Padre Euphoria Could Sway Stadium Vote

As polls suggested that “World Series fever” may be boosting the campaign here to win voter approval for a new baseball park, tens of thousands of cheering fans lined downtown streets Friday for a Padres’ appreciation parade.

The parade was shown live on San Diego television, with a Navy band providing music and players waving and lobbing signed baseballs and bags of peanuts to adoring fans.

“Don’t forget: Nov. 3 is coming quickly. You know what we need to do. Yes on C,” slugger Tony Gwynn told the crowd.

Proposition C, on the Nov. 3 ballot, would use public funds to pay 70% of a $411-million ballpark project. In turn, the Padres have promised to remain in San Diego until at least 2024 and take the lead in finding hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment to build hotels, housing and shopping near the ballpark site.

Backers of the measure said it deserves support not out of appreciation for the Padres’ winning season but rather because it will help revitalize the neglected eastern edge of downtown.

Campaign strategists have been quick to capitalize on the fervor of San Diego fans, who gave the team a half-hour standing-and-cheering ovation after it was swept Wednesday night by the New York Yankees.

Padres President Larry Lucchino said that Proposition C is being helped by “the passion we’ve seen in the last several weeks.” But he added that the project “is more than just a ballpark,” which has become the slogan of the team’s $1-million ballot measure campaign.

By midday Thursday, the Proposition C forces had a new television commercial showing the emotional outpouring of fans, and the players’ grateful responses, backed by the logo that Proposition C is needed to keep baseball in San Diego “now and forever.”

Lucchino said that passage of Proposition C will help the team’s efforts to re-sign stars Ken Caminiti, Kevin Brown, Wally Joyner, Steve Finley and Carlos Hernandez, who are free agents.

“Free agents are looking for long-term stability in a franchise and for significant remuneration,” Lucchino said. “Both of those are made more possible by the success of [Proposition] C.”

Padres majority owner John Moores, a computer software magnate, has said the Padres are losing millions of dollars and need a new, “intimate” 41,000-seat ballpark to increase season-long attendance and make the team profitable. The team’s lease at the 65,000-seat Qualcomm Stadium expires at the end of 1999.

Polls done for the Proposition C campaign and for the San Diego Union-Tribune and the NBC affiliate in San Diego show support for the measure increased as the team beat the Houston Astros in the division playoffs and the Atlanta Braves in the National League championship series. Both polls show the measure leading.

Chris Michaels, a commercial photographer and co-chairman of the Stop C movement, said that the civic excitement over the World Series, and the saturation coverage of the games by the local media, is making it more difficult to get the attention of voters to talk about possible revenue shortfalls and the effect on the city budget.

Michaels said that the parade, organized by Mayor Susan Golding, “is yet another political-cheerleading tool the city is using” to win support for Proposition C.