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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
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The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Luis Suarez's refusal to shake hands with Patrice Evra overshadowed Manchester United's 2-1 win over rival Liverpool that lifted the defending champions to first place in the Premier League on Saturday.
Marlies Schild of Austria won her sixth World Cup slalom of the season Saturday after overall leader Lindsey Vonn and defending champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch crashed out in the opening run on the windy Pyrenees course.
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AP file
MINNEAPOLIS - Carl Pohlad, a billionaire banker whose Minnesota Twins won two World Series titles during nearly his nearly quarter-century as owner, died Monday. He was 93.
The Twins and Major League Baseball each issued a statement confirming his death. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig called Pohlad “a true leader in our sport for the past 25 years.”
“Since the day Carl Pohlad entered Major League Baseball, he made significant contributions to our game,” Selig said. “His devotion to the Minnesota Twins, the Twin Cities and Major League Baseball was remarkable. In my long career, I have never met a more loyal and caring human being. We will miss Carl and all of baseball joins me in sending our deepest condolences to the Pohlad family for the loss of our friend and partner.”
According to 2008 rankings by Forbes.com, Pohlad’s net worth of $3.6 billion was second among Minnesotans and 102nd in the nation. Still, his teams often had some of the lowest payrolls in baseball.
“We’ve loved and respected him and are enormously proud of his accomplishments. And we will all miss him deeply,” read a joint statement from Pohlad’s three sons, Bob, Jim and Bill.
They continued: “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.”
When Pohlad bought the Twins from Calvin Griffith in 1984, he was widely credited for saving baseball in Minnesota. With the purchase, he inherited a promising group of young players that included Gary Gaetti, Kent Hrbek and future Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett.
Minnesota won World Series championships in 1987 and 1991, triumphing in tense seven-game showdowns against the St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves.
“I live and die by every pitch,” Pohlad once told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I want so badly for them to win. ... If it isn’t competitive and you don’t have a team with character, it won’t be any fun.”
Funeral services will be held Thursday at The Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis. Pohlad died at his home in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis, with many family members and caregivers there with him in recent days.
It was at Pohlad’s home, following a fancy dinner, where Puckett’s agent, Ron Shapiro, reached agreement with the Twins in the wee hours of a December 1992 night on a $30 million, five-year contract that kept Puckett in Minnesota despite bigger offers elsewhere. Pohlad vetoed a deal that summer that was $2.5 million cheaper, but he gave his approval once it was clear Puckett could leave.
“When push came to shove, he knew the value of Kirby Puckett and the value to the community,” Shapiro said Monday.
He got to know Pohlad well over the years.
“He always had a smile, but his brain never stopped working on business deals,” Shapiro said. “He was an intense businessman, but that quality of integrity and gentlemanly conduct — though he stuck hard to what he believed — really stood out to me.”
The Metrodome, built inexpensively to open in 1982, was criticized for a stuffy, artificial atmosphere. Revenue streams were also limited, which hurt the Twins’ ability to keep up with bigger-spending teams in bigger media markets. As the team hinted it could leave, Pohlad’s reputation took a hit.
He threatened to sell the club to North Carolina investor Don Beaver in 1997, a deal later shown to be a maneuver to convince the state to sign off on new-stadium funding. The legislative session that year was particularly acrimonious, with opponents criticizing the size of public financing bills and arguing that Pohlad should offer more of his own money for a stadium.
Upset by the lack of stadium progress, Selig floated the idea of eliminating the Twins, a plan blocked in court before the 2002 season. But word leaked that a frustrated Pohlad had volunteered his team as a contraction candidate in return for a $150 million buyout from his fellow owners.
After a decade-long pursuit, the Twins got the go-ahead from the state in 2006 for a $522 million stadium paid for mostly by a county sales tax. The team’s contribution was about $130 million, and Target Field is set to open in April 2010.
“I told Carl a long time ago, in life you’ll be forgiven for everything except one thing: being successful,” businessman Irwin Jacobs, a longtime friend and business partner, once said. “People are going to be jealous. You know, he made good, and he did it on his own.”
Born poor in Iowa, Pohlad spent many years far from the celebrity culture of professional sports, building a fortune in banking, real estate and other ventures in the Upper Midwest. Following World War II, he and his brother-in-law, Russell Stotesbury, assumed control of a small bank holding company in Minneapolis and slowly built his small empire from there.
A football player at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., who served in the Army during World War II, Pohlad remained active into his 80s before a variety of back, hip and leg ailments made it hard to get around and ultimately impossible to walk.
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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Doron Lamb hit a 3-pointer with 3:18 left to put No. 1 Kentucky ahead to stay, and the Wildcats took a big step toward a Southeastern Conference regular-season title by beating Vanderbilt 69-63 Saturday night for their 17th straight win.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.