(00:00:01) Practically every day. There's a new headline in the paper about what's happening with the Minnesota Twins today. For example, the Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting that two more investors are talking about the possible purchase of the team and the group of Business Leaders, which arranged by large numbers of Twins tickets, maybe rethinking whether that's the most constructive use of their money this new and we'll be giving you a chance to talk about the future of the Minnesota baseball team with J.G. Preston Sports director for the Minnesota news network the die for jg's career was cast when at the age of eight months he did his first play-by-play broadcast from from his crib, but actually as a matter of fact J.G. Has a lifelong interest in both radio and baseball and is managed to put the two of them together here in Minnesota. J.G. Welcome pleasure to have you with us today. Thanks Bob. You know, we wouldn't be here today talking about this and the businessmen wouldn't be talking about buying tickets and buying the team. The team were drawing enough fans on its own. Why should Community leaders go to these Great Lengths to support a team which appears not to have very much grass roots support. I think the basic answer there is the answer to the question. Why do we have the Metrodome? Is it Community leaders? At least the Business Leaders think there's a lot of money to be made by the very existence of the twins. We've gone through some of this stuff a few months ago when the task force that does the marketing came out with its survey and what you're generally looking at as an accepted figure is somewhere in 35 to 40 million dollar range of annual revenues that are generated in a business Community by the existence of a Major League baseball team that can vary considerably depending on the attendance of course, but you know, you're looking at a you're looking at a business area that is still hopeful of having a real downtown Revival of people parading the games in mass quantities and then going out to consume equally large quantities of food and drink Words and staying in the in the downtown hotels and shopping downtown. You're looking at some Business Leaders who rightly or wrongly think the perception of the Twin Cities as a major league area is at stake with professional baseball being in the in these towns. So it's not the number of people who go through the fans and by the hot dogs at the stadium. It's more of the spin-off business that is attracted by those teams that that's what the Business Leaders are interested in. I mean, you know, the the money that's generated at least potentially outside of the stadium dwarfs the amount of money that's generated in the stadium through ticket sales and concessions Tails. Well, it appears that the team is probably going to be sold. I mean that's certainly the speculation. That's what all the news reports are talking about can new ownership make a difference can new ownership bring people into the stadium. That's the question that anybody who would buy this team has got to answer to his or her satisfaction before completing the sale. If you look at the history of baseball in Minnesota, Major League Baseball in Minnesota, we've had baseball under several different circumstances. We've had outdoor baseball for years at the Met. Now, we have indoor baseball where weather is not a factor. We've had very successful teams pennant winning teams playing here. We've had some pretty cruddy teams playing here. We've had almost all of the variables that you can control in professional baseball controlled for and varied except for ownership. The only thing that's really been constant in the 25-year history of the twins is that the the Griffith family has run the ball club now would it make a difference if the Griffith family no longer ran the ball Club our feelings among Minnesota sports fans. So deep that and their feelings against Calvin. So so violent that getting rid of him and the family would create this mass outpouring of support for the ballclub. That's a crucial question. Might be I'd be tempted to take a look at it. Now, of course, you know, I'm not used to dealing in figures like 25 and 30 million dollars and I have no idea if that is Asain expenditure of money or not. But at least as far as you know, in attendance terms making the twins from being unsuccessful in the successful, you have to look at a change in ownership. You look at attendance figures around the major leagues of the 25 other teams in the major leagues, 24 of them have had better seasons for attendance than the twins best season, which was just under 1 & a half million in 1967 at the best the twins have ever done in a single season all but one of the other teams in the major leagues has beaten that most of them do it on an annual basis fully half of the teams in the major leagues 13 out of 26 have drawn two million or more in at least one season. And again many of those do it now in the past five or ten years on an annual basis for some of those are larger markets than some of them are from some of them are also Milwaukee, which is I you know, I don't know exactly how it Compares but it ain't bigger. I'll tell you that. Some of them are San Diego. They haven't drawn two million, but they've beaten the twins steadily over the past few years. Some of them are bigger and some of them are comparable or small. Some of them are Kansas City, which is now a regular two million dollar rather two million fan draw five and a half past twelve o'clock. J.G. Preston is with us today. We're talking about the future of the Minnesota Twins. If you have a question or an observation about the twins, we invite your call today to to 76 thousand is the number for those of you listening in the Minneapolis st. Paul area 2276 thousand for Twin Cities area listeners elsewhere within the state of Minnesota. Our toll-free number is 1-866-560-4440. Five to nine 700 is good anywhere within the state of Minnesota and if you are a twins fan or twins detractor living in one of the surrounding states or in Ontario, you can call us directly. The area code is 6 12 and the rest of the number 2 to 7. 6,000 are we ready Randy for our first call indeed? We are hi. You're on the air. (00:05:54) Hi. I'd like to know why if the national Major League owner is a weren't going to vote to have the twins moved that wasn't it basically a bluff that they were moving. (00:06:08) Are you talking about the the major league meeting that was scheduled yesterday that was (00:06:11) canceled. Well, Noah from what I understand the pole of the owners would never have allowed the twins to (00:06:18) move to Tampa. I say, okay, I don't think it's a bluff Calvin Griffith is a lot of things but basically he's not stupid. And right now the man has got options. The man has got the man has got several things you can do to dispose of this ballclub. He doesn't have to keep the club in the Twin Cities and there is a limit to how far I think the American League owners would would go in making him keep the team in the Twin Cities. Now the local people I think I've done a pretty good job of trying to cover their tracks the general school of thought is that if there is a competitive local offer anywhere at any major league baseball Market if there is a local offer that's competitive with any offers that have come in from other cities outside the area that the American League team owners will think very very carefully before allowing a team to leave an area where it's established. Okay. The Harvey Mackay group the group is now conducting the ticket by out. They were very public and forthright putting their 20 million dollar offer on the table the fact that they publicized it at all ruin their chances of ever actually having it accepted by the Griffith family, which was not enamored