Legacy, loyalty, finances defined Twins owner

Carl Pohlad liked to tell the story of the 1984 night he told his wife, Eloise, that he had completed purchasing the Twins.

"I went home about midnight," Pohlad recalled in a 2004 interview, "woke Eloise and said, 'I bought the baseball team,' and she said, 'Are you crazy?' But she enjoyed it more than any of us did."

Baseball gave Pohlad plenty of enjoyment, too.

He died Monday at age 93 after 25 seasons owning the Twins through some major highs and lows.

The Twins won World Series titles in 1987 and 1991 before entering a dark period that included repeated losses, a 10-year struggle to get a new ballpark approved, a threat to move to North Carolina, the threat of contraction and the rebirth of the franchise in 2001.

Over the past seven years, the Twins have won four division titles, and that new ballpark going up on the west side of downtown Minneapolis, set to open in 2010, is a testament to the Pohlad family's persistence.

"Financially, this has not been what you'd call a successful investment from a pure numbers standpoint," Pohlad said in that 2004 interview. "But when you take into consideration the other things -- family enjoyment and participation -- our family has never once regretted that we got into this."

Eloise Pohlad, Carl's wife of 56 years, died in November 2003. They attended nearly every home game together, and she was said to have played a big part in keeping Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett from free agency.

Without Eloise, Pohlad still attended most games until his health worsened in recent years. Through last season, Pohlad sometimes would sit in his wheelchair outside the Twins' clubhouse, with manager Ron Gardenhire hunched over to speak into his ear.

Pohlad was ranked the 102nd-richest American by Forbes magazine in September, with a net worth of $3.6 billion. His success in other businesses only left Twins fans clamoring for him to spend more money on players.

But he didn't let the Twins stray from their mid-market roots. Pohlad ran the Twins like any other business and showed remarkable patience with his key decisionmakers.

The team has had two presidents, three general managers and two managers since 1986.

That year, Pohlad hired a young baseball executive named Andy MacPhail as the Twins' general manager. MacPhail fired manager Ray Miller and replaced him with third-base coach Tom Kelly.

By 1987, MacPhail had assembled and Kelly had molded a champion. The Twins, with the worst record of any team in the playoffs, upset the Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series, then upset the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

In 1991, another upset. After a last-place finish the previous season, the Twins defeated the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALCS before taking down the Atlanta Braves in the World Series.

Pohlad presided over Minnesota's only two major pro sports championships. He also presided over a team-record eight straight losing seasons, from 1993 to 2000, before the team righted itself this decade.

Buying the team

Pohlad was credited with keeping the Twins from leaving the state when he bought the team from original owner Calvin Griffith in 1984.

"Let's make Minnesota a real major league baseball town,'' Pohlad said then.

Pohlad bought 53 percent of the Twins' stock from Griffith and his sister, Thelma Haynes, culminating a five-year quest to buy the team.

At the same time, he bought the 42 percent minority stock originally owned by Gabe Murphy of Washington, D.C., and sold conditionally to a group from Tampa, Fla.

The estimated price of those deals was $38 million, plus interest to be paid on the long-term notes of the Griffith family and Murphy.

In April, Forbes estimated the value of the Twins at $328 million.

After selling the team to Pohlad, Griffith said, "We were very selective in picking a man to take over for the Griffith family. Carl had been talking to me on and off for about 10 years. We had him in mind. We did talk to 20 or 30 people who wanted to purchase the Twins. We selected Carl because we knew he was a true Minnesotan and has done a whole lot for this area.

"Being associated with Carl is just like being involved with a brother. I know we will have a great relationship.''

Griffith had threatened to try to move the Twins, and the Tampa group had expressed interest in buying the team, but Pohlad's purchase of the team erased any chance of the Twins' leaving at that time.

Change in image

Years later, in the late 1990s, Pohlad would use the same ploy -- threatening to exercise an attendance clause in his Metrodome lease to free the Twins from their Minnesota ties.

When the Twins began to lose and the economics of baseball changed in the mid-'90s, Pohlad complained of the Twins' operating losses. Twins executives estimated that he lost $9.2 million in 1998.

His friend and business partner, Irwin Jacobs, said, "I think he wonders himself'' why he bought the team. Jacobs said Pohlad was "in agony,'' having to choose between running a team that was constantly losing money or moving the team and becoming a pariah in the community where he and his sons live.

In 1997, Pohlad agreed to a tentative sale of the team to North Carolina businessman Don Beaver. (The deal would fall through when North Carolinians voted down a proposal to build a new stadium.)

Pohlad then offered a series of plans to the Minnesota public to try to gain support for the funding of a new stadium that he says would have made the Twins profitable and competitive -- and would have ensured that they would stay in Minnesota.

In 1997, Pohlad's original public offer was to contribute $82.5 million to the deal. Days later, the public learned that the money actually would be a loan that would be repaid with interest by the state -- a revelation that damaged Pohlad's credibility in the debate.

Later he offered to contribute 49 percent of the team to the state while his family kept 51 percent. The state would be obligated to pick up his family's investment if Pohlad wanted to sell the club to the state.

Pohlad worried about his financial losses as well as his family's legacy in Minnesota.

"When you speak of legacy, that's a very difficult thing,'' he said. "... It will have to be what it is because there's no way we can continue the way we are.''

Team's change of fortune

The low point came in November 2001, when major league owners voted to contract the Twins and Montreal Expos, with other major league officials confirming that Pohlad had given his approval.

"It was terrible," Pohlad said in 2004. "But once again, the facts speak for themselves. We were losing on the average of $15 million to $17 million a year. How would you feel if you had a chance to get out of it with all your money?"

The Twins remained in Minnesota when a series of court decisions forced them to finish out their lease at the Metrodome. It made for quite a story, as the Twins returned to the postseason in 2002, though Pohlad and Commissioner Bud Selig had been cast as villains.

Local sentiment toward Pohlad remained hardened as the Twins added division titles in 2003 and 2004. But the team's future in the state was secured when legislators approved the new ballpark in May 2006.

Pohlad remained under fire for his cheap streak after the 2007 season, as the Twins lost Torii Hunter to free agency and traded away Johan Santana. But opinion softened a bit when the Twins signed Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer and Joe Nathan to long-term contracts.

Pohlad said his fondest memory was the ceremony celebrating the Twins' 1987 title.

"The World Series didn't do the same thing that night did for me when I walked around and saw all the families there,'' he said. "For whatever small part I played in bringing that event there and making that many people happy, so to speak, it was worth everything I've ever done and all the criticisms I've ever received with respect to baseball."