Yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court announced that they would not review the ruling of the Appellate Court that upheld the actions of Hennepin County Circuit Court Judge Harry Crump. On November 16th, Crump issued an injunction forcing the Twins to honor their lease with the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission and play baseball in Minnesota at the Metrodome in 2002. Without this review, the only available appeal is to the United States Supreme Court, and there is at best only a miniscule likelihood that that judicial body will hear the case.

While MLB could mark the Twins for contraction next season after the lease has expired, there are a number of reasons that they are far more likely to set their eyes on another franchise. Donald Watkins continues to avidly pursue his campaign to purchase the team from Carl Pohlad. He reportedly has grand plans for the organization, and MLB would be quite happy to have a black feather in their ownership cap.

Watkins has been quite adamant that he will build the club a ballpark without the use of public funds, most likely surrounded by a cornucopia of other entertainment and educational attractions. Nonetheless, as though they expect the sale to Watkins to fall through, the Minnesota legislature has chosen now to review a proposal that would involve building a taxpayer-funded stadium. For years they have danced around the issue and declined to fund a new ballpark, but now it appears that they may give into the blackmail of contraction threats and pass a stadium deal just as the team is sold to a new owner whom would rather the state of Minnesota not pay a dime.

Selig has called an owners meeting for February 12th to formally approve the sale of the Marlins and consequently the Expos. The ownership committee in charge of advising the group regarding sales will recommend the approval of both sales.

The way this is expected to work is that John Henry, now a part of the Red Sox ownership group, will sell the Florida Marlins to Jeffery Loria, current owner of the Montreal Expos. Loria in turn will sell the Expos to a company owned by the other 29 franchises, which incestuously enough includes himself as the owner of the Marlins.

Loria is expected to receive $120M for the Expos and pay Henry $158.5M for the Marlins, with Major League Baseball loaning him the difference. The holding company that purchases the Expos will not assume the team's debt, so Loria will still have that to pay. However, if Loria is unable to secure public financing for a new Florida stadium in the next five years, he only has to pay back, without interest, $23.8M of the $38.5M loaned to him by MLB for the purchase of the Marlins. Provided Florida gets a new ballpark, MLB would reportedly receive 20% of the Marlins' operating profits during the first five years of the stadium.

This entire situation seems very odd to me in several ways. First of all, do you really call this just a loan when under no circumstances does the lender receive an amount in return at all related to the amount loaned? Is the money being given to Loria or to the Marlins? What happens if Loria chooses to sell the Marlins? With the current tax laws, jumping franchises every five years could be quite profitable. Why don't the owners all agree to play a never-ending game of musical ballclubs? Do the same rules apply if the stadium is in, for example, Orlando and not the Miami area?

If you want to move past the semantics, there are the questions about where this money originates. Does it come from MLB's central fund? If it's separate from the normal monies collected and distributed in the interest of the league, should the action be subject to approval from the players' union? If it's a part of the normal monies, does it meet the guidelines currently established by the recently-expired CBA that still apply until a new agreement is reached? After all, unless you're drawing a line between the individual owners and the teams, which I don't think is happening, doesn't this cross the line into revenue sharing?

With the Expos owned by the other franchises and run by the commissioner's office, there are infinite questions of conflict, but has anyone considered the possibilities involved in having the other clubs reaping 20% of the profits from what could very well be an extremely talented Marlins' team? The Expos are expected to be sold or contracted within one season; the loan relationship will connect Florida to MLB for 5 years.

One would assume, based on its connection to the operations of MLB, that the new entity that represents the 29 non-Expo teams would be covered under the anti-trust exemption, but on the other hand we do seem to be venturing into very gray territory.

Despite the recent revelation from two unknown sources that Minnesota and Montreal were the two teams originally targeted for contraction, recent events appear to have removed the Twins from immediate jeopardy. Therefore, if they are to contract, MLB must find another candidate. When one initially hears of the loan, it seems logical that MLB would almost own a portion of Florida, thereby making them easier to contract. However, when you look at the details, contracting the Marlins doesn't seem to be in the best financial interests of the other clubs after all, so you're again stuck searching for a second team to contract.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for February 13th to discuss Major League Baseball's anti-trust exemption. If you recall, the House Judiciary Committee held a similar hearing in early December. While I am somewhat doubtful that the Senate will have any more luck extracting information from Commissioner Selig than the House, it should be interesting to see what they have to say about the owners' activities of the prior day.

I will keep you posted if and when things ever begin to clear. As always, please feel free to write in with your questions and comments.