Video shows Giants CEO Larry Baer pulling wife to ground in San Francisco plaza
Sporting Green // San Francisco Giants
Matthias Gafni and Evan Sernoffsky March 1, 2019 Updated: March 2, 2019 8:22 a.m.
Giants CEO Larry Baer pulled his wife out of a chair and caused her to fall to the ground in a San Francisco plaza on Friday morning, an incident captured on video by a witness and under investigation by city police.
The video shows Baer stepping over his wife, Pam, as she sits in a chair in the plaza in Hayes Valley before noon. She screams, "Oh, my God, no, help!" as Baer appears to try to grab a phone out of her right hand.
She hangs on to the phone, her chair tips, and she falls to her back. Larry Baer and his wife were having coffee when they engaged in an extended argument, and both were wearing suits.
The 5-second video was provided by a worker in the area who said he witnessed the incident, but spoke on the condition of anonymity. The footage — along with a second video lasting 10 seconds — does not make clear what led to the incident. The witness sold publishing rights to the video to TMZ.
Video shows Giants CEO Larry Baer pulling wife to ground...
1of4A screenshot from TMZSports.com purports to show San Francisco Giants' president Larry Baer in a physical altercation with his wife, Pamela, on Friday, March 1, 2019 in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: TMZSports.com
2of4Giants CEO Larry Baer introduced Farhan Zaidi as the new president of baseball operations during a press conference at AT&T Park, in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, November 7, 2018.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle
3of4Farhan Zaidi walks toward the press conference room with Giants CEO Larry Baer before Baer introduced him as the new president of baseball operations during a press conference at AT&T Park, in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, November 7, 2018.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle
4of4San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer arrives for the grand opening ceremony of the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, Calif. Tuesday, May 22, 2018.Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle
In the second video clip, Pam Baer is heard saying, "Oh, my God," and Larry Baer, holding a coffee cup, is shown saying, "Pam, stop," before walking away from the plaza.
Larry Baer told The Chronicle in an interview, "My wife and I had an unfortunate public argument related to a family member and she had an injured foot and she fell off her chair in the course of the argument. The matter is resolved. It was a squabble over a cell phone. Obviously, it's embarrassing."
Later Friday, the pair issued a joint statement through the Giants: "Regrettably, today we had a heated argument in public over a family matter. We are deeply embarrassed by the situation and have resolved the issue."
Hours later, the team sent a "follow up statement" from Baer in which he apologized.
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"I am truly sorry for the pain that I have brought to my wife, children and to the organization," Baer said. "It is not reflective of the kind of a person that I aspire to be, but it happened and I will do whatever it takes to make sure that I never behave in such an inappropriate manner again."
Then, Pam Baer sent out a statement of her own: "I would like to clarify the events of today. My husband and I had an argument in public about which we are quite embarrassed. I took his cell phone. He wanted it back and I did not want to give it back. I started to get up and the chair I was sitting in began to tip. Due to an injury I sustained in my foot three days ago, I lost my balance. I did not sustain any injury based on what happened today. Larry and I always have been and still are happily married."
Major League Baseball, which has a strict domestic violence policy, also issued a statement saying the league "is aware of the incident and, just like any other situation like this, will immediately begin to gather the facts. We will have no further comment until this process is completed."
By about 1:30 p.m. Friday, San Francisco police officers showed up at the scene and began interviewing witnesses. No one called police initially, but officers responded after The Chronicle posted a story about the episode on its website. A department spokesman said the incident was under investigation.
Nearby workers described portions of the incident at Proxy, a plaza at Octavia and Hayes streets with coffee and juice shops, a pizza cart, a movie screen and chairs for visitors.
The witnesses, who declined to be identified, said they heard a couple arguing before the incident escalated. Multiple witnesses said Baer would get up and start to leave, until the woman would say, "Larry, sit down, sit down."
A man who worked at a nearby clothing shop said the argument was loud and lasted about 20 minutes, long enough that he could not help but hear details. He said that at one point Larry Baer told his wife, "Let's go to counseling today."
The man who shot the video told The Chronicle the "very emotional conversation" kept going and going, drawing more and more attention from passersby.
"They sat down and started having an argument," he said. "I'm suspicious. I know this guy from somewhere and another guy said: 'That's Larry Baer!'"
The incident got physical just after 11:30 a.m. after Pam Baer took Larry Baer's cell phone, the man who shot the video said.
"He knocks her down off her chair and gets on top of her and puts his hands on her," he said. "She was screaming for help. She seemed pretty terrified."
At that point, he said, he put down his phone and intervened with some other men.
"As soon as he felt someone else grab him, he relaxed and got off," the witness said.
The clothing store worker, who also helped intervene, said that even after the couple separated, Larry Baer tried to get the cell phone. Neither party threw a punch or attempted to strike the other, witnesses said.
Larry Baer, 61, joined the Giants in 1980 as marketing director, then returned after a stint at Harvard Business School and in business to become part of the group that purchased the team in 1992. He became the team's president in 2008 and CEO in 2012.
According to a 2008 Chronicle profile of the couple, he and Pam Baer met at a 1988 birthday party in New York and married two years later. They have four grown children.
Pam Baer called herself "a very private person" and told The Chronicle in 2008 that her husband "is passionate about life, his job, about making a difference" in society.
The video is the latest controversy in a turbulent offseason for the Giants' front office. In November, Charles B. Johnson, the team's principal owner, struggled to explain political contributions to Mississippi GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who joked about her willingness to attend public hangings, and to an organization that aired a racist radio ad in Arkansas.
Matthias Gafni and Evan Sernoffsky are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com, esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mgafni @evansernoffsky
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