Neukom is at home with Giants

The Bay Area-raised attorney will take over the team in October.

Janie McCauley - Associated Press

Bill Neukom has run a half-dozen marathons, rides horses, is fresh off hip replacement surgery and has a penchant for bow ties.

He is best known for more than two decades of work as a Microsoft attorney and as the current president of the American Bar Association. That will change in October, when Neukom, 66, takes over from Peter Magowan as the Giants' controlling owner.

"This is a full-time job," said Neukom, who has fluffy white hair and stands 6-foot-4. "I'm not doing this any way but the way I know how to do this, which is full out."

That means he soon will begin house hunting in San Francisco because he plans to be accessible, visible and not far from the team's waterfront ballpark. He soon will be watching more games in San Francisco than he does as a Seattle Mariners season-ticket holder.

Neukom grew up in San Mateo, with then-San Francisco Seals owner Charlie Graham as a neighbor. Neukom joined the Giants' ownership group in 1995 and became a general partner in 2003.

His Microsoft stake was worth an estimated $107 million when he left the company in 2001. Currently, he's a partner in the Seattle office of the law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis.

"I can't think of a better person to hand the reins off to than Bill," Magowan said. "I have the highest respect for him."

Magowan became the Giants' managing general partner in 1993. He kept major-league baseball in San Francisco, built a new ballpark and brought Barry Bonds to town before parting ways with the home run king after 15 seasons.

In 2002, after the Giants lost the World Series to the wild-card Angels, Magowan first mentioned to Neukom the idea of him one day running the Giants.

"I kept it in sort of the back of my mind. I think he did, too," Neukom said. "People tend to be philosophical about their work when they get to a certain stage in their careers."

When Magowan revisited the idea with Neukom last winter, things quickly progressed, and the ownership group approved the change.
Major League Baseball owners must ratify the move, too. That likely will happen in August.

"I couldn't resist it, just because I'm such a baseball fan," said Neukom, who played basketball and ran when his body used to allow it but now sticks to golf and riding horses. "I've been part of the investor group long enough to have some sense of what it does. The notion that the other investors would support me, want me to do it – it was hard to turn away from that."

Larry Baer will remain the top executive to Neukom, as he has been for Magowan. Baer will jump from executive vice president to team president Oct. 1. "I think we have a transition that, in many ways, will be seamless," Baer said.

That's how Neukom wants it. He's not ready to make major changes, but he hasn't said he won't, either. "They wouldn't have supported this transition if they thought we were going to go in a significantly different direction," he said.

Challenges are ahead, including further fallout from the Mitchell report and getting back to winning and filling the stands.

Magowan was mentioned in the Mitchell report that came out in December. He then met with baseball Commissioner Bud Selig during spring training about whether members of the Giants' front office knew players were allegedly using steroids and performance-enhancing drugs.

The Giants haven't reached the playoffs since 2003 and are rebuilding with young players. Attendance also is down.

"I have some notions, but it's a little early to talk about that. The rest of the season is Peter's," Neukom said. "We're also being candid when we say this is kind of a family enterprise.

"We've all been together for a long time, for the most part. They're all investors because they love baseball and we want to have a successful team here. An awful lot of what's happening will continue to happen."

It's not as if Neukom hasn't faced pressure before. He worked as the top counsel for Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.

"That's why he'll be excellent at it – he's done so many things," said Mariners president Chuck Armstrong, who met Neukom in the fall of 1964 while they attended Stanford Law School. "He's very thoughtful. He's a good listener; he puts himself in the position of other people and understands why they think the way they do. He's an information gatherer.

"He's very smart, a quick study, and he's been a lifelong baseball fan. I don't think the learning curve will be very steep."