Small-Market Justice

The 2001 baseball season has been full of surprises, with the biggest surprise being the winning ways of the Minnesota Twins. Yes, it's true; Minnesota is no longer deserving of the nickname "Twinkies". Manager Tom Kelly has his team neck-and-neck with the money-loaded Cleveland Indians in the A.L. Central even though the Twins have the smallest payroll in baseball by far. Brad Radke is finally living up to his pitching potential. LaTroy Hawkins is saving more games than a video game memory card. Best of all, fans are starting to come out to the Metro Dome. To steal a quote from "Field of Dreams": "If you build it, they will come."

Downtrodden teams can look at Minnesota as the light at the end of the small-market tunnel. Frugal spending and excellent scouting can allow small-market teams to compete with the likes of the Yankees, on a short-term basis, at least.

How's this for karma: Last season Atlanta Braves "fans" became so bored with playoff baseball they didn't even buy enough tickets to sellout Turner Stadium during playoff games against the Cardinals. This season the Braves are playing brutal baseball, hovering around .500, and they just might miss the playoffs for the first time in over a decade, which shouldn't really bother their yawning "fans". (Note: Any person who doesn't find playoff baseball to be exciting is not a true baseball fan. Any person who claims to be a baseball fan, and who doesn't find home team playoff baseball to be exciting should have themselves checked for emotion deficiency.) This bit of karma leaves the door open for the Philadelphia Phillies to march into the playoffs. Something tells me that Philly fans wouldn't be bored with playoff baseball.

The mid-market Mariners have been dominating the American League so much this season that their karma could be called "Karma Sutra"; they've been putting a professional-quality spanking on just about every team they've faced. Seattle's karma train got under way in the offseason when Alex Rodriguez sold himself to the Texas Rangers. Texas is in last place in the A.L. West, while the Mariners, minus A-Rod, are easily the best team in baseball. If that's not karma, I don't know what is.

Maybe it's karma, or maybe the planets are aligned just right. Whatever the reason, the gap between the haves and have nots this season is not as wide as the Grand Canyon, which is quite a switch from seasons past. How long can small-market Minnesota keep up their scorching play? If karma has anything to do with it, it's all the way to the postseason. If the all-mighty dollar has anything to do with it, the Twins will fade as quickly as they've arrived. Only time will tell, but I will be rooting for karma.

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