Talkin' baseball (and more) with Neukom

SAN FRANCISCO – Go early to a Giants home game and look at the man leaning against the batting cage studying batting practice. His hair is white and he wears a suit, unusual in this setting, and he doesn’t talk much. He studies.

The man is Bill Neukom, in his first season as Giants managing general partner – the boss. He is trying to learn everything he can about big-league ball. He’s been part of the Giants’ ownership group since 1995, but nothing like this.

The other day Neukom, 67, invited me to a conference room at the ballyard to get acquainted. The walls of the room are filled with photos of Leo Durocher, a Giants icon from New York. Because Durocher was known as Leo the Lip, this particular room with its conference table and glass wall is known as the Lip.

The receptionist said to me, “Mr. Neukom will be meeting with you in the Lip.” The Lip is a nice touch and indicates Neukom has a feel for baseball tradition, for the long history of his franchise, for doing the right thing.

In this he is like his predecessor Peter Magowan, although their styles are different. Magowan, who made the Giants a top-flight franchise in San Francisco, is an emotional man. His emotion is a good thing. Neukom is more analytical, more of a step-by-step person. There is no better or worse in this comparison, merely two different styles. If Neukom likes the idea of the Lip Room he should rename other conference rooms: the Say Hey Room; the Baby Bull Room; the Stretch Room. I’m serious.

He settled into his chair at the head of the conference table and talked about his background. He grew up in San Mateo near El Camino Real, lived next to the Burlingame border. A Peninsula guy. Next door lived Charlie Graham, Jr. general manager of the San Francisco Seals. Neukom was friends with Graham’s daughter Tina and as kids they would take the Greyhound – Neukom called it the Gray Dog – up to San Francisco and watch baseball games at Seals Stadium.

He went to Dartmouth and majored in philosophy. “I love the old guys,” he said. “I love Plato and I love Socrates and I love Descartes.” This is a man who, in the same sentence, can discuss Plato’s ideals and the infield fly rule. After that he went to Stanford law school.

Why did he become a lawyer?

“Kind of a sophomoric notion, just simple justice,” he said. “I didn’t like people who would treat other people unfairly. I didn’t like systems that were unfair. I thought law was a place where you could do some good and be a part of a system that treated people fairly.”

Does he still feel that way?

“I do, absolutely. I do.”

He joined Microsoft when it was a small startup company and became chief counsel and found himself surrounded by all these geniuses.

What did he do at Microsoft?

“The company was so young and the people in it were so smart and so young sometimes it felt like part of what I did was provide some adult supervision, just providing a good sounding board, a little bit of discipline, a little bit of structure and ideas. Not just legal concepts but just some common sense how to run with this idea.”

Neukom was a pretty good runner himself. When he left Microsoft in 2001 he cleared $107 million. That’s some pretty good clearance.

I’m going to interrupt the Bill Neukom Story briefly to tell you about the one tense moment. I generally want a tense moment in an interview, one my subject does not anticipate. These tense moments often are revealing of personality and they are necessary in a character study. As you would expect, Neukom was comfortable talking about Dartmouth and Stanford and the law and Microsoft. I asked a question out of left field.

I asked Neukom about his appearance, about his bowtie and suspenders and suit and the elegant white handkerchief he folds into his suit pocket. I asked what they all mean, what image he’s trying to convey.

Neukom stared at me as if I’d asked him to explain the process of nuclear fission.

“I don’t think I’m very aware,” he said. His voice was soft. He was thinking as fast as he could, trying to understand where I was coming from, trying to figure out how he looked to me.

“It hadn’t really occurred to me,” he said. “People make jokes and comments about the bowtie. I don’t dress for anybody else. I don’t dress for effect. I feel comfortable in these types of clothes. That’s why I wear them.”

Fair enough, but he didn’t go far enough. Sometimes it’s hard to look at yourself. Let’s look for him.

Please, the next time you see Neukom leaning against the batting cage, really look at him. See the bowtie. See the hanky and the suspenders. See how elegant he is. He is a throwback to an era when men dressed up every day, when men were particular about their appearance, when men were formal and, please excuse the class reference here, when men had class. Neukom is a distinguished-looking man who loves Plato and baseball, and now he runs the San Francisco Giants.

Back to the Bill Neukom Story. He didn’t campaign to become Giants’ managing general partner. “Southerners have a great term,” he said. “A man should never seek the office. The office should seek the man.”

He originally invested in the Giants with “some of the windfall from Microsoft.” When other investors left, “I had a chance to be the utility infielder and pick up their shares and I increased my stake in the Giants.”

When Magowan decided to move on, Magowan and others asked Neukom to take over. And he did even though he still was president of the American Bar Association, a busy man.

What is his vision for the Giants?

“The objective this year is to play winning baseball. Will we click our heels and pop champagne bottles if we win 82 games? No. But I’ll be realistic about trying to manage a curve of success that starts with playing winning baseball and builds on that and does it in a way that we keep some powder dry for that occasional strategic free-agent signing or some trade.”

That’s a logical plan Plato could approve of. Socrates? I’m not so sure.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular go to the Cohn Zohn at blog.pressdemocrat.com/cohn. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.