"I must buy... the Twins."

Hey BG!

Thanks for the love! I couldn't stay away for long. Especially with all the wacky hijinks that are going to take place this offseason.

I do have to disagree about Hunter. He's got a sweet glove, but he doesn't bat for average OR power. Sure, his smile makes even me a little tingly, but it'd be nice to have something other than an American Legion middle infield.

I hope they can find a way to get Matt "Buh buh buh baah buh I'm lovin' it" LeCroy, even if just to kill lefties.

BP out.

Oh, and if Jackson indeed is able buy and move the team to Las Vegas, what would he change their name to?

The Las Vegas Chips?

The Sin City Strippers?

The Las Vegas Mafia?

Hmmmm...

I will say this, just like I have said it in the other two places I have this posted:

Jackson, stay far far away. Far far away. Keep your little grubby Yankee hands off our team.

Reggie must have been tripping on some old Reggie bars when he came up with this idea -

Uh No - you cannot - and we wont let you have our boys

much love
WW

PS -
And Uh batgirl -why are you trying to give Boo away?!?! I'd love to have Jim Thome - but Boo - Oh I would be very sad!

Dearest Ms. Woman,

I would never try to give Boo away. I just know that for a player like Thome we're going to have to give, and that the only totally safe people are probably the President and the Chairman (and maybe the Veep), and that these deals are going to be painful. But I'd certainly want to keep our Boo.

Sincerely,
Batgirl

I don't think I can hate the Twinkies enough to wish Jackson on you guys. :)

I don't think I hate much of anybody enough to wish Reggie Jackson on them. Except the Yankees, but, well, yeah, done deal.

They can't trade Torii to the Yankees. I'd have to either switch teams or switch cats.

i have no words.

The floating of the 'part-time Vegas resident Reggie Jackson wants to buy the Twins' story is such a transparent farce, I can't believe anyone is taking it seriously. It deserves to be parodied by Colbert. And that's THE WORD.

Damn... Minnesota sports are not treating me very well these days.

Dearest Batgirl -

I know that is the case - I just would be beside myself if it was Boo to go - Lohse-Romero-Durbin I'd be all right with but not Boo =(

The Count would be lost without his Boo(berry)- I just know it!!

Much Love
WW

Hypothetically speaking, what do you all think of a Torii-for-Cano (+ a prospect?) if we *also* get Jim Thome?

I don't know enough about Cano and Thome, but I'd like to hear some other people's thoughts.

Stephen Colbert makes me pee my pants. There I said it. And the opening sequence to his show? Funniest over-the-top parody EVER.

I think it's safe to assume that any team placed in Veg-Ass would be ruled by the law of maximizing profit and not-so-much about winning. In fact, you take a Reggie Jackson-owned Nevada franchise and the NY Yankees may very well end up with a pseudo minor league team at the major league level. The 25-man roster, which is the ONLY thing that limits Steinbrenner, would be a joke and the cash for players that would flow *gasp!* across many, many states' lines would really (no, I mean really this time) put MLB's anti-trust exemption to the test. There could be...wait for it...congressional hearings! Instead of Selig and Fehr, picture Georgie going toe-to-toe with McCain et al. It's especially entertaining if you add the "Seinfeld" character exaggerations.

Since the team will most certainly NOT be competitive, I think "Vegas Coolers" is pithy.

Can't Reggie buy Tampa Bay or some team who doesn't have much of a fan base? (Apologies to any Tampa Bay fans out there.)

Or, just for fun, he could buy the Angels and just tack Las Vegas to the name without moving them to appeal to the Vegas market. Then we could have the Los Angeles-Las Vegas Angels of Anaheim.

Can anyone tell I'm really, really bored at work today?

Dearest Redbird -

about peed my pants - that was hilarious!
So LAVAAAAAAAA for short???

WW

Dear readers,

BG agrees heartily with the esteemed Mr. Wig--this seems to be another NO STADIUM, WELL WE'RE GOING TO SELL YOUR TEAM TO REGGIE JACKSON! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, SUCKERS?

They could work to negotiate a deal instead of reverting to scare tactics, but apparently they don't have the balls.

Sincerely,
BG

Really now. I can't take it anymore.

As a YankeeFan, I bear the brunt of a lot of haters -- haters for Yankee winning, but more basically, haters for the Yankee way of building a team. We buy players, spend money, bring in top names. For that, the Yanks (and fans) get hammered by otherwise well-mannered fans of other teams.

Now comes a situation where well-mannered fans of another team are looking to trade a big name player (best defensive CF in the AL) who is coming off a major injury, and has admittedly lost his way at the plate, and who do they look to? The Yankees.

