HomeServices of America, a Minneapolis-based Berkshire Hathaway franchised real estate agency, announced President and CEO Gino Blefari has assumed the role of chairman emeritus with Chris Kelly, formerly executive vice president, succeeding Blefari as president and CEO. Blefari will continue as a strategic adviser to the organization.
ADVERTISING/PUBLIC RELATIONS
Minneapolis-based advertising agency Linnihan Foy announced that it has been named media agency for the 2025 Minnesota State Fair.
EDUCATION
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities announced it has named Shari Olson president of Northland Community & Technical College in East Grand Forks, Minn. Olson previously served as president in the Maricopa County Community College District at South Mountain Community College in Arizona. … Capella University, Minneapolis, announced the appointment of Karthik Iyappan Gunasekaran to its board of trustees. Gunasekaran most recently served as VP of AI and software products at the Project Management Institute; his résumé also includes business adviser at Harvard Innovation Labs and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and guest lecturer at Tufts University Gordon Institute. … Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, announced that John C. Volin will serve as president. Volin currently serves as the executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Maine; his appointment at Gustavus begins Aug. 15.
FEDERAL RESERVE
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis announced the appointment of four new members to its Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council: Kelly Skalicky, Stearns Bank, St. Cloud; Andrew Gesell, BankCherokee, St. Paul; Mike Hauswirth, Superior National Bank, Hancock, Mich., and Trina Hoff, Northern Communities Credit Union, Eveleth, Minn. The Minneapolis Fed’s region includes upper Michigan.
HEALTH CARE
Hazelden Betty FordFoundation, a Center City, Minn.-based substance addiction treatment and recovery program and facility, announced the hire of Marc Baer as chief operating officer. Baer most recently served as an officer and corporate vice president at Centene Corp. and also was an officer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.
HONORS
The U.S. Small Business Administration announced it has named Carol Anderson of Morrison County as the 2025 SBA Minnesota Women in Business Champion of the Year. Anderson has partnered with the Small Business Development Center, SCORE, Minnesota Business Finance Corp., and the Women’s Business Center, and currently serves as chairwoman of the MBFC board.
LAW
Maslon, Minneapolis, announced the addition of attorney Annika Misurya to the firm’s Litigation Group. Misurya has held leadership roles with Minnesota Women Lawyers and the Women’s White Collar Defense Association. … Fredrikson, Minneapolis, announced that attorney Warren Sexson has joined the firm as an associate in its Mergers & Acquisitions Group.
MANUFACTURING
SkyWater Technology, a Bloomington-based semiconductor foundry, announced the appointment of Percy V. Gilbert as senior vice president of engineering. Gilbert previously held senior roles at NXP Semiconductors and IBM Systems Group.
MARKETING
Patrick Campion announced the launch of Fame Sport, a sports marketing consultancy, in Minneapolis. Campion is a former VP of marketing at Sleep Number and the architect behind its NFL strategy. Campion is co-leading the venture with Lynne Robertson, who formerly owned Fame advertising agency.
MILESTONES
Frattallone’s Hardware & Garden announced it commemorated 50 years in business last month. Founded in Arden Hills by Larry Frattallone, who runs the business with his sons, Mike and Tom, the Ace Hardware franchise has 21 metro area locations.
NONPROFITS
Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Eden Prairie, announced that Franco Cordeiro has joined the organization as director, Enterprise Risk Management. Franco most recently held a similar role at at Medtronic, and also held director positions at KPMG Consulting and Macquarie Bank.
OPENINGS
The Market at Malcolm Yards, a Minneapolis food hall, announced the opening of Kinsley’s Smokehouse Deli. James Adams is chef and owner.
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Soul Asylum front man Dave Pirner might have been going through the motions with one of his between-song messages in St. Paul on Saturday. “You could be anywhere, but you’re here,” he said before thousands at the Minnesota band’s free alt-rock set on the lawn outside Allianz Field.
But for those gathering soccer fans, there was no other place to be than the Midway to see legendary Argentine forward Lionel Messi and Inter Miami play Minnesota United.
Pirner did tailored a subsequent message for the Loons and his jersey-wearing audience.
“I want to thank the football club for having us,” he said. “The real kind of football.”
Inside the stadium, a sellout crowd of 19,710 watched Messi score a goal, but the Loons beat the Herons convincingly, 4-1, on a beautiful early summer afternoon. It was the Loons’ 100th home game at Allianz Field.
Here are six other anecdotes from a historic soccer day in Minnesota:
A crowd unlike any other
Normally, the only signs of a game at Allianz Field two hours before kickoff are stadium workers trickling in for their shifts and the faint scent of one vendor’s beignets wafting outside the gates. By that time on Saturday, the stadium’s four corner entrances had lines snaking down the block.
