Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building part of deal for Santana

NEW YORK, NY — Controversy is whipping through the streets of New York City today, as previously undisclosed details from the Mets’ trade for Johan Santana have come to light.

Residents of the city’s Midtown neighborhood were shocked to wake up this morning to a construction crew lifting the Empire State Building onto an elaborate truck-and-trailer system for transportation to Minneapolis, where – along with the Statue of Liberty, which is headed for St. Paul – it will now become a defining mark of Minnesota’s Twin Cities. SSNN has learned that these two buildings, in addition to several other New York City assets were actually included in the Mets’ deal for Johan Santana, which was originally thought to involve only a handful of minor league prospects.

“I’ll admit, I was a little confused when the deal first came across the wire. Carlos Gomez? That’s the big payoff? It seemed weird, you know, with all these teams supposedly after him,” Minneapolis resident Nathan Fisher said when informed of the full details of the trade. “I just figured with Santana being the best pitcher in baseball, and the Yankees and Red Sox and Mets all bidding against each other, that we’d get more back in return than a few mid-level prospects and Carlos Gomez. Now, obviously, it makes much more sense.”

Though the landmarks were certainly important components to New York’s offer for Santana, the reported dealbreaker was the addition of Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, a long time Brooklyn institution. According to Twins GM Bill Smith, he was leaning towards a deal with Boston before Grimaldi’s was added to the Mets’ package.

“Certainly we place a lot of value in the acquisition of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. All the residents of the beautiful Twin Cities have always seen ourselves as a shining bastion of freedom, and those two monuments will paint that picture quite nicely, I’m sure,” Smith told SSNN. “But we could have had any number of national treasures from Boston – I’m not going to get into details, but let’s just say some important stops along the Freedom Trail were on the table. But Grimaldi’s? You can’t get a slice like that in Beantown. But now you can in Minneapolis!”

Though the price for Santana was clearly higher than originally thought, Mets GM Omar Minaya doesn’t believe he overpaid.

“Well, we were certainly reluctant to add Grimaldi’s to the deal; I won’t deny that,” Minaya admitted. “But at the end of the day, the Hoboken and Garden City locations are still available to the citizens of New York. Would I have preferred that they accept our initial offer of the Knicks instead of the pizzeria? Sure. But I did what I had to do to make our team better, and I won’t apologize – not for a building being uprooted here or there, and not for the loss of Grimaldi’s original Brooklyn location.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!