Former Giants managing partner Magowan dies at 76
SAN FRANCISCO — Peter Magowan, the longtime Safeway executive credited with saving baseball in San Francisco and leading the charge to build a downtown stadium, died Sunday at his home in Pacific Heights. He was 76. A New York City native who followed the franchise closely when it played at the Polo Grounds, Magowan belonged to a group of Bay Area investors who purchased the Giants in 1993 and prevented the club from leaving the city.
As former Giants owner Bob Lurie prepared to sell the franchise to a group determined to move the Giants to Tampa Bay, Magowan, a former CEO of Safeway, and 16 others including current CEO Larry Baer stepped in with $100 million in a purchase that ensured San Francisco’s professional baseball club would remain in the city.
“There was no business plan,” Baer told this news organization in 2015. “The thing that’s always given me comfort about this role with the Giants is that the motivations of the ownership group that Peter and I stitched together were really good, pure motivations. Everybody wants to make money. Everybody wants to win World Series. But first and foremost, they wanted to keep it as an institution in San Francisco.”
Together, Baer and Magowan spearheaded an immediate effort to sign star outfielder Barry Bonds, a free agent who appeared destined to land a record-breaking contract with either the New York Yankees or Atlanta Braves. Though Magowan’s ownership group did not complete its purchase of the franchise until January 1993, Magowan and Baer began controversial negotiations with Bonds after the end of the 1992 season.
Despite facing pushback from owners around the league and commissioner Bud Selig, Magowan and Baer worked out a six-year, $43.5 million deal with Beverly Hills-based agent Dennis Gilbert that made Bonds the highest-paid free agent in baseball history.
After inheriting a team that finished 72-90 in 1992, the new ownership group’s high-profile acquisition of Bonds that took place five weeks before it gained approval to take over club operations completely altered the trajectory of the franchise. In his first season with the Giants, Bonds won the National League MVP Award and led the club to a 103-win season that allowed Magowan to turn his attention to another significant agenda item that wound up defining his legacy.
Though Lurie tried and failed four separate times to convince San Francisco voters to approve public funds for a new stadium with Candlestick Park, Magowan understood the importance of finding a new, permanent home inside city limits for the Giants.
In 1995, Magowan announced a plan to build the first privately-funded Major League Baseball stadium in more than 30 years. After receiving approval from the city, the Giants broke ground on a 42,000-seat ballpark in December, 1997 that cost more than $300,000 million.
Seven years after assuming his role as President of the San Francisco Giants, Magowan’s stunning vision for a new stadium came to fruition as the franchise opened Pacific Bell Park in 2000. The name has changed twice since its inaugural Opening Day, but Magowan still belonged to the ownership group when the Giants made their final payment on a $170 million loan that helped fund the construction of the park in December, 2016.
“Through all the good times and the bad I have valued the support that so many of you have been able to give to the organization and to me,” Magowan wrote in a letter to season ticket holders in 2008. “If it were not for that support our beautiful ballpark would never have been built — as our fans stepped up and made a personal investment to build a ballpark with no cost to the taxpayer.”
The Giants’ commitment to privately fund a new ballpark was yet another example of a decision that earned widespread appeal in San Francisco and widespread scorn from the rest of the league. Major League owners who were accustomed to receiving public aid when building new stadiums were deeply concerned about the precedent the Giants set.
With Magowan at the helm, the Giants reached the 2002 World Series before falling to the Angels in seven games. By the time the franchise collected its first championship of the San Francisco era, Magowan had already stepped down as the Giants’ managing partner.
At the end of the 2007 season, Magowan and former general manager Brian Sabean came under fire in the Mitchell Report, an independent investigation into the use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball. The criticism came after Magowan recanted a statement he made to former Senator George Mitchell acknowledging he was aware Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson was distributing steroids in the Giants clubhouse.
On May 16, 2008, Magowan announced he was leaving his post as managing partner at the conclusion of the season. Magowan was succeeded by Bill Neukom, who was replaced by Baer on January 1, 2012.
“I’ll continue to be a partner, an investor, a season ticket holder and a fan, which I have been since I was 8 years old,” Magowan said at the time. “I will be at many games next year and 10 years from now, hopefully.”
Though Magowan’s role shifted, he remained a fixture at the ballpark he helped build even as he battled various health issues. Magowan spent three months in New Orleans during the summer of 2014 receiving treatment for cancer, but returned to AT&T Park shortly after being released from the hospital to watch the Giants clinch their third World Series berth in five seasons during Game 5 of the NLCS.
Magowan traveled with the Giants to Kansas City for the 2014 World Series and saw the franchise capture its third title in five seasons, a run that would not have been possible if a new ownership group didn’t fight to keep the team in San Francisco at the end of the 1992 season.