RIP Peter Magowan

http://www.sfexaminer.com/longtime-san-francisco-giants-owner-peter-magowan-dead-76/

Longtime Safeway executive, but he'll always be remembered for spearheading the group that saved the Giants for San Francisco and built what's now known as Oracle Park.

The Giants announced last week they were adding him to their Wall of Fame at Fan Fest this Saturday, so at least he knew about it before he passed.

 

It's called Oracle Park now?

 

I'm glad they are keeping the "Park" - really irritates me when companies totally revamp the stadium name. I would think you would want that connection to what has happened before you put your name on it.

Too bad about McGowan. He really did save the Giants from Tampa, so much so that MLB gave the city the Devil Rays to avoid a lawsuit. Pretty safe bet the move would have doomed the Giants to perennial second tier status. Of course, Bob Lurie saved the Giants from moving to Toronto.

 

From one of our own. Read from bottom up.

 

Tampa was seemingly a done deal, too. RIP.

 

Fuck. A real Bay Area sports hero. RIP

 

I think Magawan was a great baseball owner. He saved the Giants for San Francisco, built an excellent, privately financed stadium, brought World Series winners to San Francisco and turned San Francisco into a good baseball town.

But any time they put the owner on the team's Wall of Fame I don't perceive it as much of an honor. Who picked the committee to vote on induction into the Wall of Fame?

 

As a Giants fanboi, I'll respectfully disagree.

Even after the playoff years of 1987 and 1989, the team was basically treading water. Candlestick was a dump. Votes to build a new yards in San Francisco (1989, just weeks after Loma Prieta) and Santa Clara (1992) lost. Then, Bob Lurie (a truly nice man) sells to Tampa Bay. It felt like a months-long funeral. There was really no one in San Francisco taking charge of the bid to save the team. They had a scratch-and-sniff session with George Shinn (who owned the Charlotte Hornets at the time), but Shinn wouldn't open the books, so they parted ways.

Magowan put together the partnership that eventually bought the team. Also negotiated San Francisco politics to get the park built without public financing, revitalizing what had been a dreary shipping area, to the point it eventually attracted the Warriors to build the Chase Center nearby. Yeah, he stepped on a few toes along the way, like signing Bonds before the sale was approved and the handling of Dusty Baker's dismissal after the 2002 World Series (which in hindsight was a good thing). But on his watch, the groundwork for the Lincecum-Posey-Bumgarner era that produced three World Series crowns in five years was laid.

So, yeah, he belongs. And to answer your question, it's the team that adds members. Seems like they've usually had the ceremonies during the season, but it was moved up to FanFest weekend because of his declining health. Don't recall which obit (the Chronicle or NBC Sports Bay Area) included excerpts of the speech that would have been delivered.

 

I agree with everything you say about Magowan.

But can you think of any franchise or circumstance where an owner would be denied a spot on the Wall of Fame, Ring of Honor or whatever, even if the guy was as big of schmuck as Dan Synder?

 

My wife worked in high-end dental office in Beverly Hills back then. One of their patients was Joel Schur, a New Yorker who was the force behind bringing the Giants to St. Petersburg. (Yes, this office had patients who flew in from New York for dental work, and they wouldn't leave without getting their free toothbrush.) Schur knew Steinbrenner, who got him involved with the St. Pete bid. One time, Schur came to the office with a box of black Giants hats with orange SP lettering (instead of SF) on them. In the media, I had never heard of Schur being involved, it was always Vincent Naimoli. I asked my wife to ask Joel "why Naimoli is always the featured guy in this group?" She did. He said, "I didn't want to be in the spotlight so I told Vinny to handle it." I wish she had gotten one of those hats.

 

Weren't their prospective members of that Tampa ownership group who didn't pass the smell test - having some "concerning business ties?"

And even a terrible owner like James Dolan would get my vote, but only after he sold the team. Hell - he'd get it BECAUSE he sold the team.

 

I'll add that Steinbrenner is honored in Monument Park, part of the Soviet-style post-mortem rehabilitation of former evil-doers. The HoF won't be as easy.