When the Minnesota Twins last made a major push for a new ballpark, team officials argued they needed the facility to make them financially competitive with the rest of the league. In the four years since that effort failed at the Legislature, player salaries have risen so high that the team now concedes that revenue from a new ballpark alone won't balance their books.

That concession is reflected in a ballpark bill announced yesterday that would require a panel of judges to rule on whether Major League Baseball fixes such problems sufficiently to make a new stadium viable. MPR's Art Hughes looks at the advisability of such a plan.