Stadium For Rent: 26. Bottom of the Ninth, Two On, Two Out, Winning Lawyers in Position

STADIUM FOR RENT:
Tampa Bay's Quest for Major League Baseball
By BOB ANDELMAN

26. Bottom of the Ninth,
Two On, Two Out,
Winning Lawyers in Position

"The community had rights they wanted protected and we're going to protect them. I think about what Al Capone said: 'You can get a lot of cooperation with a smile and you get a lot more cooperation with a smile and a gun.' The gun here is righteousness. We did things right, the business way that's correct and baseball should have recognized that and acted appropriately."
-- Rick Dodge, Assistant City Manager, St. Petersburg

By the time the issue of the Giants lumbered into Scottsdale, Arizona, on November 9 for a joint meeting of the National and American League owners, there was a darkness on the edge of this desert town.

Only one thing was certain: the Giants were not going to Tampa Bay in Will Clark's lifetime. Vince Naimoli could double or triple his bid and it wouldn't matter. In fact, it became painfully obvious that despite everything that had taken place and been said since Vince Naimoli, Rex Farrior, Mark Bostick, Lance Ringhaver, Vince Piazza and Vince Tirendi signed off on the deal on August 6, there was never any intention on the part of Major League Baseball to allow the Giants to leave.

Rick Dodge knew which way the decision would go at least a week before the "official" vote in Arizona. He had already decided to stay at home in St. Petersburg and deal with the local fallout alongside Jack Critchfield and St. Petersburg Mayor David Fischer. Waiting for what appeared to be an inevitable rejection made the first week of November the longest seven days in Dodge's life.

As he daydreamed of a miracle, he experienced nightmares that were visions of what was really to come.

"I hoped that the leadership in baseball recognized this was a national story, that what went on was not fair," Dodge says. "It was not ethical. It was not right. It was not just Tampa Bay getting screwed again. The spotlight wasn't on Tampa Bay, the spotlight was that baseball was supposed to be an ethical, moral organization that dealt with things fairly. There were issues beyond this that I thought were at the very fiber of how baseball was being administered.

"If you go back to Illinois and the White Sox," he says, "we always knew the legislature could step up and do that and they did so. Yes, we were disappointed, but was there anyone at fault? No. The Mariners? We always knew that there was a contract issue there and someone could step up and purchase the club in that period of time. We did all the things we needed to do to win there and be in a position to win either the White Sox or the Mariners. Expansion? The process was muddied at best and probably tilted and warped in reality we were willing participants in the process. Maybe there were violations of fair and equitable treatment but those were subjective. What was different with the Giants was we had an exclusive contract to move the franchise. We were told they could move by the commissioner of baseball. We were not on the outside, knocking on the door, 'Oh, please, Mother, may we come in?' We did everything the right way. We had a contractual right that we were going to protect. If we had any of those rights in the past we would have been absolutely as adamant and protective then as we were with the Giants. How could we have been tougher before? What could we have exercised? What rights were violated? None. If we'd had a contractual right back with the White Sox we would have been absolute tigers about it. The circumstances were different. We had a better working knowledge of how baseball worked through its own decision processes -- muddled as that may be. We positioned ourselves well. I would hope that we would have learned as we went along better ways to advance ourselves in these positions. We ought to be getting better at it."

They were.

But it didn't matter that Candlestick Park was the worst place to play ball in North America.

It didn't matter that San Francisco Bay area taxpayers refused on four consecutive ballots to pay for a new stadium.

It didn't matter that attendance at Giants home games was pitiful for a market the size of the San Francisco Bay area.

It didn't matter that polls showed that less than 50 percent of San Francisco residents cared if the team left.

It didn't matter if the Giants played in the NL East or the NL West.

It didn't matter whether Horace Stoneham's 89-year-old widow, Vallenda, did or did not author a controversial letter sent over her signature to Major League Baseball owners urging them to reject a relocation of the Giants.

It didn't matter that Tampa Bay businessmen were offering $15-million more for the Giants than the bid tendered by San Francisco businessmen.

It didn't matter that new Tampa Bay investors came forward with cash to replace Bob Lurie's $10-million loan to the group increasing the gap between the offers to $25-million.

When it came right down to brass balls, only two factors decided the future of the San Francisco Giants: television revenues and H. Wayne Huizenga. In that order.

In 1992, baseball was not the hot broadcast property it was four years earlier, when the game's owners signed a $1.06-billion, four-year deal with CBS-TV and a $250-million deal with ESPN. Ratings were down. The game moved too slowly and dragged on too long for an audience choosing between baseball, American Gladiators, Geraldo Rivera and The Simpsons. ESPN notified Major League Baseball late in the '92 season that it would not renew its option for 1994 and '95, buying out the contract for $13-million instead. And CBS -- which tried to renegotiate its deal in 1992 -- made it quite clear that while it might renegotiate a new broadcast contract for the '94 season, the price would be at least 25 percent less than the original deal.

