Posted on 01/05/2009 3:33:43 PM PST by Borges
Carl Pohlad, a savvy rags-to-riches financier who bought the Minnesota Twins in 1984, died today at his Edina home, a Twins executive said today.
Pohlad died about 2 p.m. today, according to Twins Sports Inc. president Jerry Bell. Pohlad, 93, oversaw the Twins’ World Series championships in 1987 and 1991.
In March of last year, his son, Jim Pohlad, CEO of Twins Sports Inc., said the family intends to own the franchise far into the future.
Pohlad earned his first dollar as a teenager in Dubuque, Iowa, going door to door during the Great Depression collecting unpaid debts. He was adventurous in his early years, occasionally hopping freight trains and boxing as a semi-pro.
When World War II broke out, Pohlad joined the U.S. Army and served as an infantryman in Europe, earning three purple hearts and two bronze stars and leaving as a lieutenant.
After the war he returned to the Midwest, and expanded his fortune.
In 1947 Pohlad married Eloise O’Rourke of Dubuque, Iowa, where he was working at a finance company.
Two years later he came to Minneapolis to run Marquette Bank after he and investment partners had bought Bank Shares Inc., the firm that owned Marquette. Marquette Bank grew after the war and in 1955, when an investment partner died, Pohlad became CEO and president of the bank.
In the 1990s, he sold Marquette Bank to First Bank Systems, which later became U.S. Bancorp.
“The guy’s been a businessman in Minnesota and the Dakotas every since he got back from the war,” Clark Griffth —whose father, the late Calvin Griffith, sold the Twins to Pohlad in 1984 — said several years ago. “He can be a very charming fellow … (and) he can be a very tough guy.”
He was still president of Marquette Financial Companies, chairman of Mair Holdings, Inc.; and a director of Genmar Holdings Inc., according to the Twins’ 2008 media guide.
Pohlad was active in the community, though usually behind the scenes, and served as a director of the Minneapolis Area Chamber of Commerce in the late 1950s. In 2008, Pohlad ranked 102nd on Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion. He was the third wealthiest Minnesotan.
His wife, Eloise, died in 2003. Together they had three sons.
Love him or hate him, Carl kept baseball alive in Minnesota...
Requiescat In Pace.
You don't do that either as a coward or a putz.
He brought Minnesota its only championships.
We in Minnesota never knew about his war record.
I take back some of the nasty remarks I made about him.
RIP.
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