[Applause]
so I’m in the fun business you all of
you are in the fun business I mean think
about it we literally get paid to bring
joy and happiness to others
I mean seriously we’re pretty lucky
right so why is it that so many of us in
the fun business think that if we’re not
miserable we’re not working hard enough
or we’re not going to be successful or
we’re not going to be important I know
I’m guilty of it anybody else in fact
that’s pretty much how the Giants
operated for decades long hours lunches
at our desks stress anxiety and we wore
it like a badge of honor and all the
while outside of our offices in our
beautiful ballpark along the San
Francisco Bay our fans were cheering
laughing clapping having the time of
their lives
and for all of our suffering and
sacrifice we weren’t even whinny
seriously
the Giants and won a World Series back
in 1954 when we were still playing here
in New York and then we moved to San
Francisco and 20 years passed without a
championship 30 years past 40 years past
50 years passed without a championship
the formula for baseball has always been
you get yourself a couple of superstars
to anchor your team and you cater to
their every whim and demand and then you
surround those superstars with a bunch
of second fiddles and off you go we had
a ton of great stars over the years but
we still couldn’t win a championship in
the mid-2000s we hit rock bottom the
clubhouse had a pretty well-established
pecking order and nobody seemed to be
having much fun the veterans Superstars
pretty much kept to themselves except to
put the rookies in their place and
despite all of the talent that we had in
that Clubhouse we consistently missed
the playoffs
of course our business side took the hit
and our attendance declined so what did
we do we doubled down on our stress and
anxiety
we worked longer hours we suffered more
and of course we boasted about it then
in one unexpected unconventional
baseball season everything we thought we
knew about its success was turned on its
head I’m here to tell you about how a
band of rookies castoffs and misfits use
the power of joy and fun to transform a
135 year-old franchise and everyone in
it the year was 2010 those veteran
superstars were long gone and two new
superstars took their place along with a
new group of second fiddles the
supporting cast was a jumble of
mid-level journeyman unproven youngsters
and aging veterans who had been plucked
from baseball scrapheap the new
superstars were barely out of college
one was a long-haired skinny
skateboarding pitcher out of Seattle who
looked so young that he was often
mistaken for the bat for the batboy the
second was essentially his polar
opposite square-jawed born
nextdoor catcher from georgia with a
buzz cut and at first glance the
demeanor of a sheriff in an old western
they were so young and their talents so
electrifying that they instantly
achieved Rockstar status
mobbed by fans hounded by reporters and
wooed by sponsors in other words divas
in training right but these two young
super duck superstars did something
radical so radical in fact it changed
the course of San Francisco Giants
history they had a blast as if the most
fun you could possibly have would be
hanging out in the clubhouse blaring
hip-hop music or catching dinner
together on the road they were a
different kind of superstar fearless
warriors on the field
yet one of the guys off it they checked
their armor swords and ego at the
clubhouse doors the impact was immediate
and profound the hierarchy flattened
factions fell away players can be seen
shoulder to shoulder during raucous
games of cards and dominoes Latino
players with american-born players
la hipsters with southerners veterans
with rookies they developed these crazy
handshakes and inside jokes they cheered
like little leaguers from the dugout
instead of tearing them down the rookies
the veterans pumped up the rookies and
made them feel like equal instead of
complaining the bench players cheered
the loudest all of the tension of
judgment melted away none of the players
cared that our closer more black nail
polish a mohawk and that his beard had
its own Twitter account
nobody cared and I’ll spare you this
photo nobody cared that our first
baseman had taken to strutting around
the clubhouse and nothing but a red lace
thong none of it mattered everyone’s
judgments melted away
everyone’s quirks were celebrated and
the guys started showing up earlier and
earlier to the ballpark
every day they worked out harder they
played harder
nobody wanted to let his teammates down
nobody wanted this season to end at some
point the players got it in their heads
that they could win in a World Series
despite the fact that every baseball
expert had predicted that we wouldn’t
even make the playoffs and despite the
fact that with the season halfway over
we were in fourth place but this band of
misfits believed it as executives we
were in and out of the clubhouse all
season long and from every corner of
that room you could hear laughter our
own spirits were lifted and we found
ourselves back in our office offices
laughing with our staffs even more and
the fans too began to respond they
arrived at the ballpark wearing panda
hats in honor of a player who is
nicknamed the Kung Fu Panda they wore
black beards in honor of our bearded
closer there you go the players came
across as so down-to-earth that whatever
barrier there may have been between them
and the fans simply crumbled the fans
became family in all of our years as a
franchise we had never seen anything
like it
and the attendance soared pretty cute
right and then the team began to win
bime in July we were in third place and
then we moved up to second and we were
nipping at the heels of the first-place
San Diego Padres their camaraderie
seemed to open up space for unlikely
heroes to shine their joy seemed to
unleash what was best in them veteran
players were performing better than they
had in years the lowliest bench players
were hitting home runs and stealing
bases no one in baseball was hat we’re
having as much fun as these guys and on
the last day of the season the Giants
beat the Padres to clinch first place
and a spot in the playoffs
they then went on to knock off the
Braves and
Billy’s and we headed to the World
Series suddenly we in the front office
were in a frenzy of printing tickets and
arranging parties and scheduling travel
for hundreds of people one day I found
myself schlepping luggage through a
hotel lobby while another one of our
executives ran out to Costco to buy
drinks and snacks for the more than
eight hundred Giants employees and their
guests that we had flown to Texas for
the World Series it occurred to me that
like our Clubhouse we had flattened our
own hierarchy everyone did what had to
be done regardless of title and the
hours were long we were dogged tired and
running on pure adrenaline but we were
in it together and we were enjoying the
ride we won the World Series for the
first time in 56 years and a million
fans who came out and lined the parade
route turned San Francisco into one
enormous joyous party I remember that
day so vividly I was one of the main
parade organizers and I was pretty much
a basket case at the start of the route
because I hadn’t slept in days
we have literally organized a party for
a million people in 48 hours
a long time Giants Executive watched
straight up to me and he put his hands
on my shoulders and he looked me
straight in the eye and he said Stacy
look around you look at all of these
happy people make sure you take it all
in and enjoy it because this is why we
do what we do
I immediately burst into tears because
at that moment it had finally sunk in
and I was crying tears of joy
we went on to win another championship
in 2012 and then we won again in 2014
with those same Superstars and a
different group of misfits and cast us
and each time we were dog tired sleep
dafak deprived but we had the time of
our lives
a few weeks ago I was thinking back
about how much our culture has changed
since 2010 and the Giants we were
holding our annual front office retreat
and in between meetings we had organized
all these activities like ping-pong and
dodgeball and dance lessons
and the poor dance instructor was having
difficulty recruiting members for her
class and tell a young co-worker of mine
called me over she’s like Stacey you
have to do this so I checked my ego at
the door and got out there and I was so
pathetic it was it was hilarious but
then I grabbed our chief lawyer and then
our CEO and got them onto the dance
floor and they were horrible it was just
it was awful
so here we are it’s the middle of the
day and all of these top executives
middle-aged rhythmically challenged
executives are out there doing these
crazy dance steps and having just
laughing our heads off and then all of a
sudden everyone just starts joining in
as if it’s a flash mob and in the middle
of the day in the midst of our computer
terminals our erase boards and our file
cabinets we all just danced thank you
[Applause] [Music]