The idea that baseball might allow a franchise to leave the No. 5 television market in the country, San Francisco, for the No. 13 market, Tampa Bay, was pure idiocy to CBS. The introduction of CBS executive (and San Francisco native) Larry Baer to the behind-the-scenes machinations of the San Francisco bid left no doubt from where the real power and influence of this deal came. It wasn't Bob Lurie, Vince Naimoli, Mayor Frank Jordan, Walter Shorenstein or Bill White. Baseball was warned that a bonehead move of the Giants out of San Francisco could cause the '94 broadcast offer to be in the neighborhood of $500-million, or 50 percent less than the old deal. That's power.

To a team, this could mean a per team, annual drop in national broadcast revenues from $5- to $10-million. Television was the financial villain in all of this. Not the baloney about baseball's traditions and resistance to team relocation.

When it came right down to it, only two factors decided the future of the San Francisco Giants: television revenues and H. Wayne Huizenga. In that order.

In 1992, baseball was not the hot broadcast property it was four years earlier, when the game's owners signed a $1.06-billion, four-year deal with CBS-TV and a $250-million deal with ESPN. Ratings were down. The game moved too slowly and dragged on too long for an audience choosing between baseball, American Gladiators, Geraldo Rivera and The Simpsons. Cable's ESPN notified Major League Baseball late in the '92 season that it would not renew its option for 1994 and '95, buying out the contract for $13-million instead. And CBS -- which tried to renegotiate its deal in 1992 -- made it quite clear that while it might renegotiate a new broadcast contract for the '94 season, the price would be at least 25 percent less than the original deal.

The idea that baseball might allow a franchise to leave the number 5 television market in the country, San Francisco, for the number 13 market, Tampa Bay, was pure idiocy to CBS. The introduction of CBS executive (and San Francisco native) Larry Baer to the behind-the-scenes machinations of the San Francisco bid left no doubt from where the real power and influence of this deal came. It wasn't Bob Lurie, Vince Naimoli, Mayor Frank Jordan, Walter Shorenstein or Bill White. Baseball was warned that a move of the Giants out of San Francisco could cause the '94 broadcast offer to be as little as $500-million, or 50 percent less than the old deal. That's power.

This could have meant that instead of losing $5-million, each team could lose up to $10-million. Television was the financial villain in all of this. Not baseball's traditions and not resistance to team relocation.

And then there was H. Wayne Huizenga.

The Florida Marlins owner sought to protect his new franchise from the financial impact a second team in the state would cause. As Marlins President Carl Barger told St. Petersburg Times reporter Marc Topkin, "We didn't get into this thing anticipating that we were going to have competition 250 miles away before we even threw out our first pitch." During the 1991 winter meetings, Huizenga felt his investment was endangered by a potential relocation of the Seattle Mariners to Tampa Bay. He acted decisively to head off such a threat, according to Jack Sands and Peter Gammons, co-authors of the 1993 book, Coming Apart at the Seams (MacMillan):

Then there was Wayne Huizenga, owner of the Florida Marlins, one of the National League's new expansion teams, and he was irate. He had just paid $95 million for the privilege of spending $50 million more to field a team that is expected to lose one hundred games in 1994. He was not about to stand idly by and watch an established team move to Florida and dilute his potential cable market.

Short-term exclusivity was an important part of the deal for Huizenga, who understood the desperate need of an expansion franchise to be loved and cherished by as many people as possible in its first undistinguished seasons.

When the Giants situation arose just weeks after the Mariners transfer to Nintendo was done, Huizenga's political situation was more delicate than ever at home. A hero to South Florida, he was not as highly regarded in the central and northern reaches of the Sunshine State for his success in winning an expansion franchise at Tampa Bay's expense and for the perception that he derailed the Mariners from the Florida Suncoast Dome.

Publicly, Huizenga encouraged Bob Lurie to come to Florida even before Vince Naimoli made his first offer for the Giants. "Not only would we not stand in the way, we sought him (Lurie) out and encouraged him to come," Huizenga said. Publicly, Huizenga talked about the dollars-and-cents value of an in-state rivalry. "We are pleased for the fans in the Tampa Bay area and pleased that the team is in the National League. This will help in building a friendly cross-state rivalry." Publicly, Huizenga said all the right things.

Privately, it was widely believed that Huizenga and Marlins President Carl Barger preferred to keep the fourth most populous state in the country to themselves. And despite their repeated denials, rumors to the contrary continued to rise to the surface. In fact, St. Petersburg Times sportswriter Marc Topkin called it "the Energizer Bunny of rumors, because it keeps going and going and going."

