It was all part of an effort to show that ownership was listening to its paying customers and responding to their concerns.
“There was a nose to the grindstone approach that still exists today,” Baer says. “If you’re not into it, you’re not a good fit in this organization. It’s a fun place to work, but it’s a driven environment that is highly entrepreneurial.”
That entrepreneurial culture would become even more evident in the years ahead as AT&T Park, which opened in 2000 as the new home of the Giants became a trendsetter for how fans of all sports experience the games they come to see.
Do what it takes to win
The efforts to improve the fan experience at Candlestick while developing a plan to build a new ballpark were critical.
But it likely wouldn’t matter if ownership was unable to put together a winning team on the field. Enter Barry Bonds, a free agent outfielder who was looking for a new home following the 1992 season.
Baer and his team badly wanted Bonds to become a Giant, but they still had to buy the team.
“I made the first call to Bonds’ agent and he said, ‘Who are you?’” Baer says. “I said I’m with this group and we’re buying the team. He said, ‘You don’t own the team. I can’t have Barry go to a team that doesn’t have an owner.’ So we just said to hold off on the Yankees and the Braves. We’re real, but we have to go find a manager and a general manager.”
After hiring Dusty Baker to be the team’s manager and Bob Quinn to be the general manager, and Brian Sabean as Quinn’s No. 2, the team locked up Bonds.
“He was MVP in our first year, 1993,” Baer says. “There was a ton of skepticism about our group and about the Giants’ viability when we bought the team. We were kind of making up the model as we were going along. The signing of Barry Bonds paid immediate dividends. It was connected to the imaging of the franchise. Who we are, how we care about the community. But it also showed we were serious about making Giants baseball top quality.”
Ownership also reached out to Giants legend and Hall of Famer Willie Mays, considered one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived.
“We just went and said, ‘Here’s your deal, it’s a lifetime deal. You’re Willie Mays, you need to be part of this organization,’” Baer says. “What were his responsibilities? Come to spring training and talk about what it means to be a Giant with the kids we draft and players in the organization.
“Here’s a suite, come to games. Hang out with the players before the games. Be Willie Mays. Make some appearances. He loved it. To this day, 23 years later, he’s at every home game and he’s there every year at spring training.”
A new day
When AT&T Park opened, it instantly changed the image of Giants baseball. Instead of a season ticket base of fewer than 6,000 at Candlestick in the mid-1990s, the Giants have consistently held at 30,000 season tickets sold each and every year.
Attendance tops 3 million every year and has been at 98 percent capacity, including five consecutive years of being completely sold out.
The Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 and have high hopes for 2016.
“Not everything we’ve done has been perfect, but we’re willing to try things,” Baer says. “We’ve had tremendous relationships with companies that have gotten involved with us and done some really spectacular things. We worked with Coke, which helped us build the ballpark, and we have this bottle that slides as you look out over the Bay. AT&T wired the ballpark so you never have a dropped call. There is an intense focus on customer service.”