Chris Bernett and son Isaac drove from La Crosse, Wis., to attend their first MLS game. They were the first in line at the southeast entrance roughly three hours before kickoff.
They spent more than $400 per ticket for spots in the stadium’s lower bowl, jumping at the chance for the soccer-playing Issac to see his favorite player, Messi.
“We wanted to make this happen for him,” Chris said toward his beaming child in a Messi No. 10 jersey.
Made it their own
Other MLS teams have moved their Messi matches to nearby NFL stadiums to accommodate the huge demand to see the eight-time FIFA player of the year and one-time World Cup champion. The Loons kept the most-circled game on their schedule at their 19,600-seat stadium instead of moving it to Huntington Bank or US Bank stadiums — where the club could have more than doubled their gate receipts.
The decision to keep it at their much-smaller, soccer-specific venue meant its season-ticket base of 14,500 could sit in their exact seats for the match. And the choice to keep it in St. Paul meant MNUFC gave up more than $3 million in revenue, a source told the Pioneer Press on Saturday.
There also is an element of that being a false choice because if the game had moved to the Vikings’ or Gophers’ homes, the artificial turf fields at those spots might have kept the 37-year-old Messi from playing in Minnesota, anyway.
One let down
Hundreds of fans pressed up against metal gates at Allianz Field’s southwest entrance to get a glimpse — and maybe an autograph — from one of the greatest players of all time.
But unlike other visiting teams going through those doors, Inter Miami came through the loading dock on the other side of the venue. While there were more guards Saturday, security remained a concern.
Yet that logistical change was an undeniable bummer for those waiting throngs.
‘Pretty cool’
Dave Waters used to live across the street from St. Paul Central High School, which made it walkable to go see Minnesota Thunder matches there 20 years ago.
On Saturday, the Minneapolis resident and season-ticket holder biked to Allianz Field. But security guards told him he couldn’t park his bike in one of the metal racks. He just shrugged it off with a brief chuckle.
“It’s fun,” Waters said in a well-worn Thunder jersey before the game. “He is the best soccer player there is. Pretty cool to be able to see him in person.”
Left early
After Robin Lod extended the Loons’ lead to 4-1 in the 70th minute, Messi fans started to head for the exits.
“All the players in our team (were) just enjoying the moment because we had a good lead,” Lod said.
Mementos
It was fitting for the Loons’ two Argentine players — Joaquin Pereyra and Nicolas Romero — to each come away with a pink Messi jersey after the match.
Romero held up his collector’s item for a photo from the Pioneer Press, while Pereyra had his draped over the chair at his locker as he showered.
Loons captain Michael Boxall joked: “Bold of him to leave it there.”
Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi (10) kicks the ball against Minnesota United midfielder Robin Lod (17) in the second half of a MLS game at Allianz Field in St. Paul on Saturday, May 10, 2025. Minnesota United beat Inter Miami, 4-1. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Crucial topics in economics go in and out like fashion trends.
When I first taught macroecon in the 1980s, the money supply was a key issue in economic policy. Inflation was high. The Keynesian orthodoxy of the 1960s and 1970s, that a central bank like the Federal Reserve should actively raise and lower interest rates to manage the economy, was in disrepute.
And the United States was not the only nation that was experiencing recession at the same time as high inflation.
Monetarists, a philosophical minority group led by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, emphasized the role of the money supply in economies and its primacy in determining inflation. Central banks, Friedman argued, needed to shun alternating gas and brake pedals on interest rates. They should instead focus on limiting money growth so that, as output grew, prices would remain stable.
Inflation was a symptom of too much money in the economy, they argued. This incentivized demand, and by extension prices, to go up. So the Fed should crimp down on money growth to end it. The wage and price controls President Richard Nixon had tried were as useless as the faddish WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons purveyed by his successor, Gerald Ford.
How things have changed!
The Fed just finished deliberating last week with our nation in the most perilous economic time since the late summer of 2008. Yet one can search in vain for any mention of “money supply” in the current thinking of the Fed. This is especially — and tragically — ironic because the current problems derive largely from the largest peacetime expansion of the money supply in at least a century.
President Jimmy Carter had taken the politically courageous step of appointing Paul Volcker, a pragmatic monetarist, to head the Fed even though advisers warned Carter that the new appointee would follow policies that would doom his reelection.
