S.F. Giants' season is over. They left the lights on for us

Daniel Conrad has had a lot of time to think about his highs and lows as a baseball fan. There he was in Yankee Stadium on Oct. 1, 1961: The day Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s unbreakable record with his 61st home run. One year later he was seated within Manhattan’s cavernous Polo Grounds, watching the New York Mets host the San Francisco Giants. The Mets lost 120 games that year and 111 more in ’63, but they always won when Conrad was in attendance. 

There he was at Candlestick Park on Oct. 17, 1989 — the Earthquake Game. And he was in the stands of Oracle Park on Oct. 16, 2021 — when everyone but umpire Gabe Morales knew that Wilmer Flores did not swing, but Morales rung him up anyway, curtailing the Giants’ miracle season.

Conrad, a big Flores fan, has had time to think about all of this as he lies awake in the apartment on Townsend Street where he’s lived for the past 16 years, just a Willie Mays toss-and-a-half from the stadium. But not just because he’s overwhelmed by baseball memories. 

Also a factor: At bizarre and late hours, the big lights of Oracle Park beam directly into his home. They illuminate his apartment with a bright, somewhat otherworldly glow; it feels a bit like Richard Dreyfuss being buzzed by a UFO in “Close Encounters.”

The Giants won their 81st and final game of the year on Sept. 28, but the lights have remained illuminated at confounding hours. They were recreating the UFO experience within Conrad’s apartment several days last week, including 3 a.m. on Friday.

You couldn’t reasonably complain to the city about an alien visitation — though, in this city, people would probably try. But when a stadium built atop land leased from the city makes like Lionel Richie and beams bright lights into your window all night long, you can complain. Conrad has. Voluminously. For several years now.

But, to date, he has had little in the way of luck. It has been a run somewhat reminiscent of those ’62 Mets. 

The first thing one thinks upon reading the dozens of letters Conrad has written since 2023 to the Port of San Francisco and its tenant, the San Francisco Giants, is how measured they are. While Conrad is persistent, he is also unfailingly polite. 

“Photos are attached. I took the photos at 11:35 pm; 1:27 am; and 4:31 am. [I’m sorry if they are giant images – I don’t know how to scale them smaller],” reads an email from Conrad to a Port property manager from July of this year.

“The lights are very bright,” Conrad continues. 

In an era increasingly defined by coarseness, meanness and stupidity, this is refreshing. 

“You’ve heard of an ‘angry letter committee?’” asks the 72-year-old retired lawyer. “In a lot of firms, they have something they call the ‘angry letter committee,’” he explains. “When you write an angry letter, you cannot send it out until someone says it’s okay. I serve that function for myself.” 

Conrad isn’t angry but he is methodical. The former attorney obtained the Giants’ 195-page ground lease from 1997. In letter after measured letter, he urges the Port and its tenant, the Giants, to adhere to Exhibit F of this lease: “Tenant shall turn off the primary sports lights within a reasonable time after the public has exited the Ballpark following night games and other nighttime events. Thereafter, lighting shall be limited to the minimum reasonably necessary for clean-up of the Ballpark.” 

“There’s no point getting pissed,” he continues. “I want someone to do something.”

And yet the lights are still shining through Conrad’s window. That “something” has, thus far, been confined to writing letters. 

Port officials have responded to Conrad with equally polite claims that they have sent the Giants several “official notices” to moderate the big lights as recently as this summer. In June 2024 the Port’s senior property manager, Jennifer Gee, sent a letter on Port stationary to Giants’ general counsel Jack Bair. 

Gee reiterated the stipulations of Exhibit F, and noted that despite the Giants’ nocturnal cleaning schedules — which can run from 10 p.m. to 9:30 a.m. over several shifts — that it did not feel the team was adhering to the terms of the lease by illuminating the stadium past the witching hour in order to sweep peanut shells out of the bleachers.

“While cleanup of the Ballpark is required, the Port does not agree the above is a reasonable timeframe for the primary sports lights to remain on, specifically between the hours of midnight to 5AM,” reads the letter. “Therefore, Port requests [the Giants] immediately adjust the light schedule for the primary sports lights to reduce any light-generated nuisance to surrounding properties and neighborhoods.”

Bair responded promptly, countering that the Giants have, in fact, always followed the terms of the lease going back to opening day in April 2000, switching to less intense “house lighting” after hours.

“We do this not only because it is required in our lease, but also to save on energy costs,” he wrote. 

That was last summer. On Oct. 3, 2025 — last Friday — Conrad was up at 3 a.m. The lights were shining into his bedroom. 

The term “primary sports lights” does not appear to be defined in the team’s lease. Conrad, naturally, felt it must mean the giant light towers that shine into his apartment. Perhaps the Port did, too. But, as the team sees it, it’s not the specific lights, but the level of lighting. 

When fewer of those lights on the giant tower are on, and they shine less intensely, the team deems that “house lighting.” This is the term Bair used in his 2024 letter: It’s “house lighting” enabling cleaning crews to scour the stadium in the wee hours — and there are many non-baseball events requiring lighting and late-night cleanup. The lights have been changed in recent years, and, as Bair also noted in his 2024 letter, they may indeed stay on all night during intermittent replacements and recalibrations. It additionally wouldn’t be odd for them to shine all night during setup or takedown for a concert or other event. 

Stadium lights are also certainly more sophisticated than they were in prior eras; check out the colors and strobe effects here on Camilo Doval’s entrance extravaganza. Conrad suspects they may be more powerful, too: There may be fewer big lights on late at night, but they seem to be brighter. He’s lived in his apartment for 16 years, but he only recalls being bothered for the past two or three seasons. While “house lighting” is surely less intense than “primary sports lights,” the difference may not be enough to allow Conrad et al. to sleep through the night. 

While only the 72-year-old retired lawyer has engaged in a letter-writing crusade, he is not the only ballpark-adjacent resident staying up nights. Mission Local obtained emails written by a former neighbor of Conrad’s noting that stadium lights shining all night kept her husband up when he was recuperating from surgery. He was forced to take additional time off work because of his slow recovery. 

Her family eventually moved to Southern California where they enjoy “cheaper rent and no lights.”

“The Port has been made aware of lighting concerns at the ballpark and has attempted to work through them with the Giants community liaison and the public commenters,” a Port spokesman responded to Mission Local. “The Port will continue to engage in support of finding a solution that addresses the concerns of all sides.”

Bair, the Giants’ attorney, told Mission Local that “We are happy to follow-up with the source of the complaint to better understand the specific light or lights that are of concern and see if any adjustments can be made to our house lighting without compromising the safety of staff who work overnight.”

Perhaps Conrad’s problems will be solved. But this hardly reads as a call to action. Throughout this saga it’s hard not to liken the relationship between the Port and its superstar tenant, the Giants, to the Giants and their erstwhile superstar employee, Barry Bonds. You could request things of Bonds. But you didn’t tell him anything. 

Conrad, for his part, says he wishes the team well. He also wishes he could sleep nights and not have to hermetically seal himself within his apartment late at night. And, while he’s got the team’s attention: Daniel Conrad wishes the Giants could find a way to re-sign Wilmer Flores, please.