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In the Bubble: From the Frontlines
All Podcasts Take Me Out to the Socially-Distanced Ballgame (with Larry Baer)

Take Me Out to the Socially-Distanced Ballgame (with Larry Baer)

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Description

Dr. Bob calls up San Francisco Giants President and CEO Larry Baer to talk about what it’s taken to get people back in the stadium for the first time since 2019. They discuss what fans have to do to see a game, how the organization decided on those criteria, and what the reaction has been so far. Plus, what the Giants are doing to encourage people to get vaccinated.

 

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Dr. Bob Wachter & Larry Baer

Anthony Flores  00:00

Can you see in here what is going on behind me? The giants are taking batting practice. You know what? This is as close as I’ve been to the players in more than a year. There is excitement inside the ballpark because baseball as we remember is back. That’s right now of course the Giants have opened the season on the road and already played six games. But for the first time since 2019, fans will be back in the stands and the Giants will be hearing the roar of that hometown crowd at Oracle park of the Giants home opener against the Rockies signals a sign of normalcy in Major League Baseball at least here in San Francisco, but for fans attended the game, it will be a little bit different. Now this is video provided by the Giants, only about 9000 fans will be allowed inside the ballpark. Anyone 12 and older attended the game has to show proof of being fully vaccinated or a negative COVID-19 test. Fans will be seated in pod socially distance throughout the ballpark.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Welcome to IN THE BUBBLE. I’m Dr. Bob Wachter. That was sportscaster Anthony Flores. And yes, in fact, baseball is back. It’s much more normal than last year, no more cardboard people in the stands. But as you’ll hear, at least here in San Francisco, it’s not quite back to normal. We wanted to talk about sports. We haven’t done that for about six months, and I thought it’d be great to call an old friend Larry Baer, who’s the president and CEO of the San Francisco Giants one of the great franchises in Major League Baseball. I grew up taking the Long Island Railroad and subway to Shea Stadium to watch the New York Mets and had a chance to relive that when my older son fell in love with baseball the first time he saw a game with the old Candlestick Park.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

And then he spent much of his time in high school taking the Muni to sit in the bleachers cheering on Barry Bonds and company and watching the Giants win a few World Series. He in fact went on to a career in baseball. So baseball is very near and dear to me. And as it is to so many Americans as really the quintessential American sport. Because of that, seeing it go away in early 2020 was painful and seeing it come back in late summer, even this, in that diminished form with the cardboard people was important in our path to recovery. And seeing it back this year with crowds, even in many places, smaller crowds is really terrific.

Dr. Bob Wachter  02:33

So the Giants have had to grapple with COVID all the way along whether they could stage baseball at all with the economics of playing baseball with no crowds or very small crowds where whether to require a vaccination or testing all those things have been key issues for Major League Baseball and for each of the teams and we thought it’d be great to talk to Larry Baer about the decisions that his team, the San Francisco Giants and Major League Baseball in general, have made so that we could in fact play ball this year. So with that, let us call up Larry Baer.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

All right. Ready to go?

Larry Baer 

Ready to go.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Fantastic. Well, first of all, thank you for coming on. You’re in first place. Congratulations.

Larry Baer

You know, it’s funny, I will give you our breakdown of a baseball season for any folks that are interested. And that is 162 games, first 50 games, see what you’ve got, next 50 games, do something about it, because that’s coming up upon the trade deadline. And then the last 62 games play like heck, so you got 162. So we’re you know, obviously, feel good that we’re off to a good start. And we just have to keep monitoring and tweaking. And let’s see where we end up.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Yeah, well, you got something. We’re going to talk about COVID mostly. So let’s talk about 2020 first. What were the biggest and hardest decisions you guys had to make in 2020 about COVID?

Larry Baer  04:05

Well, in 2020, you know, we really had to as a team and then a league. And you know, the first thing I should say about it is we operate as a collective, right? There are 30 clubs within the league, so clubs can independently do what they might want to do, necessarily without the authorization of the league. So the league made, you know, the overall overarching calls in terms of when games are played when they can’t be played, etc. But within that each club had to within its own jurisdiction come up with a set of rules that would overlay upon MLB, Major League Baseball. So, without getting into all the complications, you just the general take on 2020 is that while it was a shortened season, I felt that Major League Baseball and the clubs really were able to operate responsibly.

