Scorecard June 23, 1997

Separating the Twins?

Major league baseball owners gave the Minnesota Twins permission to shop for a new home last week. The decision is notable in that it gives not only Minnesota owner Carl Pohlad, who is unhappy with his Metrodome lease, but also other owners new leverage to greenmail taxpayers into building them stadiums. A big league team last changed cities in 1972, when the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers. Since then, owners have used baseball's antitrust exemption to prevent or discourage each other from pulling up stakes.

Now owners seem to be telling their brethren whose teams play in unattractive ballparks—the Twins, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates among them—that they can threaten to bolt if lawmakers rebuff their proposals for a state-or city-subsidized stadium, as has happened in Minnesota. Asked if the Twins' freedom to court other cities would help him petition the Pennsylvania legislature for a new park, Phillies owner Bill Giles told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Yes, you got it."

In other words, the decision regarding the Twins is really about public posturing. "The Twins aren't moving—I'd say there's a 99.9 percent chance they'll stay," says Mike Veeck, president of the St. Paul Saints, an independent minor league team that sells out all its games in a 6,329-seat stadium 15 minutes from the Metrodome. Veeck is also part of a Twin Cities group that has offered $80 million to $90 million to buy the Twins from Pohlad, the eightysomething billionaire banker who has 1) said he won't sell the team and 2) demanded a $200 million ballpark be built with taxpayer money, lest he 3) move his franchise. A disc jockey on KQRS spoke for Minnesotans turned off by Pohlad's threats when he told the Twins last week, "Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out of town."

Even Pohlad acknowledges that there may be no place to move his moribund ball club, which at week's end was drawing only 18,000 fans per home game. All the prospective suitors have significant shortcomings, from player-union objections (Mexico City), to populations smaller than that of the Twin Cities (Raleigh-Durham, Las Vegas), to a history of failed franchises (Washington). No, permission to fly the coop is just one more feint in the owner-taxpayer game of chicken.

Foreign Affairs

When C.J. Bruton, a 6'2" point guard from Australia, signed a letter of intent with Iowa State earlier this year, he was upfront about his basketball experience. Yes, in 1994 he had played for money with the Perth Wildcats of Australia's National Basketball League, but not for much ($11,100) and not with particular distinction (limited minutes in only 22 games). He knew that other Australians, including several former Perth players, had competed in the NBL and then gone on to successful careers at U.S. colleges. No big deal, right?

Wrong. Bruton, who led another Iowa school, Indian Hills Community College, to this year's junior college national title, was recently declared ineligible by the NCAA, which deemed him a professional. But according to Dave Adkins, a former agent for Cal Bruton, C.J.'s father and a onetime Australian pro star, C.J.'s case should be no different from those of dozens of other foreigners who, after playing for money abroad, have petitioned the NCAA and gained eligibility. He points in particular to Andrew-Gaze, an Australian who boosted Seton Hall to the 1989 NCAA championship game months after leading the NBL in scoring. "He was paid much more than C.J., he was a better player, and he was older," says Adkins. "We don't understand this at all."

"They told me that I'm considered a professional player and that they weren't going to let me in," says Bruton, 21. "At first I was shocked. But I figured I could appeal the decision, and I was confident it would be O.K." In fact, he couldn't appeal, though he wrote twice to the NCAA to explain his position. Only a school can appeal, and Iowa State, against coach Tim Floyd's wishes, chose not to do so because, an Iowa State source said, officials did not want to buck the NCAA. The Cyclones' athletic director, Eugene Smith, did not return calls from SI.

Though Bruton says he wants to complete college, he was left with little choice but to declare for the June 25 NBA draft (page 50), in which he could be picked in the second round. Most likely, he will play next season in Australia or in the CBA. For now, he's suiting up in a summer league in Ottumwa, Iowa.