BASEBALL : San Jose Makes a Major League Bid

There are two recurring thoughts regarding the latest possibility of the Giants’ departure from Candlestick Park.

The first is ongoing amazement at how sports in general--and baseball in particular--continues to foster this fantasyland in which unemployment, homelessness and an economy as uncertain as the Dodger infield don’t exist. Need $155 million to help build a stadium? No problem. A raise for teachers? Have to table that one again.

The second is the stark and sad realization that San Francisco, the city of O’Doul and DiMaggio, of Mays and McCovey, of Clark and Mitchell, could be without baseball. Yes, the Bay Area will still have the major leagues, but try to show San Franciscans the way to San Jose?

“Ain’t going to happen,” said Ed Moose, former proprietor of the Washington Square Bar and Grill and twice chairman of a San Francisco committee hopeful of keeping the Giants in the city or at Candlestick.

“I mean, it isn’t feasible,” Moose said of a 55-mile drive that’s about twice the distance between Dodger Stadium and Anaheim Stadium. “I live in the downtown area (of San Francisco), and it’s taken me two hours to make that drive. There’s no public transportation, and it’s all traffic on (U.S.) 101.

“The Giants are going to have to create a whole new fan base, and that city hasn’t shown it’s there. I don’t think the Giants are walking into a great situation at all.”

Of course, it hasn’t happened yet and maybe won’t. Voters in the same area rejected a Santa Clara County stadium last year, and this one is expected to be on the ballot in June. Moose said he, too, is amazed that a city would commit to $155 million in today’s economy and said: “I still think there’s a chance it will fall apart, but right now we’re crying in our beer, feeling very helpless. To lose an asset like the Giants is a disaster for a small city like San Francisco. The economic ramifications are far-reaching.”

They may even reach the Oakland Athletics.

Fifteen miles isn’t 55. BART makes it easy. A’s attendance could increase by 50,000 a year, Moose predicted, though San Franciscans will have to swallow their sometimes arrogant abhorrence of the East Bay and all things in it.

San Francisco had its chance to keep the Giants, but the electorate voted against downtown stadiums under two mayors, Dianne Feinstein and Art Agnos. The second time, Moose thought, there was real momentum, with the Giants reigning as National League champions in a season of club-record attendance, but then the 1989 earthquake wrecked the bandwagon, altering priorities and budgets.

Since then, with his Candlestick lease expiring in 1994, Giant owner Bob Lurie has known he would have to look elsewhere. Santa Clara. San Jose. Somewhere besides San Francisco. Two years ago, he received permission of fellow major league owners to define his area as including San Jose. This move, if it happens, will not require another vote. The territory is his.

“Bob has had his mind made up,” Moose said. “Any recent discussions he’s had with the city (of San Francisco) have been window dressing, just going through the motion. It’s unfortunate that the new mayor (Frank Jordan) hasn’t had a chance to get on it. I also feel that with all its liabilities, Candlestick could be made into a comfortable environment for $50 million or $60 million, but Bob wouldn’t discuss it.”

Who can really blame Lurie? How much wind, fog and cold can a person take? One year, the Giants handed out Croix de Candlestick certificates crediting the recipients with having survived Candlestick Park and the risk of hypothermia. The camera of the mind still sees Bill Buckner, then with the Dodgers, thawing out in a clubhouse corner after a long-ago night game and saying that someone, anyone please, “should bomb this place.”

Really, who can blame Lurie for envisioning the cleaner, clearer warmth of a new stadium with the riches of luxury boxes and a newer, expanding market from which to draw? This is not a surreptitious Robert Irsay packing up his Colts under the dark of night and trucking from Baltimore to Indianapolis. This is not a callous Al Davis disdaining the loyalty of legions of Oakland fans and moving the Raiders to Los Angeles.

Rejected by San Francisco voters, numbed by the Candlestick environment, Lurie, whose father was a financial pioneer of the city he may be leaving, is undoubtedly justified in seeking a new haven. It’s just that the largess represented by San Jose’s $155 million again smacks of toyland, that make-believe world in which a baseball player named Bobby Bonilla receives $29 million, golfers play a Skins Game for $35,000 a hole and 30-second Super Bowl commercials sell for more than $800,000.

At some point, somewhere, doesn’t reality have to set in? Aren’t there more meaningful ways to be big league than building a stadium?