Larry Baer 

Meaning, a short season, no fans, except in the very end at the postseason in Texas, but no fans in the 162-game regular season, the season turned out to be only 60 games. So the 162 games was converted to 60 games. And I believe that, you know that while there were a couple of team outbreaks that had games canceled, we got all 60 games in and kept everybody safe. So in a very, in the teeth of the pandemic, I think we did about as well as we could and we provided entertainment, through television and radio, to the fans that I hopefully provide a sense of solace and calm and enjoyment in a very tough time.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Definitely was, how close was it to there being no season last year? And how contentious were the internal debates about that?

Larry Baer 

Well, there were a couple things. One is that the commissioner had to make a call on whether we can have a legitimate any type of legitimate season. So 10 games wouldn’t be legitimate, right? 60 games felt like it was a legitimate competition, because all the 60 games were essentially within your own region to minimize travel. So there were several concerns. The number one concern obviously was can you keep the players and the associated essential personnel safe. So myself as the CEO, the team, I didn’t need to be there to play the games, and I went very rarely. But a trainer had to be there. And the players, of course, had to be there. And the coaches, of course, had to be there. And the people that prepare the ballpark to be used, the ground crew, etc, had to be there.

Larry Baer  06:40

Can you keep all of them safe? And I really felt that it was an amazing collective effort to do that. Can you change the protocols so that we couldn’t have players eating in the clubhouse? So could you have an outdoor eating facilities? These are just some examples. Could you have instead of the indoor batting cage, could you convert that to would convert a parking lot to an indoor batting cage? We converted plazas, because there were no fans to outdoor eating areas for both the home and visiting team. So some very creative solutions on the ballpark footprint were created to keep everybody safe and to get a really, you know, legitimate 60 games season in.

Larry Baer 

How close do we get? I think, you know, everybody was nervous when St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins were a couple of clubs that have outbreaks and had to cancel several game, mini games in a row, we had ended up canceling two games because of COVID in San Diego, which for some day turned out to be a false positive with one of the players. I also have to say, Bob, that the testing and I know you’ve been talking a lot about testing throughout this whole pandemic, the testing evolved over time. But the fact that we were able to get tests done by from players, you know, pretty much on a daily basis was quite amazing. You know, and that would that contributed to the comfort level.

Dr. Bob Wachter  08:10

What are the economics of baseball, like when you’re playing to stand spilled with cardboard people?

Larry Baer 

Yeah, yeah. So you know, the other piece of this was we had to absorb, you know, brutal economics. Basically, in each team is a slightly different, but not huge differences. So I’d say each team depends on fan revenue, anywhere from 40% to 50% of their overall economics, and that would include derivatives of fan revenue, like, you know, ticket revenue, derivatives, in addition to tickets will be concessions, merchandise, parking, etc. So call it for us in our case is called 50%. So half of your revenue is gone. Then other revenue, other pieces of revenue are limited, right? Like sponsors are saying, I put my sign in an empty ballpark, it gets seen on television, but it doesn’t really get noticed by anybody in the ballpark. So what is that worth?

Larry Baer 

And tell all the television games that were canceled. You know, two thirds of the season was canceled. So look, we all took financial hits, but at least the Giants and I think many clubs were like this. We weren’t going to bemoan our losses, financial losses, because that’s there were a lot of people hurt a lot worse from the pandemic than a Major League Baseball club. And was people being ill, and people caring for those who are ill, were ill, the last thing we wanted to do was to have the team ownership and team executives complained about it. So you know, we took on the losses, and we’ll have more losses this year. Because again, it’s very limited we have right now we’re about 20% to 25% capacity, but we’re looking to a day where you know, in 2022 at least we can return to full capacity, if not before.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Yeah. Awesome. Let’s move to 2021, how is it different this year? And what were the biggest and hardest decisions you had to make about staging baseball in 2021.