of the of the offer in the first place. But one of the big strategic things they did with that is they established look here is a very competitive local offer for this baseball franchise and basically putting up to American League owners. How can you approve the sale out of town? If we are here with 20 million dollars in cash. Now these two real estate developers that according to the star and trip today have come up with an offer of 25 million dollars cash, you know, they're not in it really to establish that Benchmark the way the Mackay group was but again that establishes in the mind of the other league team owners that there are competitive real serious Twin Cities offers to keep the team here on the other hand. I think the National Football League is very rightly been scared off of trying to manage its Chai's locations in any way at all because of the legal ramifications of the Al Davis deal. When the Oakland Raiders were moved to Los Angeles the courts wisely. I think absolutely correctly have up and down the line said look there. There's no way that you can devise a league Constitution that allows you to have a say over where a franchise owner operates his franchise and and still not be, you know subject to antitrust laws when the Colts move from Baltimore to Indianapolis the NFL rolled over and played dead and said look fine because they know there's nothing they can do about it. It hasn't been tested in baseball yet. But I think if it were they would find exactly the same thing. Now the thinking is that the people in Tampa would like to buy the twins will not test that because they don't want to get in the bad Graces of baseball. There's a strong likelihood that one or both legs will expand further and Tampa would like to have one of those expansion teams, so they may not be the ones to to press the test case for Trust purposes but I don't think Calvin was is bluffing at all talking about selling this team to people out of town my God. They're there are towns in this in this hemisphere that can support Major League Baseball royally, specifically, I think Denver and Vancouver we terrific locations for Major League Baseball there people there with a lot of money and and Calvin a good businessman is going to keep his options open just as long as he can that's why fights the ticket by out. So strongly ten minutes past the army of another listener with a question. Go ahead, please. (00:09:36) Yes. I have a couple of questions. I grew up in Kansas City and there they had the A's and until as long as Charlie Finley was they're managing the A's Kansas City was a bad baseball town. But as soon as he left and they attracted another franchise and someone else is managing that franchise. It was a great Baseball City and you just mentioned they have great attendance there. I feel the same things true of that Minneapolis the Viking sure have no problem attracting. A large crowd. How do you feel about that? (00:10:11) I I'm a hundred percent an agreement. I don't want to drag in football as a comparison because I just I just don't think it's Justified, you know among other things the whole football mystique and The Limited playing dates makes that a whole different world, but baseball the the Kansas City case is a very good example and specifically the A's franchise is a very good example when Charlie Finley took the A's to Oakland in 1968. They drew pretty well the first couple of years Oakland and never had a major league team, but in the early 70s when Finley's teams won three straight World Championships and are arguably one of the half dozen best teams ever put together in baseball. They drew about a million people a year a million people. This is back in the days when even then plenty of teams were drawing a million and a half or better the Finley the Phillies organization ran the A's into the ground. They were terrible in the late 70s by about 79. They were drawing maybe 350 thousand fans just a pathetic figure Finley finally sold the ball Club Roy eisenhart the the law professor and the people from Levi Strauss bought it up and in 1982 when the A's weren't even in pennant contention. They came close to drawing a million eight. Okay, so it's obviously there wasn't a case that Oakland was a bad baseball town or that they needed to have a winning team to come out. They weren't coming out for winning teams Under The Family Man and management. And when the new management took over they came out good baseball. They have better marketing that sort of thing. They had probably still He'll do probably the most sophisticated sales and marketing approach to baseball and they had they had an exciting product on the field. Even though it wasn't a winning product. I think really as far as Personnel is concerned the twins are comparable to those a steams. The twins have exciting Personnel, but there are a lot of attitudes held by fans that I hope that we'll have some fans get into with us here during this hour that are keeping people away from the ball park. I could easily see the twins is another Kansas City or Oakland situation. We have more listeners with questions for J.G. Preston Sports director of Minnesota news network talking about the future of the twins today. Also some more open lines. If you have a question two two seven six thousand is the number in the Minneapolis st. Paul area would also like to hear from some of you from other parts of the state on our toll-free line at 1-800-695-1418. Here's our next caller. Go ahead please (00:12:23) welcome a man. Yeah. We have one big problem in the Twin Cities are the first of all you And consistently mention Minneapolis and we have a vast growth of population out towards Wisconsin in Woodbury and past McKnight Road. (00:12:40) And I live in Woodbury. I love (00:12:41) it. Yeah the difficulty in getting to Minneapolis with our transportation system. I think beats almost every city I visited and I think your biggest problem. We have lots of older people. I'm older myself. I love baseball was raised with it. It's just too difficult to meet the buses. If you have buses, they wait for so long that you don't have a rapid kind of changeover of buses so that you're coming and going and you can get people transported to those ball games. I'm sure that if the transportation facilities to the Twin Cities were better you'd get a better turnout. It's too hard to get there. If you don't drive, (00:13:21) I think that's a legitimate concern and I think there was a concern a lot of people when the twins moved from Bloomington, which was fairly easy to get to wasn't real scary anyway as opposed to, you know, going downtown. Trying to find a place to park and all that a lot of people especially older people from out state were violently opposed on the other hand. I don't see it as the big factor because I'm not a real serious student of public transit, but I can't believe that the 13 teams in the major leagues that have drawn two million people in a season have done it bringing in the MTC buses. If you know what I mean. I think I think it would help but I don't there are problems in the Twin Cities and I think that's part of one and it has to be easier to get to downtown Minneapolis for a baseball game than it was to get to Bloomington for a baseball game on the bus. I think so now, you know, I did take the bus to Bloomington a couple of times and I haven't done it downtown. I think part of the domes problem is really the perception of logistical difficulties getting there and getting out is really more difficult than it is. You know, I went to the opening night game the first game ever again Seattle the first League game ever and they have 50 some thousand in there for for baseball and we got out in a hurry. I mean, you know wheel I wasn't working at the time. I went as a fan got out after the Game with 50,000 other people