Giants to honor former boss Magowan

SAN FRANCISCO -- Peter Magowan, who made the Giants' bayside ballpark his pride and joy, soon will become a part of it.
The Giants announced Wednesday that Magowan, the team's former managing general partner, will become the first non-player to receive a plaque on the club's Wall of Fame that adorns Oracle Park near Second and King streets.
The ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. PT on Feb. 9, immediately before the team's annual FanFest.
Magowan led the drive to keep the Giants in San Francisco in 1992, when an investor group based in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area reached an agreement in principle to purchase the franchise and move it there.
Once Magowan's group successfully bid to forestall a coast-to-coast move, he and current club president Larry Baer launched efforts to build a stadium that would replace Candlestick Park, which fans avoided by the thousands due to its decay and the surrounding area.
Finding a replacement for Candlestick meant winning a vote to build a stadium. Four previous initiatives failed at the ballot box because taxpayers would have assumed part of the costs. Magowan and Baer engineered enough deals to build the ballpark with mostly private funding, which helped the Giants finally win a stadium vote in 1996. The park opened as Pacific Bell Park in 2000 and was known as SBC Park and AT&T Park before a new business agreement prompted the recent change to Oracle Park.
Under Magowan's watch, the Giants also signed left fielder Barry Bonds to a then-revolutionary six-year, $43.75 million contract before the 1993 season. Adding Bonds, who became baseball's all-time home run leader in 2007, instantly transformed the Giants into a winning team.
Magowan retired in 2008 and established the Wall of Fame that same year. The 52 previous inductees either played nine seasons with the Giants or spent five years with the club while being named to at least one All-Star team.