ANALYSIS : Looking at National League Expansion

Major-league baseball was supposed to announce on Tuesday its selection for two National League expansion teams that will begin play in 1993. But after months of telling the six contenders when to jump and how high -- it even ordered them to have logos and uniforms ready by Tuesday -- baseball didn’t have its own act together.

“We need more time,” the baseball lords said, blaming the delay on all the paperwork involved in checking out prospective owners. The signal, though, is that they can’t make up their minds.

The delay comes just after the 26 owners could not agree on how to split the $190 million in expansion fees. The commissioner had to settle that dispute.

The fundamental question is this: one or two teams in Florida? With its booming population, the state could be the gold mine of the 1990s that California was of the 1960s.

But there is a fear of the national pastime becoming too provincial. Two Florida teams would make for 22 of 28 teams in the Eastern and Central time zones -- and none in the Mountain time zone. That is the best argument for adding Denver, and why Miami and Denver have emerged as the best fit for expansion. That would leave St. Petersburg as a wild card, ready to snap up a financially troubled club and to offer the American League a slice of the Florida pie.

When will the owners finally figure out this expansion puzzle? They are obligated to do so by Sept. 30, but the guess is they might have an announcement within 30 days. In the meantime, here are the exhibition standings, with only the top three contenders given a good chance of landing one of the two spots.

1. MIAMI

Pros: It was not until March 30-31 that Miami roared into first place. That’s when two exhibition games between the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees drew 125,013. The message: South Florida is ready for baseball.

What may be Miami’s strongest suit, though, is its prospective owner, H. Wayne Huizenga, who has the money and connections to be a big-league owner. Huizenga owns Blockbuster Entertainment, the nation’s largest video chain retailer, and holds 15 percent of the Dolphins and 50 percent of Joe Robbie Stadium. What’s more, Blockbuster is the exclusive retailer for Major League Baseball Home Video and one of its directors is Pittsburgh Pirates’ President Carl Barger, whose boss, Pirates’ Chairman Douglas Danforth, happens to head the expansion committee.

Cons: Humidity, lightning and tremendous thunder showers. Teams might not take pregame batting practice for three months -- July, August and September -- when late-day cloudbursts are virtually daily occurrences in South Florida.

2. DENVER

Pros: Fay Vincent has talked often about making major-league baseball available to as much of the country as possible. The closest team to Denver is Kansas City. It’s time for the Mountain time zone to get baseball. Also, two more Eastern cities would create additional travel havoc for the oddly aligned West Division.

Cons: OK, so the Rocky Mountains don’t have baseball. But how many people are we talking about here? There are only 2.6 million within 70 miles of Denver, easily the lowest of the six. And if you want to knock Miami for its meteorology, what about the snow, smog and thin air of Denver?

3. ST. PETERSBURG

Pros: St. Petersburg has put together an impressive ownership group with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion. And having barely missed out on luring the White Sox in 1988, St. Petersburg has a solid core of fans who figure they are due for a major-league team.

Cons: The people of the Tampa Bay area built a field of dreams in St. Petersburg. They figured if you build it, expansion will come. But there is nothing pastoral or traditional about the Florida Suncoast Dome. Now they are staring at the prospect of laying out $138 million for a white elephant (the dome was publically financed). Expansion guidelines state that baseball-only, open-air, grass ballparks are “preferred.”

Also, St. Petersburg’s chances are hurt by Miami’s emergence as the No. 1 contender. Would baseball dare make expansion an all-Florida event? Probably not. St. Petersburg remains an alternative for struggling franchises such as Seattle, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Montreal.

4. WASHINGTON

Pros: Washington is the biggest market in the country without a major-league baseball team. It has the largest median income of the six expansion contenders. When the Washington group asked for deposits of $50 and $100 for full and partial season tickets, more than 32,000 put money down.

Cons: If the fans of Washington are ready for baseball, the high-rollers of the district are not. No one person or company with mega-money stepped forward to lead the ownership group. As a result, Metropolitan Washington Baseball Inc. probably would have to borrow money after paying the $95-million expansion fee. Why would baseball choose such a risky arrangement when other groups are waiting with cash in hand?

The people of Washington don’t have to travel very far to see baseball, anyway. The Orioles, who estimate they draw 25 percent of their fans from Washington, are less than 40 miles away in Baltimore. And next year, when Baltimore’s new stadium opens, the Orioles will be another 20 minutes closer.

5. BUFFALO

Pros: Buffalo is the choice of traditionalists. It has a ballpark, Pilot Field, with an old-fashioned feel and modern conveniences. It has a local owner with deep pockets, Bob Rich Jr., whose family owns the largest privately held frozen foods company in the country. And it has loyal sports fans. The minor-league Bisons have drawn more than 1.1 million fans for three straight years, the Bills have set NFL attendance records for two straight years and the Sabres have played to 97 percent capacity crowds for the past two years.

Cons: Tradition doesn’t matter here. Money does. Danforth, who had virtually nothing negative to say about any expansion city, told the city, “It would be great if you had another million people living here.”

6. ORLANDO

Pros: Orlando already has a manager (Bob Boone), an operations director (Denny Doyle), a director of player development (Brian Doyle), a wealthy prospective owner (Amway founder Rich DeVos, who is worth at least $1.3 billion) and a national magazine on its side. The May 27 issue of Time praised Orlando as a great boomtown.

Con: What Orlando doesn’t have is a chance. It is only the third-best candidate in its own state. Sure, DeVos has money, but he has the wrong address. He’s from Michigan, not Florida, which doesn’t satisfy baseball’s preference for local ownership. And Orlando would have to play in a minor-league stadium in Haines City, Fla., before a new stadium could be built.