and it was no problem getting out of there and when they're drawing 10 and 15,000 a game. It's really no problem getting out of there. Yeah. Okay, 15 minutes past the hour another listener with the question. Go ahead please (00:14:42) I don't have a question. I just have a couple of remarks to make I think that one of the things that has happened to my interest which is slowed down over being a tremendous fan to really being rather indifferent there such a turnover of ball players every time you got somebody that may be of real interesting real star or a tremendous player. They get disgruntled with remarks that Calvin has made and then they leave the get traded or they make it make it so difficult that they just leave so that you don't have a continuity. You don't have people are playing that you follow from season to season every season seems to be practically all new people. You don't have that interest and then the other thing that by has bothered me a great deal are the kinds of remarks that Calvin Griffith has made that are kind of bigoted and insulting and these are public remarks and I don't think that I think people really get turned off and and feel that they don't want to support somebody that makes remarks like that. That's all I have to (00:16:00) say. All right. Thanks for your observations. Good. I think I think the caller second point is, you know Public Enemy Number One as far as the twins concern how big a public-relations obstacle is Calvin Griffith. I have nothing but respect for the way the man operates a baseball franchise. And I mean that I think is baseball knowledge is is is unsurpassed in the major leagues people laugh at that because he's had such bad records over the past few years, but the man is a pretty handy guy and the man knows what he's doing and also the man just as Charlie Finley another good baseball. Did just as Connie Mack a Hall of Fame baseball man did with the old Athletics franchise in Philadelphia. The man is is in it for business and isn't afraid to dump some ball players for money or for financial reasons to keep himself in business. I have no problems with that really I don't but it's I don't know that it's even a love-hate relationship with the public. I think there's some awfully angry feelings in the public and I think that that keeps away a lot of what could be good twins fans are a lot of what we're good twins fans. Is this last caller was the first point. I just want to touch on briefly about the the turnover the continuity of players. I hear that a lot from twins people and I think twins people got awfully spoiled in the 60s when Calvin put together just a super baseball team with people like Harmon Killebrew and Bob Allison and a robot who were here for years and years and years. I think we got really spoiled by that and even in those days a lot of the peripheral players on the team were changing constantly turnover in baseball is no more and no less than it's ever been before. Or free agency before anything turnover with the twins is no more no less than other franchises in the major leagues. And in fact, this particular team is together. Now the nucleus of it the best part of it has been together for three years all teams undergo turnover and you know that can be exciting as well as a problem. You can be adding people like the twins out of this year with the two pitchers Mike's missing and John Butcher you can have people that are going to create some excitement. So on it's interesting to hear that being perceived of as a problem. I don't see it as one myself take another listener called just a minute, but let me follow up something J.G. One of the conditions that Calvin seems to have laid down for the sale of the team. Is that the existing management pretty much remain in place that his family still have a large role in running the day-to-day operations of the team. Therefore my question is what difference will new ownership make if nothing changes. If only the people that have the Capital stock. Our changed the big difference. I see new ownership being able to make is in the web promotes the ballclub and then the way it tries to bring people into the ballpark. There are people who question very seriously whether someone who would spend Thirty million dollars to buy a company such as the Minnesota Twins would be able to swallow having its top management team dictated to it by the seller, you know, a lot of people have 30 million dollars to spend ain't stupid enough to just hand the ball Club over to somebody else to run it. I mean, they didn't make Thirty million dollars by being dumb. Usually so marketing would be that would be I think so and I seriously think that the Griffin family is capable of putting a competitive ball Club on the field. I think the team they have right now is a competitive ballclub. I think they're going to play better than they have played where new ownership can really regenerate interest in the ball club and make some money is through trying to promote it better and getting more people in the ballpark. Now the question then becomes if the Griffith family is still connected with the Are people still going to perceive that as being a huge public relations disadvantage and say well maybe there's a new guy signing the checks, but they're still Calvin. Yeah. Okay 20 minutes past the hour here is another listener with a comment or question. Go ahead please. (00:19:40) Yes. I just wanted to Second the comments of the woman who just spoke last about the perception by many people in the public that Calvin is a something of a bigot. I know that that is certainly a factor in my own hostility toward the team but another factor which I don't believe has been discussed yet and which I never hear the downtown business people discussing but which has been discussed by some of the sports columnists and you can probably tell that I'm I have in the past been a considerable fan and have loved baseball and now I go to the university games and to the the amateur Baseball League games here in the state and That the reason I do aside from from Calvin is that to me baseball is an outdoor game and half of the fun of going to a baseball game particularly in this state is being able to go outside sit in the sun feel the breeze and and have a good time out of doors. And this is a factor that I think for many many fans is is even more critical if or at least as critical as the problem of Calvin Griffith and I don't recall back in the days when I used to go out to the Met what the crowds were like then but it seemed to me that they were bigger and I just wonder what the what the statistics are on that and what your perception is of of the fact that it's a dome stadium as being part of the problem (00:21:18) Public Enemy Number Two the Metrodome. I hear that complaint loud and clear factually speaking the crowds were not that much bigger at At the Met course, we've only had two years in the Metrodome and the crowds have been crummy there have been years where the crowds were just as crummy outside and I must I must repeat that the twins have never ever ever drawn a million and a half people in a season and they are one of only two teams in the major leagues that have never done that that said I was as virulent in my opposition to the Metrodome when it was being conceived of and build it as anybody I still don't like it. I still think that if Max Winter in the Vikings thought that it was so essential to keeping professional football here. They should have built it themselves or gotten off the pot. So to speak I have made my peace with the metronome. I don't like domed baseball per se but I do know that it's major league baseball and I'm a baseball lover and it's the only game in town and I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. And I sincerely think that the Metrodome can be as much