The Twins and Expos may be history. The Major League baseball owners voted yesterday to contract the league by two teams.

The Twins are said to be in jeopardy because no public agreement has been made to fund a new stadium. And they have no large TV or radio or corporate sponsorship.

Some say that the reason forleague contraction is that the owners want to gain leverage with the players union by removing some of their members. The high player contracts are a huge financial burden to team owners.

-- John Littmann (johntl@mtn.org), November 07, 2001

Answers

So finally those disgusting player contracts are manifesting themselves in some change. Its odd that Minnesota would be jettisoned. They have the lowest or second lowest player salaries in the both leagues. I'm sure there are other teams far less profitable.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley1@netzero.net), November 07, 2001.

Isn't it odd how the hosting city is responsible for the cost of housing a private enterprise. Every time we hear 'this will bring in mega bucks.' Then when the dust settles we hear the suction sound of OUR tax dollars being sucked into the eather [sp?] with little to show side from higher inner regional crime and traffic jams.

-- (perry@ofuzzy1.com), November 07, 2001.

Perry: I completely concur with your view. Why do local governments continue to steal taxpayer money to use on something that should pay for itself? For the prestige? If all local governments just said NO to greedy team owners that pay greedy players this would all stop and, in all probability, we wouldn't see news of contraction.

-- Steve McClendon (ke6bjd@yahoo.com), November 07, 2001.

I think this has to do with the plan stated in the article about CDC plans to quarrantine large populatiions of smallpox victims in Stadiums. In Washington state we neither needed or wanted new stadiums and in fact when it was put on the ballot we voted overwhelmingly AGAINST BUILDING NEW STADIUMS, but the governemnt ignored the vote and built them anyway on our tax $.

-- ainitfunny (jusme@earthlink.net), November 07, 2001.