Larry Baer  10:08

So it’s been really a pretty amazing effort where we’ve had a collaborative work with and this was a five California team. So, Dodgers, Angels, Padres, in Southern California Giants and A’s in Northern California, work together with the governor’s office in the state health director, Dr. Ghali and his staff to determine you know, how to open safely. And, you know, the good news is we were able to open with fans on opening day, but you know, what are the right protocols, and then on top of that, each local jurisdiction could layer additional requirements, restrictions. And so, you know, I feel it was a collaborative process that allowed us to bring fans in safely made sure that the fan interaction was with in such a way that didn’t jeopardize the players. Because in our ballpark, where you’re very close to the field, there’s really, you can in some parts of the ballpark, you reach out and even touch the player.

Larry Baer 

So how would that all work? So where we ended up was at the state level, having these requirements that were tied to the tiering. So we were essentially have been in yellow tier, but have been somewhere between 20% and 50% capacity, but requiring evidence of a negative test or being fully vaccinated. And also living and living in a socially distanced seeding ball. Except for about one week ago, in early May, we were able to convert to some vaccinated section. So we have now two opportunities for fans, two choices. One is you to sit socially distance six feet apart in pods of two and four. And you can either have a negative test or be vaccinated, or in an all-vaccinated section. If you’re comfortable with that, you can be sitting next to each other with no social distance. So it sounds complicated.

Larry Baer  12:09

But our fans are understanding and adjusting would be able to build, so what does that translate into real people, I we’ve had that 7000 or so in the first couple of homes stance capacity. And then this last weekend, we got it up to 10,000. And now with more people vaccinated, essentially, we think that in would play the Dodgers in starting May 21, we think we push into a 15 to 20,000. Because the people will be able to populate the vaccinated sections which will allow our capacity to grow.

Dr. Bob Wachter

So take us through the logistics. So I come to the stadium, I have my little CDC card, I need to show it to somebody and if I don’t, then you take me off somewhere and you do a test on me. How does that work?

Larry Baer 

Yeah, so okay, let’s do the two. The simplest is if you’re vaccinated, you come and you can show your actual card, your old school physical card, or you can show a picture of your card, you have to obviously have ID to show that the card, you know, if it’s a mobile phone picture of the card, then you have to show that you are who you are, you are, you know, Bob Wachter, and then you go into the vaccinated section, you’ll get a wristband, and we tried to keep the vaccinated people in the vaccinated section in that general area, you know, for concessions, etc, then you’ll have a wristband.

Larry Baer 

If you’re in a socially distanced seating area, which is pods of two and four, you can have it the way we’ve been operated is you can be either vaccinated or have a proof of a negative test. Okay, that restriction is still being discussed for the next homestand whether those restrictions in the socially distance area where you’re six feet apart from everyone that is being reviewed right now. So I don’t have an update for you. But that’s been reviewed by the City of San Francisco, that restriction that was a city health director requirement that we’ve been under and it’s being reviewed.

Dr. Bob Wachter  14:06

Okay. So if I don’t have my vaccination card, I can show you that I had a test in the last few days. And if I have not had a test in the last few days, but I still want to come in. Are you going to test me?

Larry Baer 

Yes.

Dr. Bob Wachter

And how do you do that?

Larry Baer 

It’s a rapid test that we, it’s not something that’s essentially what will happen and you’ll be able so when you’re not sent home and if you’ve test negative, then you’ll be able to come into the ballpark.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

When you say you’re getting 10,000 now you’d like to and may go up to 15,000 is that because you’re turning a lot of people away or people are choosing not to come because of the restrictions?

Larry Baer

Well, it’s Really because of the limited capacity, because we’re trying to do the mix between how many seats are socially distance and how many seats are vaccination section, in the vaccination section seats, you can say that at 100%. So let’s say we had 15,000. Let’s say we had 10,000 seats are revaccination seats for sale, you can sell all 10,000. In the socially distance area, you’re essentially omitting 75% of the seats from use. So if you had 20,000 seats, right, in the socially distant section, you’re only selling 5000. Right? So that’s why when you see watch a game, you see all these holes. So we’re trying to get the mix right. And, you know, this is all on a path, because, you know, we’re following the tiered system. And we’re also now following what the governor is saying that June 15, you know, things are going to open up, I have to say, hats off to all the officials, both state and local, who have gotten us to the point where we have such low levels in San Francisco.

