Update: Ryan of commenting fame is correct; the body of the email Smith sent was, indeed, from Darren Rovell’s Friday post from his excellent Sports Biz blog. We had not seen that post, which also contained the graphic Smith sent us. We’ve updated the post to reflect the new information …

Twins executive Kevin Smith — not to be confused with the director of Clerks and other fine movies, though we never have seen them in the same room together — passes along some refreshing information about beer and the price per ounce at all 30 Major League stadiums. Using research from Team Marketing Report, it turns out the Twins are the second-cheapest in baseball, coming in at a respectable 27 cents/ounce (which, if you’re scoring at home, works out to $3.24 for the equivalent of a 12 ounce bottle). Now, Smith likely wouldn’t have passed this on to the slobbering media if the Twins had been, say, No. 23 in baseball — but for anyone who has been to a bar in the greater Twin Cities area, a little over $3 for a beer sounds fairly reasonable (and if you prefer backless shirts as part of your scenery, three bucks is downright cheap). The message here seems to be that, at least in comparison to other parks and other destinations, you’re not getting ripped off buying beer at a Twins game — a notion that stands in stark contrast to popular opinion. The report also notes that Boston charges 60 cents per ounce, which works out to $7.20 for a bottle of beer. You’re likely to pay, though, for the Fenway experience and also to ease the back/neck pain obtained while sitting in the Fenway seats. Additionally, if you wring out and drink all the beer from your shirt spilled on you by the local Fenway drunks, you can achieve a considerable savings. Finally, Darren Rovell’s original post made a passing reference to Cleveland’s 10-cent beer night in 1974 (which in today’s dollars would still be a bargain at 44-cent beer night), in which he noted a fact we had forgotten: patrons could buy six cups of beers at a time. Why even set a limit if the limit is six? The Twins, at the very least, have a limit of two hot dogs (per trip) on Wednesdays — a frustrating but necessary rule designed to save us from ourselves. In any event, many thanks to everyone involved for this diligent beer research, and to Smith for passing it along. We’re not sure if it falls under the “Public Affairs” or “Minnesota Twins Community Fund” portion of his job title, but we’d like to think it’s a little of both.

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