The Giants have been one of the wealthiest franchises in Baseball for some time now, but there was a time in their history when they coasted solely on name recognition/brand awareness and a cavalcade of Hall of Fame-caliber names and faces.
Despite the move west, Giants’ owner Horace Stoneham found himself with a dud. The Giants simply weren’t making a lot of money. A recent industry trend had been to install AstroTurf, an artificial field material that was definitely much more about saving money on ground/lawn maintenance and the water bill than about affecting play, safeguarding player healthy, or beautifying stadiums.