"We want [fill in name of young Yankee homegrown talent] and [fill in name of young Yankee homegrown prospect]."

Nice. Hypocrisy.

For the record, I wouldn't trade Cano for Hunter straight up, much less for Cano AND someone else.

But next time you criticize the Yanks for doing whatever-it-is-that-they-do that's SO WRONG -- stop and remember the day you were looking to the Yanks to give you excellent prospects for the more expensive players that you deemed expendable.

(I seem to remember a few fantastic prospects you got for Chuck Knoblauch)...

And BG is right - unless you're bringing in a .300/40/120 guy, you are better off hanging onto Hunter. In my opinion, he's worth a half point off your pitchers' ERAs (meaning that without him, Silva and Radke are a half-point higher in ERA -- there are no gaps when he's in center -- and Santana strikes everyone out no matter who is in the field). Problem is, without buying a name (Konerko?) I don't see how you're going to bring a such a player in.

As for Reggie, I'm with you guys. Unless he is looking to keep the team in Minnesota (and maybe build a stadium, raise payroll, etc.) he should be denied the right to purchase and move the Twins.

YankeeFan

Dear Mr. Fan,

I believe you misunderstand the situation here. The Twins don't want to dump Torii. All the Torii-rumors have come from the Yanks, not the Twins. They're the ones looking for a center fielder, they're the buyers in this situation, and it's the New York papers talking about how to get this done. This isn't a Jim Thome situation; the Twins aren't looking to trade Torii by any means and only would for the right offer. The Yankees don't have many players the Twins can afford--just their young guys. Of course we're looking for excellent players; Torii's the best offensive producer on the team. There's no reason for us to deal unless we get something great in return. Otherwise, they can look somewhere else for their center fielder.

Anyway, I don't think anyone's criticizing the Yanks for not wanting to move their young people--I, for one, like it-- merely talking about what it might take to get the deal done. I also think going for people like Torii over Damon show some growth on the part of the Yanks.

Sincerely,
BG

p.s. I don't think Sweetcheeks has lost his way at the plate, he's always been like that.

Wonder Woman - Kudos on the Reggie bar reference.

"When you unwrap a Reggie bar, it tells you how good it is." - Catfish Hunter

I love that quote.

What about Frank Thomas? He was bought-out by the Sox, and may be available cheaper than Thome. Plus he could fill our RH hitting needs, esp. if Torii leaves. I'm not a fan of the Big Skirt, but he has the potential to add a big bat for relatively cheap next season. No long-term deal, but a 1-year deal with the hope (for him) that a good year could give him one last big multi-year deal.

Thoughts?

I have posted on here as "Jeff" in the past, but I see another Jeff has posted here today. I should've know I couldn't copyright the name. Not that I think a lot of people care, but just to keep things straight, I'll be posting as JeffA from now on.

I'm with Batgirl, Yankee fan. We don't want to see Torii go, so we are making outrageous demands. Seems fine by me.

I don't think that they way the Yankees build a team is, in any global sense, wrong. You do have to admit, though, it doesn't really work. Big money to big sluggers has been proven unsuccessful in the playoffs this year. And the Red Sox did it last year, only because of their gutsy pitchers.

Dear Mr YankeeFan,

If my post offended you (the one about a possible Hunter-for-Cano+prospects), it was not meant to do so. I was merely mentioning the possibility to see what others thought about it. Obviously, I would rather not lose Torii, but if the Twins were able to acquire Cano and Thome and only lose Hunter, they would have two strong hitters instead of just one. Meanwhile, the Yankees would be acquiring a very efficient center-fielder, which would undoubtedly make many people happy.

Respectfully,
Annun

To me, Stephen Colbert is and will always be Jerri Blank's history teacher.

Ahhhh, imagine the legovision possibilities if Mr. Thomas came to town. He WOULD still be Vader, right? 'Cause that's too perfect and priceless to lose. How would his being on the side of good and light (and using a Segway to run the bases) be represented?

Stay away Reggie!
to think that the team of Oliva, Puckett, Carew, Perry, Katt, Mudcat, KIllebrew would be playing in Las Vegas (though of course nothing was said about moving the team.... wink , wink) is a terrible thing to ponder...

Lucky for you guys the Twin's president is named St. Peter. Because when St. Peter says the team is not for sale, it cannot be a lie!

I feel really bad to see Big LeRoy go. Am I the only one? Can't he be a base coach or something. Gee.
BG-you crack me up daily. With the Nov gloom that is worth plenty.