Larry Baer  16:07

And there’s a combination of factors, right, that go into it, in terms of hospitalizations, and case rates, and also some equity issues as to where the cases are, that’s all put into the formula that develops a tear. It’s also what the city health officials look at. But, you know, I think if we continue to act responsibly, we’re going to get to a point where we’ll be able to pull even these restrictions. That’s, that’s our hope. But we don’t want to jump the gun. And we’re going to stick with the guidance of the local health officials who have deserved credit for getting us very good levels.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Yeah, it must be a little weird. San Francisco today has a test positivity rate of point 7%. There are we’re averaging 25 new cases a day, in a city of 900,000 people, it must be a little weird to have the restrictions that you’re operating under and then look at other stadiums around the country that are doing worse, COVID wise and yet are fully open. how you deal with that. Yeah,

Larry Baer 

I mean, we had Texas on opening day, while we were, you know, trying to figure out a way to shoehorn our capacity to 7,500 or so in Texas was 100% capacity, 40,000 people, so different restrictions, different state and local provisions. But again, it’s kind of like, you know, bemoaning the financial losses, there’s a lot of has been a lot of pain and suffering, things are really good now, here relatively, and we just think that, like other institutions, restaurants, bars, schools, and especially being outdoors, we think we’re on a path that, again, kind of June 15 has been sort of it seems to be targeted by everyone, you know, in the state and hopefully the city, the city needs to review it.

Larry Baer

That we get to June 15, that we’re going to have a feel pretty good about the world locally and you know, and we’re certainly open to other provisions that whether it’s masks or whatever, but we really want the fans the fans want to be back. The other thing we you know, we’ve been doing surveys of fans, and we’re finding just as you would expect, the progression of a comfort for the from the fans to and that’s one reason numbers are gonna go up to that, you know, fans looking at buying tickets in May or utilizing their season tickets more comfortable […] And what we’re hearing from fans in a pretty loud way Is there going to be more comfortable in June than May.

Larry Baer  18:42

The outdoors piece is a huge thing. Once you go to a game, I haven’t heard one fan say oh, you know, I was a little nervous that you know the person sitting six feet away from me or even the person sitting next to me, you know, because you’re it’s outdoors and it’s super open-air and..

Dr. Bob Wachter

It is San Francisco so it is well ventilated.

Larry Baer

We have the maritime effect that has not ,the maritime areas knocked out, not knocked down the homerun balls, which mean that’s a double negative, means that we’ve been able to hit some home run balls through that maritime air. So that’s good.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Yeah. The decision to have vaccine checking, you know, it was one of the more controversial issues as we’ve come into 2021 you know, weather, colleges, restaurants, travel will require vaccination, how much discussion was there about requiring vaccination or at least having vaccine only sections? Did you sort of appreciate that this might be controversial and how controversial has it been?

Larry Baer 

Yeah, I mean, I think the vaccine only sections are interesting because we sort of had to move there in order to get the numbers up to meet the demand. And then let people see we had a couple of challenges early on, one challenge in the socially distance seating is that as we’re eliminating 75% of the seats, were having the six foot between pods, we only have seating areas for two and four people. So what if you have a family of six, what if you have, you know, a neighborhood of a 10 people and you traditionally go to a game together, what if you have work associates that you’d like to travel the games together? 10-12? You know, you just couldn’t do that.

Larry Baer  20:28

So, if vaccinated, you have the ability to go into group, so we almost had to do the vaccinated sections to accommodate people that want the we’re larger than two or groups of larger of two and four. The other thing is, you know, as the research, you’re part of this research shows the safety of vaccinated people around one another, especially outdoors, and especially with masks, right, because we still have a mask requirement. I mean, you tell me, Bob, you’re a lot more qualified.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Almost couldn’t be safer.