a help as a hindrance in that there are there are more baseball games that are going to be played here. There's a better chance to attract the vast under tapped Market of out State and out of state fans who can now plan a weekend in the Twin Cities and know that they're going to see baseball games. Now how much of a problem that was in the past? I don't know but I think there's a strong school of thought that says the possibility of bad weather is even more of a hindrance to attendance than actual bad weather itself, you know the point they make over and over as you know, there's going to be a game in the dome. Well, that's true. And what has to happen now is it's got to be a little shifting of thinking on the terms of baseball fans used to be that a perfect day for baseball was 85 degrees and sunny and not a cloud in the sky and you went and sat in the left field bleachers and you had a couple of beers and you had a good time now a good day for baseball is when it's kind of Cloudy and about 55 and it's a crummy day and you don't want to do anything outside you go to the Dome and it's nice and you see a baseball game and in the Twin Cities, I We get more of the latter than the former. Well, you know you have to you have to think so I never I'm sure they did all kinds of meteorological studies when they plan this thing and I can't remember ever seeing them. But let's face it. Nobody is going to spend the kind of money. It takes to build new facilities from now on unless they're covered, you know, unless there is an unless you can really have a multiple use facility at the time when the Metrodome was being built. I argued look at stay at the Met. It's a terrific place for baseball. I still wish they played there but they're not going to move back. So I've given up that fight twenty-five minutes past 12:00 o'clock. J.G. Preston is with us today. He's Sports director of Minnesota news network and our topic obviously is the fate of the Minnesota Twins. Here's our next listener. Go ahead, please. (00:23:56) Hi. I'm one of those people that doesn't attend twins games because of the current management. Hmm. I find Calvin morally repugnant to begin with but besides that I tend to agree with him on his feeling about player salaries, but I disagree with what he's always handled fans and I also disagree with the idea that he's intelligent. I think that his ideas of Marketing are somewhere between those of WT Grant in the Kaiser Fraser company. They he doesn't realize the basic worth of a baseball seat, which is zero really is an intrinsic value. And if you have an $8 seat, that's empty compared to an $8 seat with a person in a to paid $1 or $2 or $3. It's quite comparable to the what the airline's go through an airline seat after a plane is taken off his zero value so they can put anybody in at they're better off than they were if it flew off empties. If you bring warm bodies into the stadium to pay $1 or $2 or $3 who are going to buy concessions, we're going to park and we're going to give a general feeling for the team. You've got something and I think he's missed that concept. He's always had more expensive seats than the product is worth and the expensive seats tended to run from foul Pole to foul pole. (00:25:05) Okay, J.G. Okay a couple of comments. I consider myself intelligent and I don't know beans about multivariable calculus. You can be intelligent and not know everything and I think Calvin, Intelligent baseball man who doesn't know marketing. I mean, I think that's a I think that's a legitimate distinction to make and then to the extent that you're better off with people in the seats cheaply. Then you are expensively you can take that only so far I think because after a while you get people conditioned to getting something for nothing or at least something for very little I know if I were Carl polad or somebody who is seriously involved in trying to buy the ball Club. I would be very concerned with what this group that's buying the million-and-a-half tickets would do with those tickets as it turns out they're not going to be just standing around and handing them out in an effort to just get people in the ballpark. But if I were going to buy a product which was being given away and then try to make a living selling it I would be very very concerned. You know, I'm looking right now at a chart of the National League ticket prices and you maybe you've heard this argument before I don't like paying eight bucks to go see a ball game any more than anybody else but the simple truth is in almost every major. The market you're paying eight bucks to go see a ball game. I agree that Calvin was selling a lot of seats for eight bucks that didn't deserve to go for 8 bucks. He scaled him down to seven and I still question whether they're worth seven at least most of them. He doesn't have a low ticket that's cheaper than three dollars and the $3.00 seats aren't good. So basically your low ticket is four dollars. But again, you look around the league and it's tough to find tickets under $3. I think what we're reacting to is something that fans in 25 other major league cities have had to react to is that is that the price for this product is going up now granted we need an incentive to continue paying that price. It doesn't mean we're all going to going to Fork it over just because it's the going rate but I think you know in Calvin's defense. Hey, you know, somebody has to stand over the man once in a while that - he's got what has become a legitimate price structure certainly if he sells his tickets cheaper than the strikers do for pro soccer, which is an unproven commodity and look at the price of other forms of entertainment. Let me in you go to the Guthrie you go to a concert practically go to the movies you pay three dollars or for in some cases, unless you go to the bargain matinees like I do so. Yeah, Taemin dollar doesn't buy as much as it used to again. It's a problem and there are people who are not yet condition to pay that kind of money to go see baseball and you know, I come from a family of four and we, you know have to think long and hard before we all of us go to a ball game on the other hand there are cities in which this isn't a problem and I think most of what's coming out. There is a personal reaction to Calvin rather than a reaction to the ticket price is per se. Let's take another listener question. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:27:53) Yes, sir. First off. I'd like to make a point that I have one hell of a lot of respect for Calvin Griffith and the lady that spoke a couple minutes ago running down Calvin and his comments about ethnics if she's with all that stuff without sin Let Her cast the first stone and plus he's a good baseball man second. I've been to I don't know I'd say it doesn't ballgames in the dorm. And I'd say three quarters of the time. I had people ask me to be quiet people's attitudes have changed from coming in from Outdoors. They want to sit on their hands now and I go to a ballgame make little noise cheer for the home team. Have a good time and third I don't think it's a good baseball park good football stadium bad baseball park can what do you think of my idea of raising the Outfield fences say 40 or 60 feet getting them people out of the Outfield seats that aren't sitting there anyway, oh hang up and (00:28:54) listen. I'm going to assume the caller means what are now the four dollars each which are located behind the left field fence the Plexiglas fence when I go to a ballgame, that's where I sit. I like those seats a lot. I think they're good value for four dollars. And I think they're a lot like they're a lot like the old left field bleachers at the Met where I always said when I went to the met and that you really you had some Personal interaction as corny as it sounds with the left fielder is out