Minnesota Fans Are Frustrated About This Version of Twin Killing

Welcome to the Land of Contraction.

There will still be 10,000 lakes. The license plates say so. But as early as next year, major league baseball probably won’t be here.

“See you in 2002,” said the sign outside the Metrodome.

“Yeah, right,” said Andy Rosenberg, a 27-year-old medical technician from suburban Auburn and a self-proclaimed Twins’ fan “forever” who found himself standing outside the Metrodome on Wednesday. “I cry every time I watch Kirby Puckett getting inducted into the Hall of Fame and I’m not ashamed to say that,” Rosenberg said. “So we have an owner [Carl Pohlad] who wants to take the money and run and we have a Governor [Jesse Ventura] who wants to be a big shot and make it sound like he cares about the state so he won’t spend money on a stadium and we lose our team. Great. What’s the point of being a fan anymore?”

On the day after baseball Commissioner Bud Selig spoke so glowingly about the bright new age of “contraction,” the citizens in the city where “contraction” will hurt the most are not happy.

And they have other words for “contraction” that can’t be printed here.

How can it be, Twins’ fans wonder, that they have supported a bargain-basement team that is now filled with talented young players, was a leader of the AL Central for a big part of the season, had grown up before their loyal eyes and now it’s going to be sold as parts. The miserly billionaire owner will get $250 million.

The smiling commissioner will be a hero in the eyes of the other owners who will have more money to split up.

And the fans?

“We get, what, memories?” Billy Rendell said.

Rendell, a St. Paul construction worker and father of two boys, stood in a Minnesota Twins’ merchandise store Wednesday. He was thinking about buying a couple of caps, maybe a Doug Mientkiewicz jersey, perhaps Twins’ pennants for his sons’ bedroom wall.

“As mad as I am,” Rendell said, “I want my kids to have some remembrances of this team. I do. I’ll have the memories of going to games with my dad. He died two years ago and thank goodness. He’d be mad enough to spit.” While Governor Ventura is accusing Selig and baseball’s other owners of “extortion,” while a district judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Twins and major league baseball to prevent the team from being disbanded, while the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission sued the Twins to force them to honor their lease to play in the Metrodome one more year, while Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch said he will file a federal lawsuit against major league baseball, Twins’ fans were sad, angry and without any inclination to spend any of their own money to build a new stadium.

Talking to Minneapolis baseball fans is a bit like talking to Los Angeles NFL fans. Yes, they mostly say, it would be wonderful to keep a team or to get a team. No, it is not their job as taxpayers to fund a team. Not now, not ever.

“The guys who want to make the money want us to fund their stadium,” Rendell said. “I don’t get that. I give them my money when I buy my ticket and tickets for my sons. I give the Twins my money when I park and when I buy hotdogs and caps. That’s money out of my pocket. And then they want to take the money before it even gets into my pocket so they can build a brand new stadium. Of course, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford the tickets anymore.”

At the Minnesota Twins Pro Shop, Bev Ingelsted said her 12-year-old son Robbie had asked her to buy him “something that said Twins on it.

“He wants to know what he can do to make the ‘bad people,’ as he calls them, keep the team here. He wants to know why somebody wants to take the Twins away. And I wish they wouldn’t go. Robbie went to eight games with his father this year. We’re divorced, and those days meant a lot to Robbie.

“But if you ask me if I’m willing to have my taxes go up so the team can build a new stadium, then I say no. I’m telling Robbie that it’s more important for us to pay for better schools for him than for a baseball team for him. Of course he just looks at me and says, ‘Mom, we’ve got schools. I want the team.”’

Even as all the legal maneuvering has begun, it seems most fans in town are resigned to losing the Twins. On talk radio, on Internet message boards, around the Metrodome, in sports bars, the sentiment is that it is a waste of money to fight contraction in court and it is a waste of emotion to wish the Twins to stay.

And as Selig and company go about the business of contraction, they should turn more than a deaf ear and really listen to Minnesota fans. Because when fans stop caring, when they give up the fight before it begins, there is something going on. There is the beginning of a disconnect.

If Twins’ fans find they can get along without their baseball team, even if it hurts, even if they can’t understand how a franchise which offered Puckett and Kent Hrbek, Rod Carew, Tony Oliva and Harmon Killebrew can be “contracted” out of existence, made to disappear, then maybe other fans will begin to wonder whether their love of their team is of no importance.

For, as Selig said, the owners almost voted to contract four teams, not only two. “So watch out,” Rendell said. “You think we’re going to be the only ones?” Contraction could be like eating potato chips. Maybe baseball won’t be able to stop at just two.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com