Sunday, January 27, 2019

RIP Peter Magowan

The man who saved Giants baseball passed away today at the age of 76. Apparently he had cancer. I remember coming out of the men's room at MoMo's once and a guy in a pink shirt was coming in at the same time and brushed past me. I realized a second later it was Peter Magowan! Another time I was going down an escalator at the ballpark and saw him going up on the other side. I tried to holler "hey Peter, thanks for everything!" but it all happened too fast and I never got the chance to get it out. But if I could have talked to the man, even for the briefest moment, I would have said those very words: thanks for everything. Magowan put the Giants back on the map after they nearly fell off forever. He put together the ownership group to keep the team in San Francisco. He signed Barry Bonds to the biggest contract in baseball and presided over a resurgent club that competed for the playoffs. He put together the money and the political will to build the new park. He also hired all the guys who later built the championship teams. That's quite a legacy and this fan won't forget. My thoughts go out to his friends and family.

Requiescat in pacem, Mr. Magowan.

--M.C.

15 comments:

Ron said...

It's nearly incomprehensible to many of today's entitled bunch of fans, who can't remember much past a week ago, that the SF Giants had to be 'saved' twice (or maybe 3 times, if you count Lurie doing it twice). Magowan lead the way on one of those occasions, & we are very thankful for that. I hope that we (or fans of any other Team) never have to go through that again.

nomisnala said...

It was horrible when the left N.Y. but if they had to move anywhere I am glad it was SF, and that should be their final move.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Fans really get hosed when teams move. I'd forgotten about Bob Lurie (and Bud Herseth) saving the team, too. I mean I remember it, of course, but I forgot what I was feeling back in those days. That was what, the mid-70s? That's a few decades past! Labatt's was going to buy the team and move it to Canada if I remember. And wasn't it Lurie that tried to sell them to St. Petersburg? He'd had enough of lousy weather at the 'Stick and fickle fans, I suppose. This new version of the Giants seems better placed for the long haul. That's assuming they turn around the losing seasons real soon. Fans are still fickle! It's hard to believe the franchise survived those lean times--remember those games we'd go to where there'd be 5000 folks or fewer? That happened A LOT.

Ron said...

Lurie / Herseth Time #1 - prevented move to Canada

*****

Lurie Time #2 - after trying to go to Florida, when we went to this Game, thinking that it might be the last SF Giants game (we all wore black armbands)(which also turned out to be the be the one & only time that the SF Giants lost 100 games in a Season):

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN198510060.shtml

Lurie was thwarted by the league. He then made a few attempts to move them to San Jose (&, possibly, Sacramento), but eventually decided that staying in SF was the best.

M.C. O'Connor said...

The WAKE! I remember.

nomisnala said...

It was almost reliving the news from 1957. Glad the Giants stayed put.

Zo said...

The Giants apparently added some guy and subtracted Derek Law.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I saw that, thanks for posting the update. I am on the road (chasing the pow at Tahoe) and catching a little motel wi-fi now and again!

John Andreoli, RH OF, 28 yo, 67 ML PA. From Mass, played at UConn.

Zo said...

I was perusing mlbtraderumors.com, and found something interesting. They track their top 50 free agents shortly after the season and make predictions about where they will land and at what price. The landing spot (team) for free agents, according to the site, has a pretty poor track record, but the dollar value is generally not too far off. For the 2018-2019 Free Agents, of the top 20, led, of course, by Bryce Harper and Manny Machado who are both yet unsigned, 11 of the 20 signed contracts for a greater average annual value than the site predicted. Only 3 (the 35 yo Charlie Morton, Wilson Ramos and Jheurys Familia) signed for less than the site predicted. 7 signed contracts for less time than projected, but 7 signed for as much time as projected. 6 are unsigned (including, of course, Harper and Machado who mlbtraderumors projects to land contracts of 14 years/420 mil and 13 years/390 mil).

My take away? All the talk about baseball being broken is perhaps a bit overstated. This however, is a pretty good read:
https://deadspin.com/mlbs-luxury-tax-became-a-salary-cap-because-of-decades-1832200596

M.C. O'Connor said...

"Over-statement" is the sacred mantra of the sports media world. But baseball has, clearly, a demographic problem with younger Americans. The audience is mostly guys our age and older.

I don't make much of the FA market dynamics. Each year is so different with regards to available talent and the various team needs. It's a pretty small pool of guys, and it takes too damn long for most players to make it to those supposedly fruitful years. And front offices are more savvy and less willing to fork over the big dough long term for the declining years. Look how well it has worked for the Giants! I expect Machado and Harper to get shorter deals for more up front--that's what I would do if I were a GM. We'll see!

M.C. O'Connor said...

Seems we DFA'd our new OF and picked up a RHP named Drew Ferguson. Don't get too attached in the Zaidi Era!!

I suppose that 40-man rosterbation stuff is a way to keep probing for talent and filling holes, as well as stockpiling some trade chips.

Zo said...

Today's news from mlbtraderumors includes that the Giants "have some level of interest" in Gio Gonzalez and that they "have entered the mix for" Bryce Harper. That means met with, but there is no indication that includes any offers.

Also Sergio Romo is zeroing in on an agreement with an undisclosed club.

Zo said...

Frank Robinson, former Giants manager, the first black man to manage in the National League, has passed away at age 83.

M.C. O'Connor said...

David Pinto at Baseball Musings wrote something about Robinson. I like that blog--he gets to the point and has good insights about baseball and people.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Hunter Pence signed a minor-league deal with Texas.

Also, this Bryce Harper stuff is interesting. Supposedly the Giants want to offer him a short-term, high AAV contract rather than a big decade-long $300M Stanton-like thing. That's the only way to approach it, in my mind, and I think more teams will be looking to do that. Players might start to see the benefits of an immediate big payout with a shorter commitment, meaning they can enter the FA market again while still performing at a high level. We've seen opt-outs become more popular, so you never know. The whole system is fucked: get rid of arbitration and let players become unrestricted free agents ASAP. That way talent will be available more often and players will have more options for their services.

I still don't think the Giants have a chance with Harper, but they HAVE TO kick the tires just to keep the fans happy. I'd love to see him in orange-and-black, but I will be fine if he goes somewhere else (well, let's hope it ain't the Dodgers). He may never be a 10-WAR player again, but he could deliver a lot of value for many years. He had a "bad" year last season and yet led the league with 130 BB! 68 XBH. 133 OPS+, and 273 TB are pretty damn good for a "poor" season.