Most of the time I either ignore or mock Sid Hartman's ravings--it's better on the blood pressure. But this morning's Strib column, entitled "Minneapolis City Council could step up, but it won't," hit a nerve and continues to aggravate. So I guess today is the day to call out this asshole.

The thrust of the piece is that the City of Minneapolis won't step up and throw more money at the beleaguered new Twins stadium to bail out the inadequate planning done by Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat when financing the deal. Sid starts by recalling a meeting from 1995, when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was trying to move hockey's Winnipeg Jets into the Target Center.

Wheelock Whitney, one of the great civic leaders here, made a speech pointing out that Metropolitan Stadium, Met Center, Target Center and the Metrodome had been built without taxing the public. The Metrodome was funded on a liquor tax. And maybe this was the time for the city of Minneapolis to step up and provide some funding so the North Stars could be replaced. But the city council did nothing. And the Jets went to Phoenix and became the Coyotes. And though the NHL eventually returned with the Wild, Xcel Energy Center and Target Center continue to compete for big shows and lose money.

Leaving aside Sid's quaint notion that a liquor tax isn't a tax on the public, he conveniently forgets that 1995 was also the year the Minneapolis City Council agreed to purchase Target Center from original Wolves owners Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner for $85 million. Without that purchase, Glen Taylor wouldn't have bought the team and patrons in another city would have been watching Kevin Garnett for the past dozen years.

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Sid continues:

Well today, court hearings will be held on the condemnation situation of the land that will be home for the new Twins stadium. The price could come out a lot higher than the $13.5 million the space has been taxed on. The Pohlad family has agreed to pay an additional amount to help Hennepin Country [sic] when and if the condemnation comes out higher. But Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat points out that a lot of the infrastructure connected with the ballpark will have to be eliminated if the condemnation figure comes out high. Here would be a chance for Barbara Johnson, Lisa Goodman and other geniuses in the city council to say, "If that happens, we will contribute."

Again, it is difficult to know if Sid has been rendered stupid by his blatant, all-consuming self-interest or his advancing years; either way, he doesn't seem to understand the most fundamental aspects of the way the new Twins stadium is being funded. I'll make it as simple as possible. Johnson, Goodman, and every other member of the Minneapolis City Council represent people who live in Minneapolis. People who live in Minneapolis also live in Hennepin County, and thus quite understandably make the overwhelming bulk of their purchases within Hennepin County. The largest single source of funding for the new Twins stadium--far more than the contribution made by the team's billionaire owner, the wealthiest of all baseball owners, by the way--comes from an increase in the Hennepin County sales tax.

Memo to Sid: Johnson, Goodman and, more importantly, all the people they represent, are already contributing far more than their fair share of the stadium cost. Not only that, but after repeatedly voicing their opposition to funding new playgrounds for sports billionaires, and passing an citywide amendment to limit the City's contribution to any such boondoggle to $10 million, they had this burden unilaterally placed upon them by Governor Pawlenty and the Minnesota State Legislature, who had to pass and sign a bill specifically overruling a provision in state law that stipulated voter approval of projects like the Twins stadium through a democratic referendum. It is not the fault of Johnson, Goodman or the people of Minneapolis that one of the landowners on the proposed Twins stadium site has shrewdly bargained for the best deal he can get, a factor that somehow wasn't planned for when the Twins deal was being railroaded through the general public.

A minute ago I mentioned blatant self-interest on Sid's part. Most people are acquainted with his biography: How he grew up poor selling the paper he now writes for on the streetcorners; and how he is now worth millions and millions of dollars. Now very very few people work as hard as Sid Hartman, even in his mid-80s, and he has invested the money he has earned from his journalistic labors wisely. But the plain fact is that sports in Minnesota have been very very good to Sid. One might even suggest that before he belittles the representatives of Minneapolis taxpayers for not forking over more public dollars to enhance the entertainment experience of endeavors he just happens to make his living covering, he might want to consider his own lucrative and longstanding conflicts of interest on the subject. Maybe he could even rough out a personal profit/loss statement with respect to how ballparks have eased his existence, and make appropriate amends. Put up or shut up, I think it's called.

And because I don't plan on ever writing about Sid again, one parting shot. This is a guy who in the decades I have observed and read him, turns the feisty journalistic axiom on its head: He comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted. He is a slave to power, especially if the one wielding it has bullying tendencies, crawling furthest up the ass of people like Bob Knight and George Steinbrenner. And he is rude, mean and disparaging to those he considers beneath him in the social pecking order, especially but not exclusively with respect to media and communications assistants earning comparative peanuts trying to facilitate communication between petulant atheletes and team executives and journalists like me and Sid. Sid Hartman enables fascistic tendencies in human beings more than anyone I've ever met. Thank god he has devoted his boundless energy and passion to sports instead of politics.

Okay, end of rant. On an equally unpleasant subject, there are some who suggested over the weekend that Kevin Garnett's agent, Andy Miller, had either not consulted with his client or was merely posturing for a better contract down the road when he claimed Garnett would definitely opt out of his contract if traded to the Boston Celtics. In any event, now that both sides have simultaneously acknowledged that KG is on the trading block and, with conditions, amenable to being traded, it is probably impossible to stuff the genie back in the bottle. If a deal is contingent on a renegotiation of Garnett's contract after his opt-out year, that can't happen with another team until I believe July 1, but certainly after the draft, meaning that teams with earlier picks such as Atlanta or Boston, may be covertly doing the Wolves' bidding. At least that is the way one source explained it to me, and I hope I have portrayed it accurately.

David Brauer points out that a deal could be structured that gives the Wolves the package from the Celtics they supposedly wanted, and gets KG to Phoenix, where he wants to go. Here's how he pitches it:
The Celtics would get: Amare Stoudamire, James Jones, Boris Diaw, Marcus Banks and Troy Hudson. The Wolves would get Al Jefferson, the #5 overall draft pick, Wally Szczerbiak, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair and Theo Ratliff's expiring contract. Phoenix would get Kevin Garnett paired with Steve Nash and Shawn Marion, and, here's the rub, a huge hit on their salary cap, involving luxury tax dollars that Suns ownership says it doesn't want to pay.

The point is, the KG speculation game is almost certainly not going to end with Garnett staying in Minnesota; not after this much blood has been put in the water by both sides. As might be expected, the best clearinghouse for KG-related information around the net is at I Heart KG, which you can get to by hitting the link at the side of the page.

Finally, with the draft now just three days away, my tolerance for speculation is higher, to the point where I will throw up an open thread on Thursday morning for any and all who want to comment--the usual cavaet applies, however: no one-line ejaculations, or other stupidity. Keep it smart and original. Relying simply on what I have been told or inferred from sources I respect, some within the team, I think Minnesota will draft either Corey Brewer or Jeff Green at #7. I think Brewer will be gone by then (maybe to a team picking on the Wolves' behalf). I'm lousy at this sort of thing, but I'm guessing Green is the guy who gets announced on Thursday night.