Giants Will Remain in San Francisco

National League baseball owners, meeting here Tuesday, disapproved the relocation of the San Francisco Giants to St. Petersburg, Fla., meaning the team will definitely return to Candlestick Park in 1993 for its 36th season.

Giants’ owner Bob Lurie was prevented from voting and needed 10 of 13 votes to approve his $115-million agreement of sale to a group from the Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg area. But in the secret balloting, only four clubs voted in favor of the move and nine voted against it.

Bud Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and chairman of baseball’s ruling executive council, said the vote “reaffirmed baseball’s long-established preference for the stability of its franchises.”

While the Giants’ return is certain, the team’s ownership remains uncertain. A Bay Area group headed by Peter Magowan, president and chief executive officer of Safeway, the supermarket chain, has made a $100-million offer that Lurie has 10 days to review.

The proposal requires Lurie to carry $10 million of the group’s loan, which would make him the largest single investor. He refused to answer questions after the National League vote but said in a statement that his attorneys will not need 10 days to review the offer.

“However, since I am being asked to be the largest single investor . . . and to contribute substantially more money, I feel it is only prudent to understand fully the nature of the relationship,” his statement said. “But I do not expect this process to take more than a few days.”

If Lurie accepts the Magowan group’s offer, Selig said, the transaction will be reviewed by the ownership committee and, if approved, sent to the National and American leagues for approval. That would probably occur, Selig said, at baseball’s winter meetings, to be held at Louisville, Ky., during the first week of December.

In San Francisco, a triumphant Mayor Frank Jordan said he was confident that Lurie would come to an agreement that would keep the Giants in his bayside city.

“I’ve only used this term twice since being elected mayor: ‘How sweet it is,’ ” Jordan told a packed City Hall news conference. “The Giants are going to stay . . . right here in our city. San Francisco is the city that knows how.”

Moments later, a bottle of champagne was popped and squirted on Jordan, giving the gathering the feel of a victorious locker room.

Elsewhere in San Francisco, fans and community leaders crowed and marveled at how their city had managed such a dramatic reversal of fortunes.

The daunting challenge of building a stadium to replace the icy, windy Candlestick Park remains, but most San Franciscans sensed that victory in the bicoastal duel over the team was well within reach.

“I’m euphoric,” said Ed Moose, a San Francisco restaurateur and veteran of several Giants-stadium battles. “It took a do-or-die, last-minute emergency to make this happen, but now it has happened. That makes all the bitter defeats worthwhile.”

Barbara Bagot-Lopez, president of the grass-roots Giants Alliance, said: “This is truly a moment to relish. I guess sometimes you have to be pushed to the edge of the cliff before you react. This city was right at the edge and fortunately, we reacted.”

Tuesday’s vote came three months after Lurie had announced an agreement in principle to sell the Giants to a St. Petersburg group headed by Vincent J. Naimoli.

“We’re extremely disappointed, as I’m sure are the wonderful fans of the Tampa Bay area who have supported our group,” Naimoli said. “We’ve given this our best effort and played by all the rules. At this point, we’ll have to assess what our options are.”

He wouldn’t say what his group’s legal strategy might be, but hinted at a legal battle.

“It ain’t over till it’s over,” he said. “I can’t make any further comment.”

Tuesday’s vote is expected to saddle baseball with lawsuits by the city of St. Petersburg and citizen groups there. The action could also result in a challenge of baseball’s exemption to antitrust laws, established in 1922 and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court 50 years later. The antitrust subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), will hold a hearing Dec. 10.

Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) vowed to ask Congress to rescind baseball’s antitrust exemption.

“I don’t believe the antitrust exemption was ever intended to control the movement of franchises,” Mack said. “It’s time to end all doubt and revoke baseball’s abused antitrust privilege.”

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), saying that he was outraged at the league’s action, said the interests of baseball and free enterprise “are both being lost in defense of a good ol’ boy operation.”

And Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles promised the matter won’t be closed “until the courts and Congress make the last call.”

Neither Selig nor National League President Bill White would address the legal ramifications, and league attorney Robert Kheel told owners in the National and American leagues not to discuss any aspect of their decision.

Dodger President Peter O’Malley, a leader in the attempt to keep the Giants in San Francisco because of his desire to retain the long rivalry and a core group of three National League clubs in California if the league realigns into three geographical divisions, said only that he was satisfied and pleased with the vote.

Reliable league sources said he was joined in his opposition to the move by the San Diego Padres, Houston Astros, Montreal Expos, New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds and Colorado Rockies, an expansion team that will begin play in Denver next season.

The St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Florida Marlins, another expansion club, voted for it. The Marlins supported it only because of their desire to keep peace in Florida.

The Marlins, who will play in Miami, privately did not want an established team moving into their territory in the first year of their existence.

That situation also weighed on league owners, as did the league’s reluctance to leave the American League’s Oakland Athletics as the only team in Northern California, but Selig insisted that the matter came down to the preference for franchise stability.

He said the policy has been consistent for the last 10 years and cited changes in the local ownership of the Expos, Astros, Rangers and Mariners at times when those clubs were also considering relocation.

“This was a damned if we do, damned if we don’t situation,” Selig said, referring to the policy when measured against the St. Petersburg area’s long pursuit of a major league team and its series of near-misses.

Selig compared the situation to his own six-year pursuit of a team for Milwaukee and said: “I’ve been there. I understand the heartbreak and frustration. I’m sensitive to how this decision affects the fans there. It’s a wonderful area, a wonderful market. I can only counsel patience.”

Lurie reached his decision to sell to the group headed by Naimoli on Aug. 6, after San Jose voters had defeated a stadium referendum in early June, the fourth time Bay Area voters had frustrated his attempt to move out of cold and blustery Candlestick Park.

Lurie’s agreement with the Naimoli group prevented him from negotiating any other offers, but on Sept. 7, in response to pressure from O’Malley and San Francisco Mayor Jordan, White said the league would serve as a conduit for any Bay Area group interested in keeping the Giants there, ultimately leading to the $100-million offer by the Magowan syndicate.

Several owners have said privately in recent weeks that a factor in their opposition to the Florida move was a belief that Lurie had overstepped league guidelines in making that agreement, that former Commissioner Fay Vincent had told him he could explore options in the wake of the San Jose vote but did not give him permission to move. That authority rests with the owners.

“Some seven weeks after putting the Giants up for sale, the only offer to buy the team came from outside of California,” Lurie said Tuesday of his decision to accept the Florida offer.

“I also fully understand the desire of many of my colleagues in major league baseball to try to find a way to keep the Giants in San Francisco. I have always respected baseball’s rules, which require a vote of all owners to approve the sale and relocation of teams. I have made a commitment to abide by baseball’s decision in this matter and I intend to honor that commitment.”

Lurie also said he felt sorry for the Naimoli group and the fans of the St. Petersburg area but congratulated the Magowan group and “everyone throughout the Bay Area who worked so hard to keep the Giants.”

If the sale to the Magowan group goes through, as expected, the next critical problem for the Giants is a new stadium.

White, however, said that a plan is in the works and that it has financial and political support, though he wasn’t specific.

“I don’t think these people would invest this much money if there wasn’t short-range plans and political backing for a new stadium,” he said, referring to the Magowan group.

The only certainty for the immediate future, though, is that chilly Candlestick still has the Giants buttoned up.

The Associated Press and Times staff writers Jenifer Warren and Philip Hager contributed to this story.

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