Twins President Dave St. Peter "wasn't amused by ESPN2 host Keith Olbermann making sport Wednesday night of the team's recent marketing survey," which asked season-ticket holders "which auto brand was most similar to the Twins' brand," according to Mike Berardino of the ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS. "Yugo" was not one of the choices on the actual survey, but that "was Olbermann's punch-line suggestion." Olbermann said on his show, "Boxy, underpowered, tough to watch, unsuccessful on the road and not bought by anybody in this country since 1992." St. Peter said of Olbermann's bit, "He's missing the six division titles in nine years (from 2002-2010), but that's OK. He's entitled to his opinion." St. Peter also "shed additional light on the regular surveys issued by the Twins' marketing department." St. Peter: "We fully understand the on-field product is not what it needs to be. We're not tone deaf. We get it. But at the same time we also have to understand what our fan base wants and ultimately what they think about the Twins." He added of the auto-based question mocked by Olbermann, "It's one question of 600 questions that have been asked over the course of the summer. You want to pick one question? Go for it" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 9/5).
OLBERMANN RESPONDS: Olbermann on Thursday's show responded to St. Peter's comments and said of "missing" the Twins' six division titles, "I'm missing them? The Twins fans are the ones who are missing them after the team committed all its money to a first baseman and a catcher whose power would vanish when they changed ballparks." He added of his criticism of the survey, "What would I know about marketing? I only helped put this company in orbit in the ‘90s and then helped this down and out news network (MSNBC) bootstrap itself with viral video 10 years ago, so I'm clearly too dumb to understand the marketing." Olbermann: "Here's something even a moron like me understands: If you're asking what kind of car brand you are and all the choices are good choices, the answers are automatically meaningless and will give you no real sense of how poorly you're doing running what was once one of the two or three most vibrant franchises in the majors that got a free $545 million stadium just four years ago courtesy of the taxpayers who are now being asked, ‘Are we great or are we merely good?’” (“Olbermann,” ESPN2, 9/4).
