Baseball Appeals Ruling on Twins

The Minnesota Twins and major league baseball Monday appealed the ruling by a district court judge in Minneapolis that would prevent baseball from eliminating the Twins as part of a plan that would also eliminate the Montreal Expos.

While asking for an expedited hearing before the Court of Appeals, baseball lawyers were also considering the possibility of pursuing an accelerated process that, under state law in Minnesota, would take their appeal directly to the state Supreme Court.

“With something this public, it’s bound to get to the Supreme Court eventually, and this would just get the whole process there sooner,” a lawyer familiar with the situation said. “I mean, whichever side loses at the appeal court level is going to appeal to the Supreme Court anyway, so this would expedite it.”

On Friday, Hennepin County District Court Judge Harold Crump issued a temporary injunction requiring the Twins to play the 2002 season, the final year of their lease, in the Metrodome, and preventing Twins’ owner Carl Pohlad from selling to anyone who wouldn’t honor the 2002 lease.

Although baseball has not announced a deadline as to when contraction for next season becomes impossible, Commissioner Bud Selig acknowledged Monday, “We’re taking it a day at a time right now and we’ll probably know more in a week or two.”

In other developments:

* Lawyers for management and the players’ union held a bargaining session pertaining to the pension aspects of the expired collective bargaining agreement, but no date has been set for an arbitration hearing on the union grievance that claims owners violated the bargaining agreement and other major league rules by voting to eliminate two teams before next season.

* Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, reiterating that he opposes the use of public funds in the building of sports facilities for professional teams, went on a media blitz in the Twins Cities, blasting Selig for failing to produce a new economic system in the six years since the last work stoppage.

“They continue to pay these outrageous salaries,” Ventura said. “At some point, for the good of baseball, union and management better get their act together.”

Ventura added that it would be a “black eye” for baseball if the Twins, the “last small-market team to win a World Series,” are folded, but added that if the owners are determined to do it, there’s “nothing I can do to stop them.”