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March to the Sea: Twins Success Hurts Baseball

Arnold Schwartzenegger and Danny DeVito would be proud. “Twins” is once again the hot topic around the nation.

Unfortunately for the two recently out-of-luck actors, it’s not the movie that is making headlines. Rather, it is the Minnesota Twins, who have become the latest darlings of Major League Baseball.

How is it possible that a team led by guys named David Ortiz, Christian Guzman, and Doug Mientkiewicz can be 22-10 and only one game back of the red-hot Cleveland Indians in the American League Central? Though no one can answer that question for certain, one need only look to starting pitching for a plausible if not probable solution. Brad Radke, Eric Milton, Joe Mays and Mark Redman are a combined 16-6 with a stellar 3.34 ERA.

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Even Mientkiewiczes and Pierzynskis can win when the opposition scores merely three runs a game. The analysts are already screaming louder than a PSLM rally at noontime.

“Minnesota’s for real!” they say. “These guys can play! Look out, Wild Card!”

See, MLB? We don’t need a salary cap—the little guys can compete too!

And so we’ve reached the point of this column. Minnesota’s success is remarkable, and it’s almost impossible not to root for a bunch of no-names in a series against the heralded Yankees or Indians. But if Minnesota reaches the playoffs this year, it will be bad for baseball.

The Twins’ success would band-aid a terrible problem of financial inequity that could be addressed this off-season. Top Major League officials have been discussing a revenue-sharing plan (in which big money teams give to small-market clubs in a simplified form of Communism) to be brought up at league meetings in the off-season of 2001.

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