Monday, July 16, 2007

There's Gold in Them Thar Arms


In the latest effort to protect his investment in the “small market” Twins, Carl Pohlad has come up with his most creative financial move yet.

Faced with the obvious loss of Johan Santana to free agency after the 2008 season, the Twins have begun, for a price, allowing the most likely suitors for Mr. Santana’s future services to dictate his pitch count.

After seven dominating innings against the A’s on Friday, Santana was pulled from the game by manager Ron Gardenhire…or was he?

Reached by satellite phone from his floating spaceship, super-duper quadrahexabillionaire Angels owner Arte Mareno had this to say about Santana, “Look, we all know that Pohlad isn’t going to sign him. So what’s wrong with paying a little upfront now to protect my investment for the future? It’s like paying earnest money. And to be fair, I actually asked the Twins to pull him after six innings. I think I’ll have to have my “advisors” talk to Mr. Ryan today.”

The Twins, unable to “keep up with the Epsteins” through traditional methods such as overcharging for terrible food and blackmailing taxpayers for luxury box filled stadiums, seem to have uncovered the small-market holy grail.

“I love it!” says the ghost of George Steinbrenner. “I wish they would have approached me first. I would have paid them not to use their entire bullpen! As it is, we’ve begun discussions about giving that big Canadian feller every Tuesday through Friday off.”

While the legalities of such a move are still under question, uber-rich Arte Moreno doesn’t seem concerned. “Look, first off, if we’ve learned anything over the years it’s that ‘baseball’ and ‘rules’ have a loose relationship at best. And secondly, it’s not like Carl isn’t going to use this additional revenue stream to…*guffaw*…upgrade…*snort*…his…team. I’m sorry I couldn’t get through that with a straight face. Could you not write that milk came flying out of my nose?”
(Ed. Note: Milk did in fact come flying out of Mr. Moreno’s nose.)



(C’mon Gardy…we’re just keeding. Plus…you don’t pay us to be nice to you. Yet.

In other news…the Twins swept the A’s by refusing to score one run more than was necessary. Reached for comment, The Quiet Genius had this to say…”Suck it”.)

1 comment:

Kaiser said...

Maybe the Quiet Genius is paying extra to Twins offensive players to only score one run more than the opponents right now.