Earlier this month, the Pohlad family announced they would explore selling the Minnesota Twins. This unexpected announcement came on the heels of a disappointing season in which a talented but injury-prone team listlessly limped its way out of the playoffs after a promising summer.
Sports franchises are both profitable and a status symbol among the wealthy, so the Pohlads will likely find a willing buyer. There are just two questions. 1) Will that buyer share a commitment to building a world class team here in Minnesota? And, 2) will the buyer be an evil Bond villain and/or annoying cryptocurrency advocate? The chances of both questions being answered “yes” is better than both questions being answered “no.”
This could become only the second time the club changes hands. The Griffiths family founded the franchise as the Washington Senators in 1901 and held it until the late Carl Pohlad bought it in 1984. His family now runs the team. Pohlad paid $44 million and his family now stands to sell the team for an estimated $1.5 billion. That’s a tidy profit for a team that so routinely disappoints busloads of children.
There’s no arguing that the team has a knack for winning low stakes games while being badly outmatched in high stakes games. New management could help. So, let’s consider some of the new ownership possibilities.
The first and most obvious option would be to entice a wealthy Minnesotan to keep the team local. But while Minnesota is a prosperous state, billionaires tend to want to hide their money in tax shelters elsewhere.
Minnesota’s two wealthiest citizens are Glen Taylor and Stanley Hubbard. They’re probably the only ones with enough cash in the bank to pay the estimated asking price. But given their ages, it’s unlikely they’re looking to start a new adventure with the Minnesota Twins. Taylor almost sold the Wolves last year, so adding the Twins seems doubly unlikely.
To run a good team, you’ve got to be willing to hire a guy to throw a ball for $20 million per year, but he only throws every five days so you have to hire four more. That doesn’t seem like something your average billionaire would be into. Something must be wrong with them.
Another path might be to find a wealthy former resident of Twins Country. James J. Hill, perhaps, or maybe Jay Gatsby. Check that. Hill is dead and Gatsby hasn’t been seen since his pool party.
No, we’re going to need to be more creative. It’s time to call Bob Dylan.
Dylan is a busy guy, still touring his rock ’n’ roll band at age 83. Dylan might not be an expert in sports management, but making money off expensive music shows can’t be that much different, or easier. The big appeal here is that Dylan loves to reinvent himself every few years. In recent years, he’s sold whiskey, metal sculptures, underwear and probably some stuff we don’t even know about.
The more I talk about this, the more I want to manifest this reality. Imagine it! The Twins win the World Series, breaking a [muffled voice] year championship drought. Look, there’s manager Joe Mauer! There’s free agent acquisition Shohei Ohtani! Oh, and rookie phenom [your child’s name]. And there’s Bob, in all his glory. White suit with a sparkly black Stetson.
“Bob, what’s it like bringing the Twins to the mountaintop?”
“I know they’re putting something in them hot dogs. They don’t taste right. So I made my own.”
“What do you have to say to your team?”
“Watch out for scorpions. They’re in your lunchbox.”
Bob’s got some money, but if he doesn’t have enough, he just has to say the word. Ten-thousand ex-hippie baby boomer venture capitalists will race to his house like Dustin Hoffman to the church at the end of “The Graduate.”
We should make this happen, if only for the 12-minute rockabilly version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” that would surely ensue.
Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and co-hosts the podcast “Power in the Wilderness” on Northern Community Radio. This piece first appeared in the Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 edition of the Mesabi Tribune.
Oh, absolutely!