San Francisco Gets to Offer Proposal

National League president Bill White said Wednesday that the sale of the San Francisco Giants to a group from Tampa-St. Petersburg is on hold, and that he is receptive to competing offers from San Francisco.

“The window is open,” White said at the quarterly owners meetings in St. Louis, suggesting that owner Bob Lurie’s $111 million sale to Florida interests has never been the done deal it appeared to be. “The window has always been there.

“Bob Lurie is a man of his word. He has given the Florida people his word that he will not take any other offers, but I will accept an offer from the people in San Francisco, and the leagues will decide on what to do with the Giants.”

White, under pressure from the Bay Area and some league owners who want to keep the club there, said he has yet to receive “what must be a competitive offer” for the Giants, but a San Francisco group headed by Charlotte Hornets’ owner George Shinn is believed ready to make one.

Lurie said he will open his books to Shinn if Shinn and the city, which is already seeking an injunction to make the Giants honor a Candlestick Park lease that runs through 1994, sign a waiver guaranteeing they will not sue the Giants or baseball.

White said he could not predict when the leagues would be ready to vote on the move.