there to see a game against the A's a couple of weeks ago and Ricky Henderson is kind of a showman out there in left field was out there Rick. He's always got a hundred little winks and ways for the fans and you know, he'll sign stuff for you and stuff. Yeah, but you have a good time and get you so much more involved with the game to have some sort of even imaginary personal attachment to what's going on. Now. I love those four dollars seats, but I agree the Metrodome was built as a football stadium and there are a lot of seats that are not good for baseball still there are enough seats that are good for baseball that they could be filled up. They could be people sitting in them. 12:30 is the time. We're talking with J.G. Preston Sports director of Minnesota news network about the Twins and we have lots of people with questions. Go ahead please your next. (00:29:58) I have one of the people who likes the Metrodome quite a bit. I've been tending baseball games in this area since 1928 and I feel that sportswriters like Don Riley and Patrick right Royce and St. Paul who call the Metrodome the hump which I feel is derogatory to the memory of Hubert Humphrey and badmouth the twins all the time are really doing a disservice to baseball club like your opinion on that. (00:30:33) I think the the task force that is trying to to market the team more effectively is sees that as a huge problem the fact that the median this town is for whatever reason or combination of reasons anti twin about his about as far as you can go and certainly anti Calvin. If not anti twin, you know, I I think really, you know, this goes back to philosophy First Amendment all that kind of stuff. I think a free press in which in which you've got columnists who are are putting down as much as building up in the long run that can be good. Because in the long run that can that that you know, just looking at from a cold hard I own the baseball team. I want fans in the seats since stir up some controversy. It's always good, but it's gone beyond. And in this town and the task force is actively trying to address the negative attitude of most of the media and trying to find ways in which that can be tempered and soothed you know, one of the one of their their means of achieving that is to take as much of the spotlight as they can off of Calvin because that's very obviously where he's the man who feels the brunt of the criticism in the hostility and the other people have nothing against the ball Club. You never hear anybody saying anything bad about the ballclub you hear him say bad things about about Calvin maybe for not signing certain players or trading certain players. Never say anything bad about the ballclub say bad things about the Dome is a bad things about the ticket prices never the ball Club. So the listen I think has a very valid point in that the media is so much more negative here than in a lot of other areas that it does create sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We'll take another listener with a question about the twins. Hi, you're on the air. (00:32:11) Hello. Yeah, go ahead. Please about 20 minutes ago a woman called and she said she really enjoyed outdoor baseball. So she doesn't go to twin cams too much anymore and JJ's reply to that was he also was against the Dome from the start but that it made it so much easier for outstate people to plan a ball game. Well, I'm calling from Austin and I used to go to up to 15 games a year and I don't anymore because I was our baseball the same reason I think based on a dome is ridiculous. Yep. I respect your (00:32:45) opinion on that and I know that another reason that that out State groups have been hesitant to come up has been the lack of a of a tailgating area, you know a picnic party area along the lines of the parking lot at the Met and I think that is a serious consideration, but on the other hand my friend in Austin, I think you have to admit that. You know, I think it'd be I think coming up here to go see a game in the dome beats the heck out of going to Wrigley Field for a ball game from Austin. And as far as I'm concerned, I repeat my my foremost Damon is I am a baseball fan and I will go where I have to go to see it. I don't go see a lot of games a year either, you know, just because I'm a sports director doesn't mean I don't sleep. I I don't go see more than eight or ten games a year top, which I think is average or a little more than average for most twins fans. But again, I have made my peace with the metronome and I am not going to stay away from the ball park just because I don't like the ballpark. Okay. It's 26 minutes before one o'clock. Here's our next caller. Go ahead, (00:33:42) please. Hello. Yeah. Okay. I don't know anything really about baseball. I've never been to a baseball game in my life. But I do did the follow-up was being discussed one. The Metrodome was being built and it seems to me that you're just uttered one of the the great heresies a few minutes ago. When he said if the Vikings wanted the Dome, why didn't they just build it? And that's My question to if team is a viable business, it seems to me that they can build their workspace just as well as any other viable business. (00:34:21) I certainly don't see the need to drag public money into the discussion. Let's put it that way. I think you can make a case occasionally for using public money to build such a facility is the Metrodome but it was a lot of public money. You know, I can see it a lot easier when it's the sports facilities commission offering to contribute a million or two million dollars to buy tickets to the game to hold the team to its lease and thus assure itself of continued Revenue that it that it, you know desperately needs to keep that facility operating. I can understand that a lot better than I can understand, you know, underwriting 55 million dollars in the first place. There are lots of arguments against what I said, but I still firmly believe it that the Metrodome was built because of some real arm-twisting muscle tactics by the Vikings, but doesn't that go back J.G. To the very first comment you made about the reason Keeping the twins here, which is to encourage other business and see that 35 million dollars in spin-off business occur. And if the public had not invested that 55 million dollars in the stadium, which is back to course by the by the liquor and hotel tax in the City of Minneapolis. If the public had not invested that money we wouldn't have the Vikings and we wouldn't have the twins would never wouldn't have how many millions of dollars worth of additional business? Hmm. I think you know, I think that's that's legitimate and part of my problem may be that I am so staggered. I'm a novice at these Financial things. I am so staggered by the prospects of 55 million dollars for anything that it's harder for me to see the long-term payoffs for a sum of money that big than for a smaller sum of money. And of course it came in under 55 million sooner able to add air conditioning is one of the things and I don't think that that some of my feelings about the Metrodome would be as strong if it were if it were being used more, you know, right now, they're the three primary tenants the twins the Vikings and the strikers who are paying off a little in terms of rent. But it has not become the kind of multi-use facility that it could become, you know, there has yet to be a concert in the Metrodome a concert alone without you know, the soccer teams. They have concerts there in conjunction with the games, but there has not been a major Rock concert there. For instance there been some tractor pulls, you know, and some stuff that have brought people into the facility the Scandinavian today thing last year was one, you know, I think for the Metrodome to really be worth that kind of outlay. It has to involve more things than