Consider:

New York Daily News columnist Bill Madden reported that Huizenga "defected from the growing group of owners seeking to oust Fay Vincent after the commissioner promised he would use his 'best-interests-of-baseball' powers to block the move of the Giants to Tampa-St. Pete if the owners approved it."

Tampa Tribune sportswriter Joe Henderson quoted three unidentified team owners as saying the Marlins were taking action to prevent the Giants from moving. One owner suggested the Marlins would only accept the relocation in exchange for a large fee.

The Fort Lauderdale News reported on August 15 that Carl Barger expected the Marlins to receive a transfer fee if the Giants were allowed to move. In an October 24 interview with the St. Petersburg Times, he made reference to "a premium price for relocation," suggesting that a possible transfer fee should be shared by many teams.

And in an October 23 letter to Florida Governor Lawton Chiles (released under Florida's public records law and published in several newspapers), Huizenga personally addressed the transfer issue. "The concept of a relocation payment (transfer 'franchise fee') is not new and has been previously considered by Major League Baseball," Huizenga wrote. "Along with other owners, we believe a substantial portion of the relocation premium should be a 'franchise fee' and not go to a Seller who is leaving baseball. . . . Let me state emphatically, the Florida Marlins are not seeking any payment or special compensation for themselves even though we estimate an annual loss of approximately $5 to $8 million in revenue because of the impact on television, cable, radio, advertising, sponsorships, ticket sales, etc. . . . "

The Miami Herald reported on September 24 (and the St. Petersburg Times later confirmed) that the Marlins owner wanted to place his Triple A farm team in Charlotte, North Carolina. To do that, the paper reported that Huizenga flew to Charlotte in September to talk with the man who owned the Class A Charlotte Knights and therefore, the territorial rights to professional baseball in Charlotte -- George Shinn. Their discussions took place at a time when Huizenga knew Shinn was negotiating to buy the Giants and keep them in San Francisco. But the Herald reported that the baseball commissioner's office nixed Huizenga's preference to put a team in Charlotte, awarding the Triple A rights in Charlotte instead to the Cleveland Indians and placing the Marlins' top farm team to Edmonton, in western Canada. "You can't always get what you want," Barger told the Herald. "Baseball isn't out to make it easy on the expansion teams."

"What we've heard back through baseball is that he (Huizenga) is continuing to work against us. He's definitely not being an advocate," Florida State Representative Peter Rudy Wallace told Tampa Tribune writer Phil Willon.

U.S. Senator Bob Graham -- himself a Miami native -- sent a stern letter to the Marlins owner, according to the Miami Review. "I have tried to reach you by phone several times over the last few days to urge your support of this important event," Graham wrote. "Having Major League Baseball in the Tampa Bay area, as well as Dade County, is personally important to me. I would appreciate any and all support you can give the franchise transfer."

"I had a lot of theories," Rick Dodge says, "but I heard often enough that Wayne Huizenga said he was promised an 'exclusive' to Florida for a number of years. He is not going to say that and baseball is not going to say that because that is collusion. I think there was a promise made. I've heard it from enough people in baseball to believe it. If that's true, that is a whole other issue. What we found inconsistent were things like Carl Barger saying he was surprised that Bob Lurie moved quickly on this deal without getting approval. Huizenga said, in advance of us going to San Francisco, that he had called Bob Lurie and invited him to move the franchise. It was real simple. They wanted to protect their exclusivity as long as they could and they didn't want to have an experienced, powerful club in the same state to compete against. They also wanted to see this market eventually have to pay an expansion fee that the Marlins could share."

Jack Critchfield wanted to believe Huizenga. He had met the man, discussed matters with him face to face and he truly hoped Huizenga was being straight with him. Wouldn't an in-state rivalry help the Marlins? Wouldn't Huizenga save on travel expenses by a relocation of the Giants to the Tampa Bay area?

"He stated clearly that if a vote came they would vote for it," Critchfield says. "They wanted at least one year before they had any competition in Florida. While I disagreed with the way he handled it, I suspect that if I were a new owner and if I realized that I paid far too much for a new franchise in a community that may or may not support it, with a stadium that probably needs a roof on it, and I lost even a million dollars of projected revenue, then I couldn't be very happy about it. Especially if someone in baseball legally or illegally gave me reason to think that they would see to it that I had no competition."

Tampa Bay's baseball fans reacted on October 22, 1992. Spurred on by WFLA radio talk show host Jay Marvin and organized by local resident Jim Cohen, 75 people created a scene in front of a Blockbuster Video store in St. Petersburg. They lined the sidewalk on Fourth Street N, waving an array of signs: "This Ain't Your World, Wayne!" "Just Say Yes, Wayne." "No Support, No State $." "Wayne is Being a Pain!" "Blockbuster Chairman is Against TB Giants." "Hey, Wayne: Vote Yes on Tampa Bay Giants or No Videos!" "Shame On You Blockbuster!" And even one non-aligned sign: "Will Work for Season Tickets."

