The Giants Will Stay Put, O’Malley Says : Baseball: According to the Dodgers’ president, there are enough votes to block the proposed move to Florida.

Dodger President Peter O’Malley, a leader of the attempt to keep the Giants in San Francisco, said Sunday there is enough voting support from National League owners to ensure that goal.

“I’d be surprised if it worked out to the contrary,” O’Malley said.

Baseball’s owners will meet in Scottsdale, Ariz., today and Tuesday to choose between the $115-million offer from a Tampa-St. Petersburg group that wants to move the team to Florida and a $100-million offer from a Bay Area group headed by Peter Magowan of the Safeway supermarket chain.

O’Malley said he wasn’t certain if the vote would be held today, when the executive council meets with the ownership committee, or in separate and joint league meetings Tuesday.

The proposed move to Florida requires approval of 10 of the 13 National League clubs, with Giant owner Bob Lurie not allowed to vote, and majority approval in the American League.

O’Malley, attempting to retain the Giant rivalry and the core of a West Coast division if each of the leagues are ultimately realigned into three divisions, needs three votes other than his own to block the Florida sale. He said he wouldn’t be so optimistic if the votes weren’t there.

“The trend continues,” he said. “More and more clubs realize that San Francisco is the place for the Giants. More and more are impressed with the Magowan group.”

It isn’t clear how the league would justify forcing Lurie to take $15 million less from the San Francisco group, but there is a faction of owners who believe Lurie did not have approval of former commissioner Fay Vincent and did not follow league guidelines in reaching a transfer agreement with the Florida group.

Other objections to the move: that it would complicate possible realignment; that it would be unwise to put an established club in Florida in the same year that the expansion Marlins are opening in Miami and that it would be a mistake to leave the Bay Area to the American League’s Athletics.

The San Francisco group and/or major league baseball probably will be hit by a battery of lawsuits from the two Florida cities if the move is rejected.

O’Malley declined comment on what he called the legal “saber rattling.”

Among the threats is a new look at baseball’s antitrust exemption.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, headed by Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), will hold a one-day hearing Dec. 10.

Metzenbaum has voiced concern over the recent ouster of Vincent and the owners’ apparent intention is compounded, Sen. Connie Mack (R-Florida) said the other day, by the Giant situation.

“This is a clear test for major league baseball,” said the grandson of the former Philadelphia A’s owner and manager.

“If they understand market forces and let the market work, they would move to Tampa Bay. If they don’t, there is serious question about the antitrust exemption that baseball enjoys.”

Deputy commissioner Steve Greenberg acknowledged that the Giants’ situation has put baseball in a no-win position politically. He said the loss of the antitrust exemption would open the door to a “plethora of frivolous suits” on virtually every issue and remove the ability to maintain franchise stability because league approval would no longer be necessary to move.

“There’d be no central control,” he said. “You’d have teams packing up and moving in the middle of the night. I mean, it’s ironic that the antitrust issue would be raised if the Giants remain in San Francisco (because that would be an example of baseball maintaining control of franchise movement and stability).”