San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Leah Garchik’s column.
“You could sort of feel it coming,” said Lynn Bunim, who as executive director of
external affairs at AT&T had been given tickets to Tuesday’s ball game a few months ago. “…And when he came up the third time, there was this spontaneous eruption of ‘Barry, Barry.’ And into that noise, he hit this ball and it went sailing. It was spectacular.”
Bunim had a special connection to the Giants, the game and especially the ballpark. She and Giants exec Larry Baer were in San Francisco Chamber of Commerce’s leadership program back in 1988. A few years later, before the new ballpark was approved and the Giants were quietly making contacts in the corporate community, Baer called her. “He told me what the proposition was, I got hold of our chairman and CEO, and connected him with Peter Magowan. …Once that connection was made, the deal was sewn up.” In December 1995, they agreed that if the ballot measure passed to build the ballpark, her company would have the naming rights for 20 years. It was a result of networking, and “it really was about the S.F. Chamber leadership program that led to Larry and me meeting, putting CEO’s together very quietly and sealing the deal.”
Bunim’s family has had a long baseball connection. Her father’s business, Haas Brothers, had a box on the first-base line at Seals Stadium and then at Candlestick. “I grew up with baseball, with McCovey and Cepeda. I grew up with baseball, on first base. When Barry said, ‘My dad,’ it just got to me personally because my dad was there, too.” |
