THE WORLD SERIES : OAKLAND ATHLETICS vs. SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS : Fall Classic Shaken, Halted : Baseball: Commissioner postpones Game 3 after 6.9 earthquake jolts Bay Area. Status of today’s game remains in limbo.

Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent, responding to the earthquake that rocked Candlestick Park and much of Northern California Tuesday night, postponed Game 3 of the World Series and refused to speculate when or where the 1989 Series would resume.

Saying he acted on the advice of San Francisco police and Candlestick Park officials, Vincent postponed the game at 5:35 p.m., about the time it was scheduled to start.

The earthquake of 6.9 magnitude, with an epicenter about 40 miles south of Candlestick, violently shook the stadium at 5:04 p.m., cutting off power, causing concrete to fall from some sections of the upper deck and generating both wild cheering and cries of alarm from a crowd of about 63,000.

Jorge Costa, vice president of stadium operations for the host San Francisco Giants, said two fans were known to have suffered heart attacks, but there were no reports of injuries.

Vincent, seated in a field box near the Giants’ dugout, said without power and without lights, it wasn’t reasonable to keep people here when it would get dark.

“I’m sure many fans would have stayed on the chance the power could have been re-established, but I couldn’t take that risk,” Vincent said. “The safest course was to have people leave in an orderly fashion while there was still light.”

Vincent said a decision on the remaining games of the best-of-seven series, which the Oakland Athletics lead, two games to none, will be made this morning when he meets with team, stadium and government officials.

“I obviously want to talk to city and government authorities to see what’s involved,” he said. “This is clearly a crisis, and baseball, at this point, is only a small part of the community.”

Vincent refused to answer questions dealing with the possibility of moving the remaining games to another stadium. The Oakland Coliseum, site of Games 1 and 2, and where Games 6 and 7 were scheduled to be played if necessary, reportedly suffered extensive damage in the earthquake.

The three Southern California sites--Dodger Stadium, Anaheim Stadium and San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium--are possibilities, but Vincent would not speculate on their availability or the chance of the Series being canceled.

“I’ve learned that it’s not prudent to waste time on hypothetical questions,” he said. “We’ll meet tomorrow, at which time I hope to have a lot of facts I don’t have now. The one thing I can say is that I will not jeopardize 64,000 people until I know the stadium is completely safe.”

Vincent’s administrative assistant, Bill Murray, was asked if there was a possibility of the Series being moved to another locale and said, “Sure, why not?”

But a source in the commissioner’s office said to move the Series to another city and stadium on the spur of the moment had all the aspects of a “logistical nightmare.”

“I mean where are you going to find that many hotel rooms? And that’s only one consideration,” the source said.

Vincent, who walks with a cane because of an injury he suffered in college, said he was in his seat--a living-room style, wing-backed chair--when the earthquake hit or he would have been knocked off his feet.

“I thought it was a jet, maybe something breaking the sound barrier,” he said.

“I was raised in the East. I’ve never been through anything like this, but my wife said it was an earthquake right away. It was very frightening, but I have to applaud the fans, the police and the stadium officials. Everyone was very helpful.”

With the power out, police bullhorns were employed to inform the crowd that the game had been postponed, that their tickets would be good for the next game and that the stadium had to be evacuated immediately. The crowd left calmly, displaying an obvious sense of camaraderie amid gridlock at both the stadium and the parking lot exits.

“Considering the circumstances, the reaction was unbelievably calm,” Costa said. “Of course, it would have been much more difficult at night with the lights out.”

Costa said that a structural engineering team would begin an immediate evaluation of Candlestick, which opened in 1960.

He said he expected the evaluation to take 24 hours, meaning that Vincent may have difficulty rescheduling Game 3 for tonight.

Costa said he was on the field preparing for the pregame events when the earthquake struck.

“I’ve lived in California just about all my life and I knew this was bad,” he said. “I saw chunks of concrete falling from section 53 in the upper deck (in right-center field). The only thing I can say at this point is that this was major and that there has been some undetermined structural damage. We know of falling concrete in sections 9, 7, 51 and 53.”

There were also unsubstantiated reports at 6:30 p.m., when the stadium was closed to the media, of upper-deck cracks so severe that fans could stick an arm or a leg through and also clearly see the level below.

Fans were still scavenging for pieces of concrete almost an hour after the earthquake. And one, Mike Clark of San Francisco, was offering to sell a piece for $500 outside the stadium.

Of the evacuation, Costa said: “Part of what we do is to prepare for things you don’t even want to think about. We’re located by an airport so there’s the possibility of a crash. We’re located by a freeway, so there’s the possibility of a toxic spill. As soon as the earthquake hit, I had the plan in hand.

“I mean we lost power and phones. San Francisco was on citywide alert. There was and is the risk of aftershocks. There was no way we could have kept people here on the outside chance the game would have been played.

Said Giants’ owner Bob Lurie: “I was born here, but I’ve never felt anything like that. If you weren’t a little jumpy during something like that you better get a checkup.”

Lurie said he was disappointed for the crowd and not in position to speculate on the future of the Series, though he did express doubt that it would resume tonight. He reflected on his team’s 0-2 deficit, forced a smile and said of the earthquake: “A lot of people were saying I was behind this. Not true.”