Reggie Jackson should not be ripped for being interested in buying the Twins IMO. He is doing his due diligience in case the Twins don't get a new stadium. If the Twins get a new stadium, then this team will not be for sale at all. It's as simple as that.

Plus, if they do move the team to Vegas, it would seem only natural that they trade for A-Rod. That way he can go to the Bellagio rather than those illegal poker clubs!

This smells like blackmail to me. And if it isn't blackmail, a pox on you Reggie. I love Vegas but I don't want to have to go there to see a home game.

While we're at it, let's allow Pete Rose back into baseballs good graces.

After all, putting a sports team in the gambling center of the world is only asking for trouble.

At this point, I'm getting tired of the games. Either do this or shut the hell up. I don't like my teams being held hostage.

Big ups and respect to this whole thread for all the *sweet* references (har har har), from "Strangers With Candy" to the Reggie Bar (which, if I recall correctly was the product of a Baby Ruth having sex with a Peppermint Patty... got its style from the Patty and its substance from Ruth)

With the Nationals actually being for sale, why isn't Reggie interested in them? Are they still tainted by their former association with Youppi!?

YankeeFan- had the Yankees lost to the Braves in 1999, I think it would have served as a hate-ning rod, as there probably would have been less ire focused on the Yankees and more on the Braves. As it is, the last few years have seen the Yanks really do a nice job of emulating the postseason choke artistry of the Braves. Pretty soon, people will regard the team similarly, as in "oh, don't worry about the {braves | yankees}, they're just going to choke in the first round."

Either way, I'm sure all of those great Yankee dynasties over the years were hated too... might as well embrace it as "yankee tradition" like you lot are prone to do ;-)

As for hating the fans, I grew up in Jersey, so I know how obnoxious you guys can get. Two examples from the 1996 WS: I was crossing the street while wearing a Braves jersey and was nearly run over BY ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS FROM HIGH SCHOOL; I was at a pool hall and this guy who may or may not have been in the mafia (who's to say?) and who had money riding on the series threatened to sacrifice me on the pool table if the Braves won that game. This is the only context in which you'll hear me say this, but thank God Mark Wohlers hung one to Jim Leyritz. However, despite things like that, I've got to say this: at least you're not Phillies fans because they're total douchebags.

multiple choice question:
What's the difference between a fetus and a Phillies fan?
a-) someday the fetus might grow up to be a human
b-) some folks think it's a shame to kill a fetus
c-) [your answer here]

oh yeah- suggestions for Vegas team names:

The Odds (as in, "how 'bout them Odds?")
The Line (they could always claim, with a nudge and a wink, that it refers to a chorus line)
The Show
The Dealers
The Lights
The Clocks (touted as "the only clocks in Vegas!")
The $3.99 Prime Rib Buffet
The One Last Trip to the ATM
and finally,
The Whores

Dear Mr. Jackson,

Hands off my team. Go buy the Devil Rays.

Stubbornly,
k-bro

If you haven't seen it, the Strib reports the Twins leader are very insistent this is just Reggie being Reggie:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/509/5708675.html

Had to add this:

I told my wife that Reggie Jackson had announced that he is interested in buying the Twins.

"Who's he?" she asked.

(Okay, she's not much of a fan, but we had a lot of fun celebrating the Twins 1987 WS win, including calling her brother at an ungodly hour, drunk, yelling, "We won! We won!" Anyhow ...)

"He's Mr. October," I responded, thinking that would help.

"Oh," she says, "On your Twins calendar?"

So, I had to explain. Anyhow, I got a laugh out of it.

So many team name possibilities...

Blackjacks
Gamblers (hey, it worked in the USFL)
Flop (given the current interest in poker)
River (likewise)
One-armed Bandits

But this is all a moot point. That team would end up being called the Reggies. Guaranteed.

-ex

The good news is that Reggie's got a garageful of those Hit-A-Way: Title Series ball-on-a-string dealies he hawks on TV so they wouldn't need underground batting cages and BP could be taken pretty much anywhere without wasting actual balls.

There you go, PohlCat- save money on BP by using Hit-A-Way so you can afford more on-field talent.

Come ON. Seriously. Vegas has sunshine all year round, entertainment 24 hrs a day all year round, legal prostitution right outside the city limits...they have enough going on there, they don't need our Twins. Our good, decent and wholesome Twins at that. We've got the Mall of America and 7 months of frozen tundra here. Throw us a bone.

This Reggie deal does sound like a threat. Excuse me for not being up on the Twins stadium deal - but can someone explain to me why Pohlad needs to threaten to move the team when he was just named baseball's richest owner by Forbes magazine with a net worth of 2.8 BILLION? I think the good people of Minnesota should definitely pay for this guy's stadium.