bobrob2004 DTF1 MODERATOR Detroit Tiger
Number of posts : 10646 Age : 38 Location : Warren, MI Reputation : 12 Registration date : 2007-10-05
| Subject: Longtime Twins owner Carl Pohlad, 93, dies Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:41 pm | |
| Longtime Twins owner Carl Pohlad, 93, dies
Carl Pohlad, a working-poor son of the Great Depression who became one of America's wealthiest dealmakers, died at his Edina home Monday. He was 93.
A financier who came to be best known through his 1984 acquisition of the Minnesota Twins, Pohlad also headed a family-owned network of banking, bottling, real estate and other companies.
Forbes magazine said in its annual ranking in September that Pohlad was worth an estimated $3.6 billion, making him the 102nd richest person in America.
But Pohlad, who once returned a Rolls Royce he'd received as a birthday gift because it attracted too much attention, was generally a private man. He fulfilled his prediction of never retiring because business and deals were as critical to him as breathing.
The family, through a spokesperson, said Pohald died in the presence of his three sons, their wives, many of his grandchildren and caregivers. Funeral arrangements are pending.
"Carl was the leader of our family as well as the founder and leader of our family businesses," the family's statement said. "We've loved and respected him and are enormously proud of his accomplishments. And we will all miss him deeply."
Born in 1915, the third of eight children, Pohlad grew up working in the fields around a rail-crossing hamlet near Des Moines.
His mother, Mary, who died in 2000 at age 104, was the driver of the family, extolling the virtues of hard work as she cleaned houses and did laundry for others. Pohlad's father, Mike, who died in the 1960s, was a railroad brakeman.
Carl Pohlad was a serious boy, who excelled at sports and reading. As a youth, he organized a group of boys to pick cockleburs out of cornfields for 25 cents an hour, pocketing a nickel from each as commission.
After graduating from high school in Iowa, he went to California and sold used cars before winning a football scholarship to Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., in 1937. When not playing ball he earned money boxing in clubs along the West Coast. | |
|
gs78 Detroit Tiger
Number of posts : 27687 Age : 45 Location : Trashy Park Michigan Favorite Current Tiger(s) : Dontrelle Willis, Brandon Inge, Maggs, Verlander, Granderson, Pudge and Todd Jones Reputation : 9 Registration date : 2007-10-06
| Subject: Re: Longtime Twins owner Carl Pohlad, 93, dies Wed Jan 21, 2009 7:59 pm | |
| | |
|