that. All right, we'll move on to another listener with a question about the future of the Twins were kind of turning this into a referendum on the dome, but really trying to talk about the twins today. Go ahead please you're (00:36:49) next. Yeah my comment when the conversations about all this energy and bucks that have been going into maintaining the Twins and the Twins Cities. It says something about the priorities of the community when all these people will spend this much time for these purposes, but my comment is I think of baseball is an outdoor game. I've seen pictures and if my recollection is Right Honolulu has a stadium that you can open the lid and roll it back and if water comes out of the sky you can roll the lid back and close it off and I'm wondering whether the bottom part of the structure of the Dome would accept and openable lid. (00:37:42) The the technology is enormously expensive and the option was considered and rejected when the when the structure was being planned. It's just so much more expensive to build a fixed roof stadium. And even that is a fixed roof statement has to be a hard hard top up there that that you're converting into an open air facility. It's it's just too expensive. Okay, another listener will the question on twins. Hi, you're on the (00:38:05) air. Yes. It could be that underlying everything is a real broad problem. And that is the could be the Minneapolis st. Paul just might not be Baseball towns. To support any team. We've got to have a large grass root population is going to go whether you're having a winning season or not. And now we sold the Los Angeles Lakers because there weren't enough people going to the games and I wonder if the writing is on the wall. (00:38:28) Well Bingo that's a you know, that's that's the core of the whole thing. The point that at least has been made in other areas is that is that areas that had been considered bad Baseball towns Kansas City in Oakland that we talked about before turned out to be good Baseball towns in the right set of circumstances. My favorite example to comply have two favorite examples to compare to Minneapolis want to San Diego and the other Seattle. Okay, both are demographically I think fairly similar to the Twin Cities there there metro population bases aren't huge. They're both isolated from other. They're not ringed by well populated areas. You look at San Diego. They're surrounded by by the desert and the ocean and Los Let's which is a world of its own and by Mexico Seattle is surrounded by by mountains and water. The Twin Cities are surrounded by fairly sparsely populated rural areas for you know for hundreds of miles. So they have to you know, you're dealing with a pretty limited area that you're drawing your people from the people who live in both those cities or real Outdoors oriented participation oriented. They're not necessarily the kind of people who are just going to go sit still for for a ball game or any other kind of vicarious event like that. Okay. So what has happened in those two cities Seattle is the only other franchise aside from the twins, which is never drawn a million and a half people in a season. They've had a succession of bad ownership. They have never had a good a good franchise. Okay, that's one example. You can sort of understand why they would be failing San Diego on the other hand had Ray Kroc as an owner during the last seven or eight years of his life Ray spent a lot of money on the team at the Padres were never competitive. I think they come from a really rough area to draw people from and yet the the Padres have consistently over the last five years or so. I've been drawing in the million 5 million six range. I don't know how much better promoted. They were than the twins. Certainly Ray Kroc is every bit as controversial and attention-getting is Calvin Griffith and those kinds of owners don't tend to go hand in hand with High attendance was San Diego a bad baseball town. Is it a good baseball town of Seattle a bad baseball town? Because people don't go the answer to the question is Minneapolis st. Paul bad baseball. Eric could be yes, but I think if I were thinking about buying the franchise, I would have to take that answer with a grain of salt and wonder to myself whether I as a baseball franchise owner couldn't make the difference. And getting people out to the ballpark. I think the question raised though is you know is essential to any consideration for somebody buying the ball Club. It's 18 minutes before one J.G. Preston is here today. He Sports director for Minnesota news network. Our topic is the future of the Minnesota Twins. And here's our next listener. Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:41:20) I am calling from Cambridge and I grew up in what was what is a good baseball Town Detroit area of Michigan move to Minnesota in 1971 after having enjoyed some good years in Detroit as a baseball fan and continued my interest in baseball and I've transferred that pretty much to the twins. And I noticed the big difference between attendance between Detroit and the Twin Cities, but one thing that I've noticed right from the start is something you've alluded to before and that's the handling of General handling of the media of the twins. I remember that when it whenever there was someone in batting race or whatever the standings were was constantly kept before us and every news broadcast or or newspaper article. You could find it clearly and you knew who was doing what and whether they've slipped or gained and what the others were doing. And I don't hear that here. There's I think too much attention given to Calvin as you say and not enough to the exploits of the twins because the twins are doing as well this year as many of those Detroit years when I was there and the interest was always hi there. I think that is not just the marketing of the team. I think it is the media as you say. What can we do? I might ask a question since most are comments. What can we do to improve the media handling of the team? Can we write (00:42:50) in Well, I tell you I think that is the particular media problem. How much of a problem it is on the other end as far as your day-to-day coverage of the ballclub? I wouldn't want to go too far in saying that's a big problem. It's more if you're looking at it from the ball clubs point of view. It's more the commentary that that really can cause some harm for them. I think that's a pretty deep seated problem. And I think this the media here and a lot of the fans obviously from the comments. We're getting today have over the course of 25 years turns slowly, but surely against this franchise to have a very bad feeling about the ball club and what it stands for. I don't think it's the kind of thing you change. Easily or simply I think there are a lot of people out there who are anti twin or anti Calvin and don't maybe even remember why or maybe some of them will bring up the Wauzeka speech or something like that. But when you know when you sit down and look at it, what are the reasons you might not be able to articulate that but you know that you're angry or you know that you're unhappy or you know that you don't like it. I would I would really be curious just from a you know, social science experimental point of view to see what would happen to this community with a change in ownership and change in management not you know, again, not that I think there's anything wrong with the way Calvin Griffith runs a baseball team, but it would be interesting to see how this area would react if someone else were well, let's ask you this if the ownership does change can't would that make a difference in the efforts to build the team to bring in say one or two really top players. Would that make a difference? I have a sort of a half-baked idea that if somebody who bought this team where to