Volcker convinced the Federal Open Market Committee to crimp money growth and stay the course regardless of what happened to interest rates, output or employment. Some short- and medium-term business and consumer interest rates went to 20%. The federal government had to guarantee 14% for 30 years to sell bonds. Unemployment rose and output fell. High interest rates attracted foreign money, making the dollar “stronger.” That took a pole axe to farming, steel and autos among other sectors that depended on exporting or that competed with imports.
Inflation did fall, although it took years. But people had learned a lesson. At least part of the monetarist creed was correct. Money indeed mattered. Inflation could be avoided or conquered by regulating how much money is out there.
Econ teachers taught even freshman intro students about the money supply in great detail. Here’s what they learned:
In general terms, the money supply is currency — bills and coins in circulation — plus bank deposits that can readily be used to make payments. Measures of money called M1, M2 and M3 were made, depending on which types of deposits — checking, saving, certificates of deposit or even money-market mutual funds — were included. There were even further variations. These were discussed frequently in financial news media. Students had to memorize details before exams.
Then, somehow, in the post-stagflation prosperity of the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, with low inflation, good GDP growth, very low unemployment and federal budget deficits melting away, we forgot about the money supply.
In the new century, the Alan Greenspan-led Fed responded to the exogenous shock of 9/11 by cutting interest rates. That required increasing the money supply but this detail was not mentioned. The most common measure, M2, was up 6% in a year and 16% in two years after the attack. Remember that folks.
We got into a long national nightmare of war in the Middle East and South Asia. Financial markets throbbed with a panoply of new financial institutions — hedge funds — trading new financial instruments — derivative securities — the values of which were tied to still other financial instruments like home mortgages. Creating and trading these new derivatives became frenzied. As long as underlying residential real estate demand, and prices, went up, these would continue to make money. Then the housing market collapsed. But the derivatives still had to be financed.
After a warning hiccup in very short-term money markets in mid-August 2007, the bust came in 2008. Investment bank Bear Stearns went under in mid-March setting off a panic. When Lehman Brothers faltered badly in October, we teetered on the abyss of a market crash worse than 1929.
The Federal Reserve and the Treasury pulled the nation back from the brink with an enormous bailout they jerry-rigged in ways that stretched the limits of their statutory authority. New Fed- and Treasury-created securities absorbed bad loans and were parked in obscure new funds with names like “Maiden Lane.” Wall Street and the general economy were saved from disaster.
However, many consumers got hosed. Laws regulating home foreclosures went widely unenforced. Vulture funds such as the one led by Donald Trump’s first Treasury secretary Stephen Mnuchin bought up distressed mortgages and robo-processed foreclosures. Household losses created new multimillionaires.
Yet somehow in all this, the term “money supply” got erased from the brains of pundits, journalists and the general public. Mentioning how much money had been created to save us from Wall Street’s financial debacle would have been like discussing distress in the lower tract at a Ladies Aid tea.
In retrospect, the rise was not all that much. M2 rose by 10.3% in the year after Bear Stearns’ downfall and topped out at only a cumulative 17% three years after the panicked Lehman Brothers weekend. Pin those numbers also, folks.
We faced no more big exogenous shocks until COVID hit as 2020 opened. It was the worst global pandemic in a century. The Fed, acting in very good faith and erring on the side of too much rather than too little, pulled out all the stops.
On Jan. 20, 2020, the CDC announced a case in a Washington state nursing home. The Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Jan. 29 of that year does not mention this. But at their March meeting, they dialed the money printing press up to warp speed. By the time President Joe Biden took his oath 12 months to the day after the first COVID announcement, the Fed had already increased the M2 by 25.3%. They kept at it, peaking out at a 40.6% cumulative increase in the money supply 26 months after the first U.S. case.
One must dig deep to find estimates of money supply for World War I and the Civil War, but it is clear that what happened after COVID was unprecedented in the peacetime history of our nation. Yet no mention of it was made in the general media. Nor has it generated much discussion among economists.
And the resulting inflation (enter the monetarists!) largely cost the Biden-Harris-Walz Democrats the 2024 election, sweeping Trump into the Oval Office. With war in Ukraine, it spiked farmland prices to a degree not seen since the run-up to the 1980s farm crisis. And it certainly is a major factor in the bidding up of house prices and financial markets.
Yet it gets no mention at all.
Our economy is in real peril. The Fed faces difficult choices. It had succeeded in slowly letting some air out of the money supply balloon, so that a year ago, M2 was only 34% above the pre-COVID starting point. But to ease its target rates, the Fed had to again create money. So that the figure for March 2025, is 40.7% above five years ago.
Compound that with Trump’s tariffs and we have a real problem. Until this trend enters general discussion, and is remedied, all other policy moves will be crippled.
