We have our hero for the day and his name is Charles Bartlett Johnson.
AKA, the man who authorized the Giants to sign right-hander Matt Cain to a nine-figure contract extension, specifically in the neighborhood of $110 million to be paid over five years, beginning in 2013.
Though this is welcome news for Cain and for the Giants, it has to be enthusiastically embraced by Giants fans, many of whom were justifiably skeptical about an extension for Cain.
That goes back to the ouster – announced as a retirement – of former CEO William Neukom last fall. Neukom, who replaced Peter Magowan three years earlier, wasted little time expressing his vision for the franchise. He thought big, which almost always requires spending big.
Yet only one year after the Giants won their first World Series in 53 seasons in San Francisco, Neukom was gone. The speculation was that the rest of the team’s ownership crew, more than three dozen investors following the lead of a 10-person management committee, thought Neukom too ambitious, too full of himself and too willing to make unilateral decisions.
And, perhaps, a bit too relaxed with the budget.
All of which cast Johnson, the biggest investor, as the villain. His role in this case, then, would be dialing back. Move toward conservatism. Tighten the budget. Increase the profits. And stay out of view.
No more megadeals like the one Magowan lavished upon Barry Zito, no more budget stretchers like Neukom’s approval of the late-season signing of Carlos Beltran.
The Cain negotiations, then, represented an opportunity for Johnson and the Giants to make a statement.
And the Giants stepped up in a major way, which has to delight those fans already stretching their wallets to buy tickets for games at AT&T Park.
