Carl Pohlad was the man Twins fans liked to hate. From his frugal ways with running the Minnesota Twins, to his threats of selling the Twins to an East Coast owner when the Legislature failed to build a new stadium, to allowing the Twins and Montreal to be put on Major League Baseball’s list of teams to “contract,” Carl Pohlad was often the brunt of fan criticism.

But Carl Pohlad, who died Monday at age 93, was a very complicated and private man. He and his late wife, Eloise, donated millions of dollars to numerous charities, both within and without baseball.

Worth $3.6 billion, Pohlad was easily the wealthiest owner of a Major League Baseball team. Yet, the Minneapolis-St. Paul market is considered small in comparison to other MLB franchises. One finds it hard to understand how he could compete with the likes of George Steinbrenner, the New York Yankees owner with an open checkbook. Often, Steinbrenner would scoop up a signature player at a cost Pohlad paid for the whole Twins team.

Yet, under Pohlad’s acute business sense, he was able to build a young Twins team for the future, a team built on loyalty and devotion to Midwest baseball. The results — two World Series championships, the first in the franchise’s history. From Kent Hrbek to Kirby Puckett to manager Tom Kelly, Pohlad was able to string together a successful team that became a family and delivered to Twins fans not only the World Series championships, but a very competitive team year after, a tradition that continues today.

And, Pohlad got his stadium.

He won’t be there when the Twins open the 2010 season there, but his sons — Bob, Jim and Bill — said in a statement Monday that “we want to assure everyone that we will continue Dad’s work and his legacy, just as he would have wanted and as he has prepared us to do.”

We hope so, too, and believe a Pohlad-run Twins team will be on the field in Minnesota for a long time to come.

— The Bemidji Pioneer, Jan. 7