San Jose Swings for the Big Time

Everyone here is full of proud talk that San Jose, the place Dionne Warwick didn’t know the way to, is about to be “put on the map”--to be recognized finally as a “major league city.” The cause of this great civic breakthrough is a handshake agreement announced last week by Mayor Susan Hammer and Bob Lurie, owner of the San Francisco Giants. It’s quite a deal.

Lurie, who is only worth $480 million and listed by Forbes as one of America’s 400 richest people, has agreed to move his team by 1996 to San Jose. San Jose, in turn, will raise $250 million--with taxes, how else?--and build Lurie a shiny, new, 48,000-seat ballpark.

How nice.

Lurie can abandon Candlestick Park, a stadium notorious for wind and cold, and Hammer will go down as the mayor who sucker-punched San Francisco.

“While others around us share in the suffering of a deep economic recession,” Mayor Hammer said, “San Jose steps forward to seize an opportunity to provide jobs, stimulate our local economy, attract substantial new investments and put San Jose on the map as a truly major league city.”

Huzzah, huzzah. We haven’t witnessed such municipal spirit since, well, since Irwindale got the Raiders.

I don’t know why cities go crazy when it comes to professional sports franchises, I just know that they do. They can debate until Christmas whether to add a few beat cops, or open a day-care center, or shelter the homeless. But let some wealthy team owner move within whiffing distance, and they can’t open the vault fast enough.

Yes, they try at first to make the sober, economic case--this will create jobs, attract more businesses, all that; a sporty version of Reagan’s trickle-down theory--but what really revs them up is the notion of making The Map. It’s as though a city isn’t a city until its name is printed in sports agate.

The owners love it. As long as they maintain scarcity, making sure there are fewer franchises than there are capable cities desirous of one, it’s the Al Davis gravy train. They let some sucker city such as Irwindale--or maybe San Jose?--make a minimum bid, then sit back and weigh the competing offers. California is especially vulnerable to this gambit. It is populated and prosperous enough to support many more teams than are already here, so there is heavy interest among cities and franchises alike. Also, the state’s suburban satellite cities are hungry to declare independence from the urban centers that created them, and the quickest short cut is to steal the Rams, or the Warriors, or the Giants.

All of this allows an owner such as Lurie to start a bidding war without roaming far from home. It becomes sweeter still when you consider that pro sports defines a “city” as a television market. From Lurie’s perspective, he’s not really moving because he’s staying in the same market. He’s getting paid millions just to stay put. Places such as San Jose and Anaheim and Oakland, of course, don’t see it that way.

Let me offer an alternative definition of a “truly major league city.” While it might welcome a team, it would not sell out its taxpayers and agree to underwrite professional athletics. Big league cities don’t court, but are courted. As I recall, after New York City lost the Giants to San Francisco, it didn’t take long for the Mets to fill the void. The way Los Angeles chased the Raiders was beneath its dignity.

San Francisco’s new mayor, Frank Jordan, has been shouting to the heavens and Herb Caen that he is not to blame for the Giants’ defection. How un-San Franciscan, Frank. I would cut an opposite course. I’d serve Lurie with an eviction notice, padlock Candlestick Park, then sit back and watch the developments in San Jose with smug detachment.

It will be interesting. Hammer hasn’t developed a precise financing scheme yet, but it’s clear San Jose’s $250-million obligation will have to come from some form of city taxes--and require voter approval. And people who pay taxes always tend to be more prudent than people who spend them. In fact, only a couple of years ago, San Jose voters rejected a similar Giants stadium proposal. Finally, Hammer’s deal with Lurie comes at a time when the city, staring down the barrel of a $30-million deficit, is discussing what services to slash first, cops or community centers.

So I’d take bets that it won’t happen, that San Jose voters will quash the deal and Lurie will be stuck. But what do I know? I’ve rooted for the damn Giants all my life, and every season they’ve let me down. What’s one more time?