Jim Mone / AP file

Manager Ron Gardenhire, left, does a champagne toast with Twins owner Carl Pohlad after Minnesota won the AL Central on Oct. 1, 2006.

Even after turning 90, though, he continued to make regular trips to the Metrodome to watch his team play — often wearing his lucky red socks and stopping by manager Ron Gardenhire’s office before games. Jim Pohlad eased into the lead role over the past few seasons.

Though the public largely perceived him as a hard-driving miser, Pohlad and his wife, Eloise, who died in 2003, together donated millions of dollars to charitable causes. They founded the Twins Community Fund, which gave $3.3 million to area charities in 2005.

At a baseball banquet in January 2006, a wheelchair-bound Pohlad unexpectedly announced a $500,000 donation to the Bob Allison Ataxia Research Center at the University of Minnesota in honor of Allison, a star outfielder for Minnesota from 1961-70 who died of the brain disease in 1995.

Players often voiced frustration over the payroll, slashed in the late 1990s after the first couple of stadium plans fizzled and the post-championship rebuilding process was scrapped and restarted. But once the Twins developed a core that could compete and baseball’s revenue sharing began to increase, Pohlad spent more on salaries and the team won three straight AL Central titles from 2002-04.

With the Twins preparing to trade Johan Santana last winter, the Pohlads approved $151 million and 13 years in new contracts for Michael Cuddyer, Justin Morneau and Joe Nathan.

Former general manager Terry Ryan, whose ability to find affordable, productive players was made more difficult by the payroll limits, routinely praised Pohlad for his loyalty. Though the Twins were terrible during Ryan’s first six seasons on the job, Pohlad stuck with him and watched Ryan become one of baseball’s most respected GMs.

Managers Tom Kelly and Gardenhire also seemed to be big fans — and friends — of the owner.

“Whenever you needed something from the boss ... he’d get it done for you,” Kelly said at a 2005 ceremony honoring Pohlad’s induction into the team’s Hall of Fame. “As a manager having the responsibility of entertaining the fans and putting on a good show, you couldn’t ask for a better man to go to.”

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