Rockies owner also took loan through Pohland

NEW YORK -- A second baseball owner admitted Friday that one of his companies accepted a loan from a business controlled by Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad.

Colorado Rockies owner Jerry McMorris said baseball commissioner Bud Selig gave advance approval for the loan to McMorris' Timnath Farms Inc. Earlier this week, Selig admitted he arranged for his Milwaukee Brewers to take a loan from a Pohlad company in 1995.

Baseball has a rule preventing teams and officials from "directly or indirectly" loaning money to other teams and their officials.

"If we've got an arcane rule in there, then we ought to clean it up with all the mergers and acquisitions that have gone on," McMorris said after the loan was revealed by The Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

Owners voted Nov. 6 to eliminate two teams, and Minnesota and Montreal are the likely targets. Pohlad could get more in a contraction payment than a sale of the team, and has not said whether he will deal with Donald Watkins, an Alabama businessman who wants to purchase the Twins.

The contraction plan prompted criticism from some in Congress, leading to squabbling between Selig and Rep. John Conyers Jr., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. Conyers, citing the close relationship between Selig and Pohlad, has called for Selig's resignation and the end of baseball's antitrust exemption.

"This is a little bit like Chrysler and Ford meeting to conspire to eliminate General Motors," Conyers said at a news conference.