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PITTSBURGH (AP) — Andrew McCutchen hasn’t had the conversation with 7-year-old son Steel yet, but the Pittsburgh Pirates star knows it’s probably coming at some point.
Steel, already playing in a youth baseball league, will probably come home at one point and ask his five-time All-Star father if he can have whatever hot item his teammates might be wearing during a given spring.
McCutchen plans to accommodate Steel up to a point. The oldest of McCutchen’s four children is already rocking an arm sleeve, just the way dad does.
Yet if Steel is hoping his father will spring for a sliding mitt — a padded glove a player can slip over one of their hands to protect it should the hand get stepped on while diving headfirst for a base — he probably shouldn’t get his hopes up.
McCutchen, who has stolen 220 bases at the major league level, has never worn one. And he’s quick to point out the next time the cleat of a fielder mashes his hand will also be the first.
Still, the 38-year-old understands. Once upon a time, he was a 20-something who epitomized baseball cool, from his dreadlocks (long since shorn) to his goatee to his rope chain to the occasional skull cap he wore underneath his batting helmet, all of it designed to accentuate McCutchen’s innate blend of talent and charisma.
“It’s all about the drip,” McCutchen said with a smile.
Even if the “drip” (Gen Z slang for stylish clothes and their accessories) emphasizes fashion over function, particularly when it comes to the gloves — which look a bit like oven mitts — that are becoming just as ubiquitous in the Little Leagues as they are in the major leagues.
FILE – Chicago White Sox’s Scott Podsednik steals second base during a baseball game against the Cleveland Indians, June 29, 2009, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan, File)
Safety and self-expression
Former major leaguer Scott Podsednik (career stolen base total: 309) is credited with “inventing” the sliding mitt during the late stages of his 11-year career.
Tired of having his hand stepped on, Podsednik worked with a hand therapist for a solution. The initial mitts were relatively simple. A 2009 picture of Podsednik sliding into second base shows his left hand covered in what looks like a padded modified batting glove, all wrapped in black to match the trim on his Chicago White Sox uniform.
Things have gotten considerably more intricate over the years. Google “sliding mitt designs” and you’ll find themes ranging from the American flag to an ice cream cone to aliens to a poop emoji ( yes, really ).
Scott McMillen, a lawyer in the Chicago area, had no plans to get into the baseball accessory business. He first took notice of sliding mitts when his son Braydon, then 10, pointed out one of his teammates had one and said basically, “Oh hey dad, wouldn’t it be nice if I had one, too.”
They headed to a local sporting goods store, where McMillen was surprised at the variety available.
That was around 2021. By early 2024, McMillen had launched “ Goat’d,” a specialty baseball accessory company with everything from sliding mitts to batting gloves to arm sleeves to headbands and more, many of them religiously inspired.
Sales during their first full year? Over 1 million units.
“We were surprised at how large the marketplace is,” McMillen said.
Maybe he shouldn’t have been.
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Youth sports have bounced back from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Aspen Institute’s 2024 State of Play report noted that the participation levels in sports among children ages 6-17 were the highest they’ve been since 2015. Baseball’s numbers have steadied following a decline. Little League International told The Associated Press last fall that more than 2 million kids played baseball or softball under its umbrella across the world, an uptick over 2019.
Many of those kids are also fans of the game, some of whom may have noticed their favorite major leaguer sporting a mitt when they’re on the bases. Yes, that was San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. sliding across home plate ( feetfirst, by the way ) with a bright yellow mitt on his left hand in the ninth inning of a 2-1 win over Pittsburgh last weekend.
It’s one of the many ways in which the game has evolved over the years. When McMillen grew up, there wasn’t much swag to go around.
“We had our baseball uniform and our glove (and) everyone looked the same, everyone was the same,” he said. “Now, everyone wants to express themselves individually. The best way to do that without acting like a clown is to wear something that shows people who you are.”
Self-expression, however, doesn’t exactly come cheap, particularly in an era when top-of-the-line bats are $400 or more. What amounts to an entry-level sliding mitt can go for $40, but Goat’d and others have versions that can fetch double that.
That hasn’t stopped sales from being brisk, and McMillen points out it’s not merely a luxury item.
“We don’t play football with 1940s safety equipment,” he said. “You feel better in the (batter’s) box when you have something that protects you, right? With a sliding mitt, it’s also like, ‘Hey this is fun. It’s cool. I want to be like my fave high school player, like my favorite college player.’”
It’s becoming increasingly common for McMillen and other members of the company’s staff to spot Goat’d gear at the field. In recent months, they’ve popped up in youth tournaments from Georgia to Las Vegas, sometimes in the back pockets of players as young as 6 or 7. McMillen can’t help but shake his head to see his product become part of the time-honored tradition of kids imitating their heroes.