Larry Baer 

I’d like to think that gets down to about zero, right? […] you have a mask on, you know, and so I don’t think that necessarily on, you know, April 15, that light bulb was on. But I think on May 15, that light bulb is on in people’s minds. And so vaccinated seats is really picking up. And so for the Dodgers May 21, 22, 23, for those who might have a larger group, you know, or the price points are a little lower in the vaccinated sections, because they’re a little further out from home plate. You know, we’re seeing people now be more comfortable buying those seats.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Great. Last year, so much of the discussion was as protecting the players, you don’t hear much about the players. So are you requiring vaccination for the players? Are you still doing testing of the players? What’s going on with them?

Larry Baer 

That’s great question. So the players piece is we cannot require it. You know, the players have, we have a collective bargaining agreement with the players. There was one thing I didn’t talk about, which was you’re asked about 2020 and 2021, there was about 120-page manual, the manual change each year on player protocols. And the player protocols, I have to commend the players because the player protocols were strict. They related to you know, not going outside on the road not going outside of your room to socialize or to bars or restaurants even in areas where bars and restaurants might be open. Like say, we play in Arizona live, we play the Diamondbacks. And so the players have been great that way. And we, you know, we have one false positive as I mentioned, but we basically had no outbreaks with players in season, which is fantastic.

Larry Baer  22:44

And most teams are in that boat. We can’t force, we can’t compel vaccinations. We strongly encourage vaccinations, we are within a few days of being an 85% vaccinated for and when I say players it’s all the staff that is around the dugout, right to put […] so it’s players, coaches, manager, trainers, etc. And 85%, the protocols loosen, you see players now wearing masks, you can I think seven teams are at 85%. As they say, we’re just a few days away from being in 85%, then you don’t have to wear masks in the dugout.

Larry Baer 

You have on the road, the restrictions are not as severe, right? So you can go to, you know, to a restaurant or bar consistent with local regulations. Some of the restrictions on eating in the clubhouse are relaxed. So all of that changes when it’s 85% and we’re close to being 85%. So the players have incentive to get vaccinated. We’re not under the illusion that we’ll have 100% it would be good. But you know, just like the general players are a microcosm of society. And we’re not gonna get to 100% of society being vaccinated for whatever reasons, but being at 85% we’re really proud of that. I just heard some numbers league wide 83%, I think it’s about 83% of the players have had at least one shot of the player’s league wide. So that’s really good.

Dr. Bob Wachter  24:11

You say that when you say players, you’re actually talking about a lot of frontline staff at the staff being required to vaccinate because I assume they’re not part of the Union.

Larry Baer 

We’re doing a similar thing so when we say staff, now we’re talking about front office and all. We are not requiring it to come back to work, but we are highly encouraging it. And we’ll have, the way it’s like now, which we may have separate protocols for those not vaccinated in terms of, you know, social distancing and all of that. So we’ll see, we are not we have not reopened our offices. So that’s a decision that is coming. We don’t have that decision made yet.

Dr. Bob Wachter

And are you still doing any routine testing of players or staff or that’s all gone away in the world of vaccination?

Larry Baer 

We’re doing routine testing staff, right. So if you have not, if you haven’t been vaccinated, and you’re working in the ballpark, so if you’re in concessions, and if you’re in, you know, you’re an usher or security, and you have not been vaccinated, you are tested regularly. So we really we have a program and I’m really proud of the group at the Giants, I just want to give them a quick shout out, we have something called Fan Safe. And it’s actually a kind of a brand, right, and we have a logo Fan Safe, we put it up in the ballpark we have on our website what it means, at SFgiants.com And what it means is we take every precaution from the sort of the typical sanitation things to all the way we’re presenting food.

Larry Baer 

We initially had remote ordering the food only, now we have, you can belly up, we call it belly up service, go to the concession stands, we don’t have all the stands open, we have social distancing and lines to get in. We have people we ask people to social distance as they leave the ballpark, etc. So those are really important features. We’re also you mentioned the workers. You know, one of the things I think the Health Directors, both locally and statewide have been focused on and rightly so is just, you know, people in the kitchens preparing the food. So we’ve had really stringent measures to make sure that they’re, you know, vaccinated if possible, tested, separated by distance. Because the outbreaks can be there. People just think of the fans, but what about the workers.

