Last of a kind

Sad news today as one of the key figures of the Championship Era has died. Bill Neukom, 83, was the managing general partner for the San Francisco Giants from 2008 to 2011. On this site, he was simply called “Bow Tie” because he was a man who loved a bow tie. He was the catalyst for bringing the Baseball Operations department into the 21st century.

Alex Simon has a great writeup of Neukom’s background in SF Gate if you want a bit more detail, but the bottom line is that he wanted to give the team an identity (“The Giants’ Way”). Previously, it had been Willie Mays, Humm Baby!, and Barry Bonds, but with no guiding ethos behind the scenes. The reason he was pushed out by the ownership group…