S.F. Leaders, Fans Mount Campaign to Keep Giants

Die-hard Giants baseball fans, saddened by the planned defection of their club to Florida, gathered at windy Candlestick Park on Monday night to launch a last-ditch campaign to keep their team in town.

As city leaders attempted to pull together an offer that could keep the Giants under local ownership, fans passed out leaflets at the stadium urging supporters to pressure baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent to block the proposed move to St. Petersburg.

With the team returning home for their first game since the move was announced, boosters urged fans to wear the Giants’ colors, orange and black, until the team is saved for San Francisco.

“Say hey, Fay! Make them stay!” was their slogan, adapted from the words of the immortal center fielder Willie Mays and quickly taken up by Giants backers. During the game, the crowd repeatedly took up the chant, “Make them stay, make them stay.”

“The fans are real disappointed in the announcement and want to do everything they can to express their disappointment,” said season ticket holder Jack Bair as he passed out leaflets before the game. “They hope something can be done. It would be tragic to see them go.”

Giants owner Bob Lurie announced last week that he would sell the team to a group of Florida investors and that the club would begin playing in St. Petersburg next season. The move must be approved by both the National and American Leagues as well as the commissioner.

Lurie’s decision was a crushing blow for San Francisco fans, who had hoped that a local savior could be found to buy the team.

“It’s pretty devastating, it really is,” said Mary Jo Greenley, decked out in Giants sweats, who went to spring training and has attended nearly every game this year. “It’s sad, very very sad.”

Lurie’s desire to move the team out of chilly Candlestick was well known. But four times since 1987, voters in the Bay Area have rejected ballot measures to help build the team a new stadium. After the most recent defeat--this year in San Jose--he said he would sell the team.

Nevertheless city leaders, seemingly caught flat-footed by the announcement, rushed to put forward plans to build a new ballpark and come up with a rival group of investors.

The idea of a new downtown San Francisco stadium to replace the aging Candlestick got a boost Monday when city leaders said local union officials pledged to use as much as $200 million in pension funds to finance construction of a ballpark.

And Bay Area financiers, headed by tycoon Walter Shorenstein, were reviewing the Giants books in their effort to match the estimated $110 million offer from the Florida group.

Mayor Frank Jordan is also backing the campaign to pressure Vincent to block the sale, urging fans to “write, phone and fax” the commissioner, an aide to the mayor said.

At Candlestick, a park with legendary cold weather, many fans were gloomy knowing this season may be their last chance to see their heroes play.

“I’m really upset,” said San Francisco Police Officer Dominic Panina, a fan from childhood who was on crowd-control duty outside the stadium. “Hopefully they can do something to keep the team here.”

Although the team is mired in fourth place, 14,691 attended the game against the Houston Astros, about 4,000 more than the Giants would normally expect for a Monday night game. Many cheered before the game when the Giants announcer said, “Welcome to Candlestick Park,” and found more reasons to cheer as the Giants won, 4-1.

Many fans expressed disappointment at Lurie’s unwillingness to wait for a local consortium to make an offer for the Giants. Lurie himself had stepped in and bought the club for $8 million in 1976 when the team was on the verge of moving to Toronto.

“He should have given local ownership a chance,” said Alfonso Felder, who helped organize the group passing out leaflets. “We’re bitter in the sense that a local offer wasn’t entertained.”