's owner won't dismiss. In an interview Thursday, Hatch wouldn't say whether he would sue if other Major League Baseball owners act as soon as next week to pay Carl Pohlad to fold his team. But for more than a week, Hatch has had attorneys reviewing federal antitrust laws that might provide the basis for a lawsuit. "This isn't a situation where this is one league, one business simply saying we're closing down an office," Hatch said. "These are separate businesses owned by separate people making their own income and making a decision to buy out competition, if you will, to improve their own value." The Minnesota lawyers are working with state attorneys in Florida, where the Florida Marlins and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are also subject of contraction talk. The Montreal Expos are another financially troubled franchise under consideration. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe and House Speaker Steve Sviggum sent a letter to baseball Commissioner Bud Selig asking him to postpone any contraction discussion. In it, the leaders note that a new stadium task force is about to start meeting and they say the economic and military uncertainty surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks make this a bad time to discuss contraction. The task force, agreed to this summer, is to consider appeals by the Twins for a new ballpark and a request by the Minnesota Vikings for a new stadium. Both say the Metrodome isn't a financially viable venue for them. Publicly, Gov. Jesse Ventura has dismissed the buzz about contraction as "good media cannon fodder." "What would you ask me to do for them? Take them over as the taxpayers' Minnesota Twins?" Ventura said in response to reporters' questions Thursday. "It's a private industry, and I'm not here to discuss it." Rebecca Yanisch, Ventura's commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development, said the administration has been thinking about what it should do. "Professional sports are a big part of the quality of life in Minnesota." Yanisch said. "We've had some discussions in the cabinet about strategies." The Twins haven't made Pohlad available for an interview with The Associated Press. He has told other reporters that he hasn't asked his fellow owners for a buyout. But he said it could happen if the other owners want it. Pohlad has said the issue may come up at a baseball owners' meeting Tuesday in Chicago. But neither Pohlad nor other Twins officials are saying there will be a deal then. "Anyone who tells you they know exactly what will happen next week is probably misleading you," said Dave St. Peter, a Twins senior vice president. "It's a lot of speculation but nothing more than that." The potential loss of the Twins doesn't seem to be swaying a long-standing public resistance to the construction of a taxpayer-subsidized ballpark. A Pioneer Press/Minnesota Public Radio poll released Thursday found that 68 percent of St. Paul residents and 78 percent of Minneapolis residents aren't more inclined to back a stadium. Big majorities in both cities oppose "significant" public financing for a Twins or Vikings stadium. The separate polls of about 400 people each were done Oct. 26-30 and have margins of sampling error of 5 percentage points.
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