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The State of the Game

There are about eleven of us in the baseball underground here in the Twin Cities. We write, we propose, we testify, sometimes we even get a newspaper mention. Imagine you’re a caveman, and a huge, unusually stupid diplodocus is standing on your wife. All you can do is push. That’s our strategy with baseball.


So when word went out through the Resistance that Bud Selig was coming to town to meet with those ubiquitous Minneapolis business leaders, well, we kind of realized we’d better do something. But what?


There was talk of a press conference, but I had misgivings. Aside from questions of who exactly we would say we are, organization-wise, my larger concern was this: The average person sees a small, earnest press conference and says, "Oh, it’s those guys."


I should mention that I have a deep sense of shame and unworthiness that sometimes gets in my way. Be that as it may, stalwart activist Chuck agreed to write a handout, a clear statement of how the press should cover this event, to be given to that same press as they gathered outside the posh Minneapolis Athletic Club, where solid information had this meeting taking place, at noon, on a Thursday. It turns out, the information was all wrong.


Or had their plans changed? Had they gotten wind of our little strategy? It would’ve been nice to believe we irritate the Empire in some small way. Sadly, such was not the case. Selig was coming to speak at the Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church Sports Banquet, something we didn’t know even existed. Mt. Olivet is the biggest Lutheran church in the world (I’m not kidding about this); it’s like the statue of Babe, the Blue Ox, in comparison with other Lutheran churches, and if it wants to have a sports banquet, it has one.


Beforehand, Selig was to meet briefly with Twins employees, followed by a session with the press. (Twins officials didn’t want to call it a "press conference." Maybe they feel they don’t deserve a press conference. Maybe they’re filled with shame, like I am.)


There was no secret meeting with business leaders. The notion of a Resistance handout to the press began to seem inappropriate, even sad. Then I had an idea.


I called the Twins press office the morning of Bud’s visit, identifying myself as a "reporter" for Elysian Fields Quarterly and said I would like to attend that afternoon’s press event. A kind woman put me on hold for a minute, then returned and said sure. All they wanted was a fax, on EFQ letterhead, making the request. I have no idea whether EFQ has letterhead. I certainly had none in my possession, and Steve and Tom were in Los Angeles at some book convention (I had their implicit okay on this, I felt certain), so I said, hey, I don’t have any letterhead. This woman said, fine. There would be a credential waiting for me at the press office.


Isn’t that great? They throw up a tiny roadblock, and even on that they immediately acquiesce. Again, it may be that the Twins’ shame makes them unable to turn down anyone for anything, but I find the ease of access to be a charming characteristic.


I arrived about 4:00 p.m.; Bud was scheduled to meet the reporters at 4:30. It was a warm weekday afternoon, and on such a day in downtown Minneapolis there is no more deserted spot than the ticket window at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome during baseball season. The street in front carried little traffic. Grasshoppers ricocheted off my legs. The lone ticket vendor watched me. I disappointed him and entered the door to the Twins offices.


If Hitler’s bunker had a lobby, it might have been similar to the receptionist’s area I encountered after walking down a long tunnel. A woman sat at a desk, alone, in front of an elevator. There were no windows. She directed me to take the elevator down, even farther into the sub-basements of this god-awful place, where I would find the press office. I did so. No one was there. I could have wandered at will, looking at files, filling out press credentials.
I went looking and found a bleak lunchroom filled with Twins employees, awaiting Commissioner Bud. A guy accompanied me back to the press office; together we discovered there was no credential for me.


He said don’t worry; it would be fine.


I said, you know, we "decided to send two reporters" (Chuck wanted to come, too); would that be okay? and he said, hey, no problem.


I thought about asking him if it’d be okay if Chuck and I tackled Bud, painted his face, and forced him to wear a clown nose at the press event. I’m sure it would have been fine with this guy, whoever he was.


Instead, I went back outside to wait for Chuck. A sleek silver Cadillac pulled up.


I figured it wasn’t Chuck. I was right. Out popped Bud, followed more slowly by Twins’ owner Carl Pohlad, and then many other guys in suits, too. I recognized two of Carl’s sons and at least eight guys who, I’m guessing, were lawyers; in retrospect, it was in fact like watching a sort of corporate clown car. I mean, there were a lot of guys in this one Cadillac, which I grant you is a big car, but still, somebody gets the hump, right?


Bud and Carl led the way, arm in arm, slowly toward the entry to the Twins offices where I waited, leaning ever so inconspicuously on a railing, positioned right next to the door. Bud eyed me. I’ll never know how close I came to being taken out.


I heard Bud say, "Let’s make Minnesota a better place to live and get them out of here!" I panicked—did he mean me, and people like me? I don’t think so. I think he meant get the Twins out of the Metrodome, and I have no problem with that sentiment in and of itself.


