It’s one of the oddest sights in any Major League ballpark. The left field wall at Oracle Park abruptly rises up a good 3 feet near the left field foul pole, carries 6 feet across, and then dips right back down to its normal height.
I’m referring to the curious outfield wall alteration that makes room for the left side of a Chevron ad depicting a cartoon dog standing in a cartoon car catching a baseball.
It’s the fourth iteration of the ad, which has been there in some form since the stadium opened in 2000. The ad requires approval from Major League Baseball because it quite literally changes the stadium’s “ground rules” — special rules particular to each MLB park that designate where fair and foul territories are.
“Our department led by Michael Hill and Raul Ibañez, our Senior Vice Presidents for On-Field Operations, must approve any alterations to the playing field and ground rules,” Michael Teevan, MLB’s vice president of communications, told SFGATE via email. “We work with clubs on such alterations and examine from the standpoint of player safety first and foremost as well as competitive considerations.”
In the case of the Chevron ad, the potential is still there for all kinds of controversy, and that’s even setting aside the unsettling visual of an oil and gas company being prominently featured at a ballpark in a supposedly environmentally conscious state. A ball hit just short of the extension, for instance, would be a home run over the regular outfield wall but is just a double in Chevron’s neck of the woods. And a ball hit just over the extension would completely block the outfielder from robbing a home run.
Opening Day at Oracle Park on Tuesday, April 3, 2018.
Courtesy of Suzanna Mitchell/San Francisco GiantsIn fairness, Jason Pearl doesn’t remember the ad ever costing the San Francisco Giants a game. And if there’s anyone who would know, it’s Pearl.
“If it had a negative effect on the Giants, I’d get phone calls,” he says, two days before the Giants take on the defending World Series champion Dodgers in the National League Division Series.
Now in his 29th season with the ball club, Pearl is a senior vice president and chief business development officer with the Giants, which is a fancy title for “the guy who was responsible for the massive Coke bottle in the outfield.”
Eduardo Nunez crashes into the wall as the ball goes off his glove for a double at AT&T Park on May 27, 2017, in San Francisco.
Thearon W. Henderson/Getty ImagesPearl helped set up long-term partnerships with 15 different brands prior to the stadium’s debut in San Francisco and also helped bankroll the first privately financed ballpark in Major League Baseball since 1962. (There’s a fantastic breakdown of the financing from The Athletic here. The Giants borrowed $170 million from Chase Manhattan to fund the stadium build, which they finally paid off in full in 2017.)
One of those 15 brands was, of course, Chevron.
“We told all 15 brands we’d come up with something unique to them. For Visa, it was unique things with point of sale, for Coca-Cola, it was the 80-foot Coke bottle, and for Chevron, we said we’d give them that left field space,” Pearl says.
“Mark (Galbraith) at [Chevron’s creative agency] Y&R and Jim (Gordon) at Chevron came up with the concept for the sign. I remember going to their headquarters in 1998, and they pitched us on this idea. Mark Galbraith created a mock-up of the sign, and he wanted it to be interactive. So the antenna on the car went up and down, and Mark was standing behind it making it go up and down — it was comical at the time.”
San Francisco Giants mascot Lou Seal looks over the left field wall right next to an older version of the Chevron ad during the game against the Colorado Rockies at AT&T Park on June 15, 2014, in San Francisco.
Thearon W. Henderson/Getty ImagesAccording to Chevron marketing rep Mark Matheny, there was a lot more than just a moving antenna when the ad debuted.
“The original sign was animated — headlights, eyes and an antenna with a Giants flag flashed and moved after each home run,” he wrote in an email exchange. “Since then, the characters have been updated.”
There are conflicting reports about why they did away with all the bells and whistles; Pearl says it was hard to upkeep, while others noted it became too distracting for players and folks in the crowd. Either way, even without the blinking and moving, not everyone has been a fan.
There’s a since-deleted video clip from the early 2000s of former Giants second baseman Jeff Kent talking about cutting off the top of the cars if they ever cost S.F. a win.
“I do remember Jeff Kent saying that,” Pearl says. “It was very much in line with Jeff Kent.”
No one ever has ever sawed the top off (Kent included), though the car extension did move about 15 feet, from the left of the bleachers (where it started) to the front of the tunnel out of the ballpark. The cars have had some close calls wherever they’ve traveled.
Gorkys Hernandez of the San Francisco Giants climbs the wall and watches a fan catch the ball that goes for a three-run homer at AT&T Park on June 27, 2017, in San Francisco.
Thearon W. Henderson/Getty ImagesKent hit a double off the car in 2000 in an eventual win, which prompted his angry commentary.
Mac Williamson hit a home run off the top of the cars five years ago — a 2-1 win against the visiting Red Sox.
One of the closest instances, if you can believe it, actually came from Kris Bryant — but before he was a Giant. In the 2016 NLDS, Bryant hit a home run for the Chicago Cubs that landed on top of the car and into the stands, tying the game in the ninth. The Giants were, however, saved from a Chevron cars-created loss when Joe Panik hit a walk-off in the bottom of the 13th inning, the Giants’ lone victory in a 3-1 NLDS loss to Chicago.
“It’s something I’ve worried about for years, that game-winning home run that a Giants player hits into the top of the car and it’s not a home run. But to my knowledge it’s never happened,” Pearl says, adding, “The Kris Bryant home run, that ball wasn’t catchable.”
The Giants and their funky outfield wall host the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLDS Friday at 6:37 p.m. on TBS.
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