Dr. Bob Wachter  26:46

The team is, you know, they’re celebrities that’s iconic part of the city, is the team doing anything to try to encourage people to get vaccinated?

Larry Baer 

Yeah, so a lot. And players have been great, we’ve done public service announcements with the players, working hard with our sponsors. So if you watch a game on television, right by the first base line, you see a big, two big words painted on this field. “VAX UP!” exclamation point. And that’s with our partner Dignity Health, which has been our partner, we’ve distributed masks, we produced with them was 250,000, masks, Giants logoed masks that we’ve given out. And not just giving out to fans coming into games, but also in the community.

Larry Baer 

And especially in certain low-income neighborhoods where players have gone so players have delivered messages. We’ve also been really focused on communities that would separate from baseball that, you know, with food insecurity and people having real trouble with unemployment, and losing their positions. During the pandemic, we had a food pantry opened in our parking lot for about six months, up to eight months, I think, and delivered the 1.6 million meals to folks. And it was just literally a drive thru. So those sorts of things. You know the thing about a baseball team or other professional sports teams or a baseball team, especially I think, because it’s a long season, a lot of games that it’s during the summer, is we have a loud megaphone.

Larry Baer  28:26

A platform may not be that large a business, but we have a profile, we’re on television, four hours a day for seven months, and radio, and social media. So all those messages have gone out. And we also think that players may be able to reach through their messaging, a different demographic than if you just put you know, something on television, there’s been a lot of advertising support, but doesn’t always reach say that the younger fan that might be accessing, you know, media differently.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Yeah. Just a couple more. I know you’ve got to go, COVID has accelerated trends in a lot of industries, whether it’s the way people do work, or the digitization of the field, what do you think are going to be the enduring effects of COVID on baseball?

Larry Baer

So I think, you know, in a couple of ways, it’s been, you know, we’ve learned to stay connected, both on the business side and on the baseball side in ways that have been you know, you could call them silver linings if you want. I mean, we all wish the pandemic never happened. So start with that. But you know, we’ve had fan let’s just talk about the business side first. The fans, we’ve stayed connected with fans in new ways. We’ve had these chat talks, zoom chat talks, and we’ve had everybody from you know, our Hall of Famers. And you know, we had a great one because of Willie Mays birthday the other day, we had a great one saluted Willie Mays and we had Barry Bonds come on and Dusty Baker come on, and people that are very, very connected to Willie and talk about what Willie is meant to them.

Larry Baer  30:04

And 1000s of fans were able to get on through Zoom and connect with that, that’s probably something that wouldn’t have happened in a pre-pandemic world. So the connectedness with our fans, the connectedness with our community, so we’ve had community leaders come on and meet with members of the Giants organization, and also our fans, that connectedness within our front office, so meetings, much more efficient, commute, etc. You know, the question is out there, are we going to five days a week work four days, three days? You know, we’re like other businesses. One big thing is we put on events, so we probably will have a higher proportion of folks, I think, being in the office or being in and around the office, when we come back.

Larry Baer 

On the baseball side, I think we’ve learned, you know, creative ways to communicate creative ways to use technology, that we’ve been able to do believe it or not, you know, sort of technology sessions with our players and with our staff, looking at new devices and new things, you know, remotely that we could impose into our development of players and implement. So those pieces aren’t going to go away. I think they just couldn’t make us more efficient, and make and make the organization better. So those are, you know, again, we wish there was never a pandemic, but there’s some takeaways for us that have been, you know, they’ve been good.

Larry Baer

I think that the other thing, though, that we’re feeling and hearing is, nothing replaces being at the ballpark. So all the remote access to the Giants for the games themselves. For the games themselves, there is a roaring 20s kind of feel, I think that people want to be in the ballpark having a hot dog and a beverage. People want to be cheering for the players and the players to you know, it was a hollowed-out experience last year having no fans. Very empty.

