MINNEAPOLIS--State lawmakers gave final approval Sunday to a new open-air stadium for the Minnesota Twins, which will be ready in time for the 2010 season. The $522 million stadium will be paid for mostly by taxpayers, who look forward to watching it on TV because it’s cheaper than actually buying a ticket.

“Yes! New stadium, baby! Twins fans deserve this!” said Gregg Aldrige, 34, lifelong Twins fan. “I've been following the Twins for years and I can't take that stupid Metrodome anymore. Now we’ll have a crisp, clean, pretty, open-air ballpark, which is going to look great on my new hi-def TV. Maybe I’ll go to a few games in person, too, if I win them from a radio station. Or maybe I’ll get a free ticket from my brother-in-law, who works for a corporation.”

Aldrige, like many fans, said he doesn’t need to go to the games to enjoy the new ballpark.

“Just knowing that it’s there is good enough for me,” he said. “Obviously modern ballparks are for wealthy people or people who get free tickets from work, or people who are so smitten by the thought of bringing the family to the ballpark that they’ll drop 300 bucks to do so. Me? I’m just glad my Twins won’t be playing in an oversized garbage can anymore. Not until 2020, anyway, when the ballpark is totally gross and antiquated.”

The state will use a .15 percent sales tax to pay for the construction of the ballpark, an amount so minimal that the average taxpayer won’t even notice it. For the fans of Minnesota, it’s a small price to pay for a gleaming new palace for their beloved Twins.

“Yes, they’re using our tax dollars to pay for it, but it’s only .15 percent,” said fan Sean McCarty. “Plus, our tax money goes to stupider crap than that anyway. At least this is something that we want. You also have to remember that a new ballpark will create thousands – no, millions – of new jobs and result in an economic revival in the city that will make all of us stinking rich. Okay I’m exaggerating. It won’t do anything. But it will have a cool jumbotron.”

The new stadium won’t be just a baseball field. There will be luxury boxes, a theme restaurant, and twice as many concession stands as there are in the Metrodome. Those exciting features will lead to an increase in revenue which will lead to a more competitive product on the field.

“This isn’t your daddy’s ballpark,” said Twins president Dave St. Peter. “We’re going to have all kinds of crap in there. We’ll even have a theme restaurant. A theme restaurant! Everybody loves theme restaurants! And we have all kinds of concessions and merchandise and beer and whatever else you can dream up so fans won’t be able to walk two steps without being bombarded with something to buy. We’re even installing special toilets for them to flush their money down. Just kidding! We actually tried that but it didn’t work. They kept getting clogged up.”

Approval for the new ballpark comes after years of struggle by Twins owner Carl Pohlad, who threatened to move the team to another city if a deal couldn’t be made. Pohlad himself put up just $130 million for the new stadium despite being one of the richest men in America.

“That’s a really sweet deal if I ever saw one,” Pohlad said. “I wanted a new ballpark for the people of Minnesota but I didn’t want to pay too much of my own money. This way, it’s the people’s stadium because it’s being paid for largely by the people. Of course I’ll still sell the naming rights. It’s probably going to be US Bancorp Field or the Target Center 2 or something. And no, that money will not be used to sign high-profile free agents. Duh! That's why we get revenue sharing checks.”

  Copyright 2006, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.

Copyright 2005, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.