The Giants took their time filling several key on-field roles heading into this season, and finding a successor for longtime and popular public-address announcer Renel Brooks-Moon won’t happen overnight, either.
Larry Baer, the team’s president and chief executive officer, said Thursday the Giants will use a rotation of announcers to start the season and that a search for the second full-time PA announcer in the history of the team’s waterfront ballpark will begin “soon.”
“The process will take time because she is a legend, and is going to be very, very tough shoes to fill,” Baer said when asked about Brooks-Moon during the team’s media open house at Oracle Park. “So in the meantime, we’ll have rotating voices into the immediate future in the PA booth.”
The Giants issued a release Monday that said the team and Brooks-Moon were unable to reach a contract agreement for this season and that “after extensive discussions they mutually and amicably agreed to part ways.” It would have been Brooks-Moon’s 25th season behind the mic.
Baer didn’t reveal any potential interim announcers on Thursday, but Giants fans won’t have to wait very long to see — and hear — who will be first to try to fill Brooks-Moon’s shoes.
The Giants conclude the Arizona portion of spring training on Saturday and play host to the A’s on Tuesday night in the exhibition finale for both teams. The Giants open the regular season next Thursday in San Diego and won’t play their home opener until April 5 against the Padres.
Baer noted that the Giants will name the PA booth after Brooks-Moon and plan to honor her during a game sometime this season.
“She’s an icon, she’s been an inspirational voice for generations of players, fans, an ambassador for the Giants,” Baer said. “Renel is truly a forever Giant and she is a San Francisco Giants icon.”
Baer’s comments at the open house came a day after Brooks-Moon, who has been the Giants’ PA voice since the team moved from Candlestick Park in 2000, thanked her fans and friends and offered words of encouragement to her successor and new Giants manager Bob Melvin in an Instagram post, her first extended public comments since the controversial breakup.
“It was, and always will be, the greatest honor of my life and career to serve as your PAA and community ambassador,” Brooks-Moon wrote, in part.