Dr. Bob Wachter  32:06

Yeah, maybe that brings me to my last question. As you know, my son works in baseball, and he saw Bonds first home run into the bay when he was I think 9 or 10. And his eyes lit up and said, this is what I want to do. It has a special meaning in America, as you’ve been making your decisions last year and this year, how much was that on your mind that this is not just a game and not just a business, but there’s something iconic about baseball and its place in American culture.

Larry Baer

A lot, Bob, and I think it boils down and this is a really perfect connection to you and your son. I grew up going to baseball games, sort of my childhood was defined by in my relationship with my parents, and especially my dad was a big fan and my mom was very supportive of it but not as big a fan, where we would get on the bus, the municipal railway bus growing up in San Francisco and galactic candlestick and watch Willie Mays in centerfield And Bobby Bonds in rightfield and Juan Marichal pitching and Willie McCovey for space. That was my childhood. I love that and love the moment that time that I spent with my father, that times then ultimately, I would spend with my friends going to games.

Larry Baer 

And my favorite thing to do, I mean, I love it when the Giants are in the World Series. I know that that’s not going to be every single year. But what gives me the joy and I think what gives all of us the feel is to see mothers and sons and fathers and daughters and grandparents having that shared experience. And, you know, couples and brothers and sisters and work associates and people on date night and it’s the communal spirit and we lost that last year in 2020. And when we lost it, we saw how overwhelmingly powerful it is to have that sense of community, you know, within a ballpark where you’re with your family or friends or even with strangers.

Larry Baer  34:00

I mean, one of my greatest moments we have a number of sponsors will give tickets to the Boys and Girls Clubs. And we have something called the Junior Giants program that supports low-income youth. And you see high fives, you might be sitting next to somebody who is 17 years old and lives in Visitation Valley. And you might be you know, an executive in downtown San Francisco. And you know, Buster Posey hits a home run, or Johnny Cueto strike somebody out and you see them high fiving each other, complete strangers. From different very different worlds. That’s what is the essence of our game.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Go glad it’s back and glad the giants are doing well. And thank you for taking the time and talking with us. It’s been a fascinating couple of years and you’ve managed it incredibly well given all the curveballs.

Larry Baer 

Well, thank you, Bob. And I have to say that the Wachter threads, Twitter threads have helped us educate us, the Giants and educate the community, the larger community incredibly well. So thank you for all the contributions of you and everybody on the frontlines, obviously, who would not be in the good momentum position we’re in without your incredible work. So thank you.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Thank you really appreciate that.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

We have a number of other great episodes coming up on IN THE BUBBLE before we take a little break. We’ll do a Toolkit on long COVID. We haven’t talked about long COVID for a number of months, and there’s a lot more experience that we’ve all gathered some more research, and I think a little bit better understanding of what’s going on. We’ll talk to […], who is a pulmonary physician at UCSF and runs our long COVID Clinic, as well as NYU’s Jennifer Frontera, who’s a member of the WHO brain health neurology and COVID-19 forum, and an expert on some of the neurological manifestations of COVID.

Dr. Bob Wachter  36:09

We’ll also talk to Justin Sutherland, who is a celebrity chef and a restaurant owner and he’s going to talk about another industry that was battered by COVID and is coming back just like baseball. That’s the restaurant industry. And then we’ll take a little bit of a break for a few weeks and then we will retool, Andy Slavitt is going to finish up his white house stint as was promised in the beginning. And we’ll come back to take over hosting the show in mid-June. And I look forward to welcoming Andy back and to regaining my rightful place as a loyal listener to this wonderful show. So until then, you have a few more episodes with me. Please stay safe, get vaccinated, and I look forward to talking to you soon.

CREDITS

We’re a production of Lemonada Media. Kryssy Pease and Alex McOwen produced our show. Our mix is by Ivan Kuraev. Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs executive produced the show. Our theme was composed by Dan Molad and Oliver Hill and additional music by Ivan Kuraev. You can find out more about our show on social media at @InTheBubblePod. Until next time, stay safe and stay sane. Thanks so much for listening.

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