Laurence Monroe Baer is an American businessman. He is best known as the president and

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of the

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Yor ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. He succeeded

Bill Neukom William Horlick Neukom (born 1942) is an American former managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants baseball team ownership group. He held this position from May 2008 to December 31, 2011 and he was the managing partner when the Giants ...

on January 1, 2012.

Early life and education

Born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family, Baer attended Lowell High School in San Francisco and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He served as the

sports director The title of sports director can refer to the director of a live sports broadcast. It can also refer to an individual at a television or radio station who is in charge of the sports department. Director {{Job-stub ...

and

business manager The Oxford English Dictionary defines a business manager as "a person who manages the business affairs of an individual, institution, organization, or company". Compare manager. Business managers drive the work of others (if any) in order to oper ...

KALX KALX (90.7 FM) is an FM radio station that broadcasts from the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California, United States. KALX, a community and student-run radio station licensed to the university, broadcasts in stereo with 500 ...

, the student-run radio station. As a junior, he negotiated with

Oakland Athletics The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The te ...

owner Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

Charlie Finley Charles Oscar Finley (February 22, 1918 – February 19, 1996), nicknamed Charlie O or Charley O, was an American businessman who owned Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics. Finley purchased the franchise while it was located in Kansas C ...

to make KALX the official radio station of the Athletics for its first 16 games. Baer served as the

play-by-play announcer In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio wa ...

. He graduated from Berkeley with a degree in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

in 1980. That same year, he joined the

as its marketing director. He left the Giants to attend

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

and earned his MBA in 1985. After graduating, he worked for

Westinghouse Broadcasting The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndicat ...

and CBS. At CBS, Baer worked as an assistant to the network's then-CEO and chairman

Laurence Tisch Laurence Alan Tisch (March 5, 1923 – November 15, 2003) was an American businessman, investor and billionaire. He was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995. With his brother Bob Tisch, he was part owner of Loews Corporation. ...

Career

Baer returned to the Giants in 1992 to help form the ownership group that kept the team in San Francisco when an attempt was made to move the franchise to

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and ...

. Other members of the group included

Charles Bartlett Johnson Charles Bartlett Johnson (born January 6, 1933) is an American billionaire businessman, with an estimated net worth of around $6.1 billion. Early life Charles Bartlett Johnson was born in 1933 in Montclair, New Jersey, to Rupert Harris Johnson ...

, Harmon Burns,

Scott Seligman Scott Seligman (born 1951) is an American real estate developer, the founder of the Sterling Bank and Trust FSB, and minority owner of the San Francisco Giants major league baseball team. Biography Seligman was born to a Jewish family in Detroit ...

, Allan Byer, David S. Wolff and

Peter Magowan Peter Alden Magowan (April 5, 1942 – January 27, 2019) was an American businessman. He was the managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball from 1993 to 2008. He was the chief executive officer of Safeway Inc. ...

, the Giants' CEO from 1992 to 2007. During Magowan's tenure, Baer worked as his chief assistant. He led the design and development of a new ballpark for the Giants starting in 1995. Construction on the park began in 1997 and was completed in 2000. The park opened as Pacific Bell Park before changing names several times through the 2000s. Since 2019, it has been known as Oracle Park, after a $200-million naming rights deal. In 1994, Baer established the first benefit by a professional sports team to fight

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

. In 1995, Baer received the Sports Torch of Learning Award from the Scopus Society of the American Friends of the Hebrew University. In 2001, the Anti-Defamation League awarded him the Torch of Liberty Award.Larry Baer
/ref> In 2008, Baer became the Giants' club president. He succeeded

as the Giants'

on January 1, 2012. He was added to the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of the

San Jose Giants The San Jose Giants are a Minor League Baseball team of the California League and the Single-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. Located in San Jose, California, the Giants play their home games at Excite Ballpark. Games San Jose Giants ga ...

, the Giants' Minor League Baseball affiliate in the

Class A-Advanced High-A (officially Class High-A, formerly known as Class A-Advanced, and sometimes abbreviated "A+" in writing) is the third-highest level of play in Minor League Baseball in the United States and Canada, below Triple-A and Double-A, and abov ...

California League The California League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in California. Having been classified at various levels throughout its existence, it operated at Class A-Advanced from 1990 until its demotion to Single-A following Major Leag ...

, in April 2012. In 2014, Baer received an "Excellence in Achievement" award from UC Berkeley and a Civic Leadership Award from the American Jewish Committee San Francisco. He is the Chairman and CEO of the Giants Development Services, which is oversees the construction of Mission Rock, a 25-acre mixed-use neighborhood located near AT&T Park.

Personal life

He is married to Pamela Baer; they have four children and live in San Francisco. He and his wife are members of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. In March 2019 near

Oracle Park Oracle Park is a Major League Baseball stadium in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has been the home of the San Francisco Giants. Previously named Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, and AT&T Park, the stadium's curre ...

, a video was released of Baer in a physical altercation as he attempted to wrestle away a cellphone from his wife. He was suspended by MLB and returned to the team on July 2, 2019. The

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

appointed Baer as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.United States Holocaust Memorial Council
/ref> He was a board member of JCC of San Francisco and sits on the Boys and Girls Clubs of America Pacific Region Board of Trustees.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baer, Larry Living people San Francisco Giants executives San Francisco Giants owners Harvard Business School alumni Westinghouse Broadcasting Jewish American baseball people University of California, Berkeley alumni Place of birth missing (living people) American chief executives of professional sports organizations Businesspeople from San Francisco 1957 births 21st-century American Jews