Which is good for business and, oh by the way, probably unnecessary.
Youth ballplayer Josiah Jones bats during youth baseball game in Monroeville, Pa., with his sliding matt in his back pocket on April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Youth ballplayer Josiah Jones bats during youth baseball game in Monroeville, Pa., with his sliding matt in his back pocket on April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
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Youth ballplayer Josiah Jones bats during youth baseball game in Monroeville, Pa., with his sliding matt in his back pocket on April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Here’s the thing: In most — if not all — youth baseball leagues, headfirst slides that would require a player to stretch out their hand to secure the bag are illegal.
In Little League, for example, stealing bases for players 12 and under is rare because the player can take off only after the ball has reached the batter. And even if they do bolt for the next base, they have to slide feetfirst. The only times in Little League that a baserunner can dive headfirst toward a base is when they are returning to it while in a rundown or during a pickoff attempt, both of which are also rare.
That doesn’t stop the players from wanting a sliding mitt. It also doesn’t stop their parents from buying them, all part of the pressure to “keep up with the Jones” that has practically been a part of youth sports culture since the first time somebody came to practice with a batting glove or wristbands.
It’s a phenomenon Chelsea Cahill and her family has known for years. The longtime educator who lives just east of Columbus, Ohio, has spent most of the last decade shuttling her three boys from practice to games to tournaments.
What she and her husband have learned over the years is that some trends come and go, but the pressure to have the right stuff remains.
“There’s always that feeling of ‘This is the next new thing’ or ‘This is what you’ve got to get,’” Cahill said.
They appeased their sons up to a point, but only up to a point.
Last summer their youngest son Braxton, then 11, and the rest of the kids on his travel team kept pestering their parents to buy sliding mitts. Entering the final tournament, the team moms decided to give in.
Sort of.
Rather than plop down that kind of money for something they didn’t actually need, the moms headed to a local dollar store and bought them actual oven mitts — the kind used to pull tonight’s dinner from out of the oven. Average retail price? Less than a cup of coffee at the gas station.
Oh, and the kids loved them, and wore them during the game. Cahill posted video of them playing with the mitts stuck in their back pocket to her TikTok account. The video is now at 12 million views and counting.
“They thought it was hilarious, but we didn’t really think they would wear them for the rest of the tournament,” Cahill said. “We were wrong. They really embraced it!”
Among viewers of that TikTok, by the way, were the people at Goat’d, who sent Braxton a couple of mitts as a result.
The good news is, Cahill now won’t have to buy one for Braxton this spring. Yet there’s also something else she has learned through the years: This time in her boys’ lives is fleeting.
For proof, just look at her calendar. Her two older sons — the ones who played travel baseball just like Braxton, and asked for all the cool stuff their teammates had, just like Braxton has — gave up baseball by the time they got to high school.
Her advice to parents who might be feeling the financial pinch of what it takes to play these days: Relax.
“We’ve learned as parents is to stop taking it so seriously,” she said. “They’re kids. Let them have fun.”
San Diego Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr., left, scores before Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Joey Bart can apply the tag on a wild pitch by pitcher David Bednar during the ninth inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Saturday, May 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
The reality
A day after hundreds of members of the Monroeville Baseball and Softball Association marched through the Pittsburgh suburb’s well-appointed community park, the regular season is in full swing.
All four fields are alive with the chatter of coaches, parents and boys and girls aged anywhere from 5-12.
Over on Field 1, the Rays are in the middle of their season opener. Playing first base, Josiah Jones has his glove at the ready, with a black sliding mitt noticeably sticking out of his left back pocket.
Per the league rules, the Rays and the other players at the “Bronco” level (ages 11-12), play actual full-on baseball. They can take leads and steal bases whenever they like, though headfirst slides are only allowed when returning to a base, just like in Little League.
Longtime MBSA executive commissioner Josh Plassmeyer is milling about, trying to keep tabs on everything. Plassmeyer outlawed sliding mitts on his son Grant’s 10-and-under tournament team, calling them a “distraction” because players would spend so much time fiddling with them once they got to first base, they would miss signs from the third-base coach.
About 50 feet away, Jones settles into the box and rips a ball to left-center field. His long legs carry him past first base, and he cruises into second with an easy double.
As his teammates erupted in the dugout, Jones beamed for a brief moment. Then, as the opposing pitcher stepped onto the rubber, he took an aggressive lead off second and eyed third.
His back pocket, the one where his sliding mitt had been 30 minutes before, was empty.