go out and spend a lot of money on a very visible prominent free agent. I mean, you know, there's a lot of Free agents that a that that make a lot of money who are you know not half good ballplayers guys who don't deserve anything resembling the money they're getting but I've alluded in the past to the San Diego situation, San Diego always went into the free agent Market a couple years ago. They signed Steve Garvey who was for their situation. Just perfect, you know a living legend in California, man. You couldn't get a more prominent athlete for that market. He's wasn't anywhere close to the best even at his position in the game. Let alone the best player overall and he had at that time one of the two or three best contracts in the game. But clearly, I think it made a statement to San Diego fans that here's a team that's going to make an effort and is going to bring in somebody that you can get interested in named her three people. It might fill this bill here. Well, you know, it's funny the one person that people come back to isn't even player. And that's Billy Martin there. I've talked to more than more than one or two twins fans who stopped being twins fans today. Billy Martin got fired 15 years ago. I am I'm pretty much convinced that Billy Martin could have more of an effect on baseball interest in this town that any active player Billy ball in Minnesota. Well, I won't go into Billy ball because Billy ball is taken many different shapes and forms over the year and there's no such thing as Billy Ball but and whether or not you know, even Billy Martin is capable of being a good Major League manager anymore. I think is severely opened it out. As far as players are concerned. I wonder if maybe he's not available. But I wonder if maybe a Dave Winfield being a local product University hero a very very good baseball player wouldn't create that same sort of enthusiasm around here. Look what the twins have done. You know that kind of attitude. It's not so much whether it actually helps the ball club or not. You know, it's really question. Well how much Steve Garvey help? In Diego Padres on the field, but at least the perception in the minds of the fans, you know, the ball Club is really trying yeah perceptions mean so much more than the than performance 13 minutes before one. Our next caller is waiting. Go ahead, please hi, you're on the (00:46:38) air. Hello. I'm calling. I've been listening to some of the comments on the air and I'd like to make some suggestions. Go ahead. I think that the woman that made a comment about the baseball being an added to of game has a lot of validity to it. I think that the environment of the baseball field is very important to the people. I would like to make a suggestion that in order to accomplish this they can keep the dome but they could compromise by using the University of Minnesota grounds in the summertime, which is not being used for football for six-month period which is state-owned anyway, and and then using the dome in the winter time when the snow is on the ground and during the summer months it You rented out for a number of things concerts rock concerts have been suggested that would be one way of raising revenue. Another way would be to use the Minneapolis has such a very strong convention Town. It could be used for various and Sundry conventions here. It could be used for garden shows & 4 & 4 & 4 the circus for a number of things during those hot months when people don't want to be stuck in a hot Dome and the summer I would also like to suggest that if they were to use the University of Minnesota where they could make an arrangement that it that it could be used in summertime. If they did use that option that these picnic ground ideas that have been suggested also be taken up where around the vicinity of the River Road or around the vicinity of the University football stadium grounds be set up for picnicking area. And I think that that could probably be achieved if some thought went into it. There is an area there where I think that that could be (00:48:26) done. Okay. Well here I need to make a rather large. I mean there's no facility at the University that is even remotely acceptable as a Major League Baseball Facility. I mean we're talking tens of millions of dollars would have to go to take anything on the U of M campus and make it acceptable to Major League Baseball. The other point is I am very glad to hear from you friends that that you have problems with the Metrodome and I think that's an important factor that one must come to grips with and understanding why the twins are not a financial success on the other hand. I can assure you the twins will not play anywhere else as long as they are in Minnesota. So we you know, we as fans have got to accept that we've got to come to grips with that and see if that as a given because that is a given what we think about the ball Club. Anyway, we can't change that basic fact of life is that the twins will play in the Metrodome. Yep, and the fact of the matter is you're pointing out earlier the attendance figures were not Much better during the last few years at the bet. No, and I don't think it makes that much of a difference. I mean in the final analysis, it's a problem and it may be a big problem. But it's a problem that certainly can be overcome. I have to think, you know from a baseball operating standpoint. It's 10 minutes before one. We have more listeners. We have a couple of lines open. We might be able to get all three or four more calls on 2276 thousand if you have a question about the twins today, and in other parts of Minnesota, our toll-free number is 1-800-695-1418 EXT (00:49:52) Griffin once said that one reason Came to Minneapolis from Washington DC is that there are fewer blacks in Minneapolis than in Washington for that be seen as less of a racist remark than is marketing factors. That blacks is a group support baseball less than whites. Ooh. (00:50:12) I think I think that it's possible to see it as a racist remark and I don't see any way to see it as a marketing Factor. I've never seen any studies on it one way or another but I can't believe that's true. Okay another call with a question. Go ahead. You're on the air. (00:50:24) I'd like to make a comment that everybody keeps talking about the business community and the business Community is going to support the Twins and the dolman on that. There is more money spent on the Arts and the Twin Cities is for the edit entertainment dollar. Let's say is a greater proportion of it is drawn off by symphony orchestras and dance and theater than is by any of the sports organizations. Furthermore Orchestra Hall the Ordway Music Theater the children's theater in the Guthrie. We never built with public money or with even public help and when mr. Griffith can a couple years back when Dome was being built remark when someone asked him how come attendance was so lousy for the Twins and rather sniggered leeway said well, they must be all over at Orchestra Hall. My guess is that a lot of the business community that supports the Arts. So well just kind of said well, mr. Griffith. You can take your team in do what you want with it. I won't ever go back to a Twins game until Griffith sells. It (00:51:28) it basic issue being addressed their baseball is not a charity. Okay, the Arts the Arts have to make a living on on contributions this you know, this this radio operation has to make a living with donations from people who support it who admire it to enjoy it who need it who want to see it grow a baseball team doesn't have to be run like that. Now there are there are good sound waves to go out as someone who sells baseball tickets. Approach Business Leaders and say boy, it would really be good for you. It would really help you to have some season tickets to our ball games because you know, look at them. Look