An argument for Carl Pohlad

If George Steinbrenner is viewed by the public as the only embodiment of the owner as simulacrum of his team that is because we in America love money, and we in America love New York.

Steinbrenner, with his loose temper, his loose money, his open-discourse regarding players, coaches, and the press has created a persistent and honest belief that he is the perfect New York Owner of the perfect New York Team. And as Steinbrenner has fallen ill it has driven up a fair amount of conversation regarding “what becomes of the Yankees” with Steinbrenner no longer steering?

This is a unique position for the owner of any major sports franchise. Owners are, ostensibly, supposed to remain in the background. They are the wheel, but we are only supposed to see the spinners - the G.M’s making the moves, the players on the field. The owner typically stays in the box suite occasionally being seen, occasionally being quoted, but mainly acting as the bank while the world watches what the spenders do with its money.

Steinbrenner is great for sports in that he is unique as a owner. He is splintering and aggravating for anyone who doesn’t believe in the Yankee idea. But, of course, Steinbrenner has believed so thoroughly in the Yankee idea that he has come in many ways to be it’s mirror reflection.

When Steinbrenner says that owning the Yankees is like “owning the Mona Lisa,” we know he means it, and we also may wonder if he could own the Mona Lisa.

There have been owners in other sports who have tried to re-create that over-bearing style of ownership that Steinbrenner pioneered, and they all come off looking foolish. Mark Cuban and Marge Schott have failed miserably. Al Davis can’t figure out when to get out of the spot light. Jerry Jones may be a contemporary but he has always struck me as the Donovan to Steinbrenner’s Dylan…a good carbon-copy, but put them in the same room and there really isn’t a comparison.

Steinbrenner is one-in-a-million, he was pure New York and pure Yankees and the most well known owner in all of sports. He fit his team perfectly.

And so did Carl Pohlad.

Pohlad, who died on Monday at the age of 93, was always vilified by Twins fans. They thought he was cheap. They thought he was greedy. They thought he didn’t care whether his team stayed in town or went to North Carolina.

Some of that is true, but what it underscores is simply that Twins fans wanted Pohlad to be Steinbrenner or at least Jerry Reinsdorf. But the Twins don’t play in New York and they don’t play in Chicago; they play in Minnesota, where Carl Pohlad lived and died. And his team, in my opinion, came to represent the idea of Carl Pohlad’s life as purely as any connection between New York and The Boss.

When Pohlad bought the team in 1984 the Twins hadn’t won a division championship in 13 years. In his seven years as owner the Twins would win two world championships in 1987 and 1991.

From 1992-2001 the Twins never won a world series; the Twins never reached the playoffs; the Twins lost 90 or more games five times in that stretch.

Recently the team has seen several successes, including four division championships in seven years on a hamstring budget.

What does this have to do with Carl Pohlad as an owner? Very little.

Some Twins fans would say that the losing seasons, the low-budget operations, the almost mind-numbing lack of major free agent signings have everything to do with Pohlad. He is viewed as the multi-billionaire who will not spare a cent. You can imagine a crotchety life-long Twins fan sitting at a diner in Minneapolis recounting a story of how a friend of his saw Pohlad spit in a homeless man’s change cup.

But it seems that if anything the Twins major philosophy of working from the bottom-up, of working through the draft and through the minors and through fundamentals fits right in-line with a billionaire who was born to a poor family, fought in WWII, received the Purple Heart, and created his own fortune.

Now, there is the view that because Pohlad made that fortune by foreclosing on farms in the Great Depression that he is actually a swindler. That he is Mr. Potter: a rich and opportunistic man who takes from the less fortunate and hordes for himself and that this business model translated to his ownership of the Twins (the idea being that Twins fans are somehow the “broke farmers of the Great Depression”).

Still, I would be hard-pressed to point a finger at a man for how he makes his money. I would also be hard-pressed to tell anyone how to spend their money.

Pohlad wasn’t just tight with his money when it came to the Twins, he was tight with it in all regards. His son Robert was quoted in the Star Tribune saying, “I think he truly believes that if he doesn’t work hard, he’s gonna be back on a food line or a bread line … looking for his next meal.”

That may aggravate people who see Pohlad’s billions and ignore that he is just a man with a family who has seen what the bottom-of-the-barrel looks like.

Sports fans are an interesting group in that we think that we are owed something by our team. That our owners should spend their money (of which they often have excesses) for our personal entertainment. But, what guarantee does that actually give?

If Pohlad had spent and spent and spent on this team. If he had foregone his basic business philosophy of smart money, tight-circles, and hard work would the Twins have won more? Would he be more beloved?

The Yankees spent over three times as much money as the Twins did last year, they won 89 games while the Twins won 88 - and both teams missed the playoffs. The Yankees went out and spent more money this off-season than any team in the history of sports, and they may be a better team for it.

The Twins spent next to nothing this off-season on free agents and as fans we wonder what kind of team they will field next season. What we do know though is that how good they are as a team will depend not on their money spent but on the development of a core-group of players that have been in the organization for years and have had to get better and better for the team to compete.

While it may be difficult for fans to accept, this operating style is perfectly reflective of Pohlad.

From all indications Pohlad never told the day-to-day baseball operations how to spend their money. Terry Ryan and Bill Smith have been quoted numerous times saying that finances never really came into question when they were looking at singing free agents. It was more of a question of value for cost.

It was always viewed as a decision based on common-sense and asset protection. You know, if you’re not careful you can end up in that bread line again.

Pohlad’s business model for the Twins didn’t fit in with a lot of the sports fans in Minnesota. Instead, it simply fit in with who Carl Pohlad was, and what he believed in - for better or worse.