Then Carl said, "I hear you’re in trouble. You didn’t bring any of the good hot dogs!"


That, I must say, struck me as odd, until I realized Carl was probably referring to the good hot dogs sold at Milwaukee’s County Stadium, as opposed to the pillowy malformations we stuff into our mouths here in Minneapolis, where trying to eat a hot dog is like packing a sleeping bag into a too-small duffel.


It figures. Bud is exactly the kind of guy who would talk up his remarkable weenies and then not deliver, but I heard no more of Carl’s gastronomic disappointment. They disappeared into the building.


Chuck was late—something about his real-life job—so I returned to the innards of the Dome to make sure I didn’t miss anything. A couple of Men’s Wearhouse types hustled me past the room where Bud addressed the employees, down toward the "Gophers Locker Room" and a handful of local TV reporters awaiting the press event. Rick, and Eric, and Mike, etcetera, regular guys all, making regular guy small talk about the golf in Phoenix being sweet. I went outside a few times, for air and to find Chuck; every time I passed the press office I saw Sid Hartman, Tory dean of Twin Cities sports reporters, making himself at home, lounging in the chair, using the phone.


Chuck arrived and the thing started, about thirty minutes late.


Bud came out, looking surly and a little disheveled, as usual, and sat with Carl at a front table. The sons and a few others arranged themselves to the side. Perhaps a dozen reporters and camera guys listened as Bud made a statement about how the Twins need a new stadium. He acknowledged the game’s economic problems but said that even with those problems fixed, the Twins would still need a stadium. He scolded the residents of Minnesota for daring to suspect that baseball might not solve its problems anytime soon; he said the economic problems are just a way for the people of Minnesota to "play the blame game."


He used that little term "blame game" maybe five times, almost as many times as he used the word "renaissance" to describe the state of baseball.


He’s such a strange man. He actually has a defensible point—that the Twins will need a new stadium regardless, and perhaps we should find a way to build it under the expectation that eventually the game will solve its problems. I mean, it’s a position I understand, and I don’t even consider it completely ridiculous.


Yet he comes across as a morose bully.


He refuses to acknowledge any reason for Minnesotans’ skepticism about his Blue Ribbon Task Force: Why of course these brilliant guys will solve the problems, he says! George Will and George Mitchell! Paul Volcker! The president of Yale and all these great owners—how could they not solve the problem?!


At one point he said something quite revealing: "I’m tired of this attitude of ‘we’re smarter than everybody else.’" He means we Minnesotans, and I suspect he believes we believe we’re smarter than him and other people from Wisconsin, because they caved into him and are building a new stadium for the Brewers.


This, I think, is a major problem for those of us looking for a rational stand out of the commissioner’s office. Because of his former job as an extortionist owner, Bud can’t ever acknowledge that it perhaps makes no sense for any city to build a stadium until his great task force produces some results. And he can’t ever acknowledge that he may have forced his city and state to spend too much money. That model—of the public providing most of the money—is the model by which he must stand.


Oh, the more I write the more depressed I get. Bud’s the commissioner, and we’re stuck with it, but I can’t see him ever leading a truly revisionist task force, one that recommends revenue sharing, salary controls, and the lion’s share of stadium costs coming from Major League Baseball.


Maybe George Will is the radical in the group.


Incidentally, I came away somewhat heartened by the local reporters at the press event, though Sid wandered around, talking loudly whenever he felt, interrupting Bud. As for the younger guys, they’re sports reporters so they’re completely unused to being aggressive, but they managed. There was some confused silence after Bud’s initial crabby salvo, and a couple dim-witted "eephus" questions, but there were some challenging ones, as well.


Jim Caple of the St. Paul Pioneer Press acquitted himself particularly well. He tried to get a straight answer about the economic problems; he wouldn’t take Bud’s interruptions and bluster, and he made sure Bud heard the questions. That can be important, because I don’t think Bud wants to hear them. They make him mad.


Bud left after half an hour to pick up some sort of award from those Lutherans, and the rest of us drifted away to make deadline. (Mine was less immediate.) On the way home I heard WCCO Radio’s Mike Max, who was there, and he derided Bud like I would have. I called him and got through immediately. Was anybody listening?


I hope. With guys like Caple and Max, there are more voices than last year anyway. I know I’m saluting fellow little Dutch boys at the dam, holding back a tsunami of $200 million annual payrolls, but it gives me heart.—EFQ

[Editor’s note: The EFQ does too have letterhead.]

Until recently, PAUL CHAPLIN wrote for the cable television show Mystery Science Theater 3000. Fortunately, the show was cancelled, allowing him to now attend Thursday afternoon press conferences. He is a founding member of FAIRball, a Twin Cities’ based baseball fan organization.

© 1999 Paul Chaplin