at the different ways. You can use them you can entertain clients you can use them in sales incentives for employees, you know, all all kinds of things but you don't go in with the pitch that you know, public supported baseball, Minnesota needs a professional baseball franchise. So won't you please help us out? You can do that when you're running an Arts organization because that's how they work baseball doesn't work like them. So I think the caller approaches an essential point is that we can't the business Community will not look at supporting this as a charitable institution and it cannot be sold as something that needs to be done on a charitable basis. Here's another listener with a question for J.G. Preston. Go ahead, please. (00:52:41) My on yeah. Okay. Yeah. I've I've met Calvin Griffith when I was like 13 or 14. Hello (00:52:50) why we're on the air. Don't worry about us. I still (00:52:53) hear you. Sure. Okay, and I was really impressed with that guy as being a very warm and neat individual and I've supported I think most of his moves all know that he's made with the twins and I also think that Dome is very useful for games because it it's a it's an ideal condition for a ball game. There's no windy weather rainy weather cold weather. So it's I feel it. So, you know definitely an asset to the Twin Cities to have a stadium like that. (00:53:26) Okay. Thank you for your observation. There's a man who's made his peace people on both sides of the issue of Calvin and the Dome. Here's another question from a listener. Go ahead, (00:53:36) please. I moved here from Chicago about a couple of years ago and in Chicago I had lived there for years and was a White Sox fan. And what got me really interested in baseball was listening to Harry Caray the baseball announcer now, I'm not going to go to all the baseball games. But the ones that I couldn't go to it was just wonderful listening to him. So I was just I have tried to get into the radio aspect of the twins here. I've been some of the games but it just doesn't excite me like Harry Carey did (00:54:08) what so, you know, that's a solid point is that I could talk more about that at historically and I won't but radio all kinds of things are involved with with building a ballclub. I enjoy the twins broadcast myself, but Different Strokes for different folks I should point out too because that listeners from Chicago that of the 13 out of 20 six major league teams that have drawn two million fans in a season the Chicago Cubs are not one of them and I think that would surprise a lot of people last year. There were 13 out of the 26 teams again, the drew a million-and-a-half Chicago Clubs were not one of them so you can you know, say all you want about Chicago being a huge Market of Minneapolis being a small Market. But the Cubs are not exactly rolling in people either another listener with a question for J.G. Go ahead, please (00:54:52) thanks a couple of points one. There's a fellow down in Louisville, Kentucky that owns a minor league club who I think is going to draw about a million people this year. You (00:55:01) did it last year. Mr. Ray Ray Smith. (00:55:03) Okay fine, and I wondered if we could see if we can apply any of those those methods that he must use up here because we're certainly a bigger Market than a farm club for the Cincinnati Reds. The second point I wanted to make is that a couple of callers have have mentioned the fact that the Dome isn't a nice place to be inside. We might have to live with the fact of the dome but isn't there something we could do the inside of it to stop people from shush and other people that are cheering for the home team and and that look askance at you when you might drop a couple of couple of fragments of peanut shell on the floor. I'll just hang up and listen now, (00:55:37) I won't try to address the cultural issue there because I think that's that's something that we all must deal with on our own as to what we really expect. Of a trip to the ballpark as far as the Louisville experience is concerned. Yeah a little Bowl last year became the first Minor League City ever to draw million fans in a season and they do it in a shorter season than the Major League season. I can't tell you a lot of specifics about the way Ray Smith runs a ballclub, but I can tell you that he makes Louisville Redbirds Baseball exciting and he makes it an event that people want to come to let's see if we can pack in the remaining calls in the remaining few minutes here quickly a question, please go ahead. (00:56:11) I'd hate to see you Doctor cultural question. It seems twins are teen are the metronome is set up as a marketing set up for restaurants and hotels and stuff ever since was put together the seems to be okay for the Vikings. They can draw a smaller number, but the baseball you need a certain class of people and they aren't attracted to the Metrodome. (00:56:32) There may be a basic point there is that the kind of people who sit on their hands and shush other fans and and brush off the peanut shells maybe if we're dealing with so many of those people in this area. Maybe they'll never be Baseball fans. I don't know quite how to answer. But I think there could be a point there. Okay, we got time for another one. Sure. Go ahead, please. Yep. Okay, plea (00:56:53) Army quickly. Okay. I'm in a wheelchair and I used to know when I go to the Metrodome. It's very hard to get around. It's very long, you know to get around to different places. Are they going to do any changing about that? And the Metrodome designer is it just going to be left? Right it (00:57:10) is I wish I could tell you for sure but the various changes I've heard proposed for the Metrodome that has not been one of them. I'm sorry to say and one final call. Go ahead, please you're on the air. Well that person hung up do they think of me? They're probably waiting for 20 minutes. Probably thought they were all done know. We do have one more. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:57:30) Yes. Hi. I want to refer back to the question of the business Community supporting the Arts versus Sports and I think that only the supporters of the sport should be called upon to support that team if I owned a business and wasn't a fan of baseball and if I had so much money, I could wallpaper the Metrodome and if they came and asked me to support baseball and I wasn't a fan I wouldn't buy a single ticket. So I don't think that it's up to the businesses to lay out all this money to support a team if there aren't the basis of fans to buy the (00:58:05) tickets. What's a little bit more of a policy issue than that? But basically you've hit you've had a real problem in that businesses don't feel inclined to be the ones who keep it professional sports franchise afloat and really for the long-term existence of the franchise that that can't be the case. It's just not feasible and on that point. You must end. Thank you very much. J.G. Preston for coming and visiting with us today. Well Bob, it's good to hear from people and hear what they think and why they go and why they don't go because I think these are all vital issues that whoever wants to buy. This ball Club is going to have to consider very strongly before they make a move. Absolutely. J.G. Preston is sports director for Minnesota news network want to thank Linnea Schultz for answering the telephones today and also Randy Johnson for work as the engineer partly cloudy skies with a few sprinkles possible today across Minnesota temperatures range from the middle 40s in the North to the upper 60s in parts of the South today's broadcast of midday was made possible by the advertising agency of Fallon Miguel elegant rice headquartered in Minneapolis. This is Bob Potter. For the Twin Cities a few sprinkles possible this afternoon. The high should be in the middle 60s then tonight.