Passing motorists honked their horns in support of the protesters, several of whom lined the store's driveway entrance and pleaded with Blockbuster customers to turn in their rental cards. Many did.

"It's getting a little old," Marlins President Carl Barger told St. Petersburg Times reporter Tom Tobin. "Blockbuster is a publicly held company. Blockbuster has nothing to do with the Marlins just because Wayne Huizenga has an involvement. No one loves baseball more than I do (but) I think to take baseball to those extremes is kind of sad."

A competitor of Blockbuster in St. Petersburg, Network Video, printed T-shirts to establish a distinction between the two companies: "Network Video supports baseball for Tampa Bay. The OTHER video store doesn't!"

"If what we heard about Mr. Huizenga was untrue," Dodge says, "he was the most maligned person inside baseball."

* * *

When the National League announced its 1993 schedule, it was learned that the Florida Marlins would open their home season at Joe Robbie Stadium on April 12 against the Giants.
* * *

All this was in the air as the men and women who owned baseball's 28 teams began their meetings in Scottsdale. The first order of business on Monday, November 9, 1992, was an executive council meeting to make a recommendation that either the Tampa Bay or San Francisco bid be accepted. Not surprisingly, the council refused to take a stand and the issue was tabled until a general meeting of the owners on Tuesday.

Tuesday, the owners who opened the USA Today that was delivered to their hotel rooms saw a full-page ad from Tampa Bay's Join The Team campaign. It read "The 30,612 Most Important Reasons For Baseball In Tampa Bay: A Message For Major League Baseball Owners From Tampa Bay Baseball Fans." The ad listed, in alphabetical order, season ticket reservation holders for the Florida Suncoast Dome, although there was barely enough room to get through the letter 'C.' Also listed were the names of companies and individuals who posted $5,000 for suite reservations at the stadiums. The words "Sold Out" were stamped across the list.

Team owners were not swayed by the ad.

They secluded themselves for hours to debate the two bids. Then they split along league lines into two meetings to continue the discussions. What were they talking about? It was probably not the relative merits of each bid but how they would handle the legal ramifications of the inevitable legal challenges from Vince Naimoli and the City of St. Petersburg.

Two weeks prior to the Scottsdale meeting, the St. Petersburg Times used Florida's public records law to force St. Petersburg to release its list of potential defendants in any baseball related lawsuits. The list was topped by former commissioner Fay Vincent, the two league presidents and the owners of all 28 teams.
* * *

When it came time to face the press on Tuesday afternoon and make the inevitable announcement, Bill White, Fred Kuhlmann and Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig -- the acting commissioner -- were sent out to face the press. Selig compared the Tampa Bay area's 15-year odyssey with his own acquisition of a team, although Selig left out the part of the story where he moved the financially distressed Pilots out of Seattle after a single season relocating them to Milwaukee.

Tampa Tribune sportswriter Joe Henderson, who covered the Scottsdale meeting, summed up his feelings of the National League's final press conference on the Tampa Bay bid to buy the Giants.

"I could have sworn Bill White looked directly at me and smirked," Henderson wrote.

When White, Kuhlmann and Selig had had enough from the Tampa Bay press corps, Bob Lurie stepped to the podium and read the following statement:

On August 6, I accepted an offer from Vince Naimoli and his partners to purchase the San Francisco Giants and to relocate the team to Tampa Bay, Florida.

Some seven weeks after putting the Giants up for sale, the only offer to buy the team came from outside of California. I accepted that offer and said I would do my best to follow through on that sale. I honored that commitment to the utmost of my ability, as did all the people who work for me. 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 made a commitment to abide by baseball's decision in this matter and I intend to honor that commitment as well.

The San Francisco investor group has provided me 10 days to review the details of their offer to purchase the Giants. I have instructed my attorneys to begin that review immediately, and I can assure you that it will not take them 10 days to complete that task.

However, since I am being asked to be the largest single investor in the San Francisco group and to contribute substantially more money than any other investor, I feel it is only prudent to understand fully the nature of the relationship proposed. But let me reiterate that I do not expect this process to take more than a few days.

As you are aware, today's decision may lead to litigation. I have been instructed by my attorneys not to make any further comments nor to answer any questions at this time.

I do have many feelings I would like to express, and I am anxious to answer your questions. However, I am unable to do either today. At the same time, I will not be restrained from expressing my happiness that the anxiety created by the events of the past several months is finally over for Giants fans, whom I have always considered to be the greatest fans in baseball, and for the wonderful men and women who work for the Giants and who have stood beside me in these difficult times. They are also the best in baseball. This is clearly a happy day in San Francisco.

I feel badly for Vince Naimoli, Rex Farrior, Mark Bostick and Lance Ringhaver, who have been honorable and forthcoming in all their dealings with me. And I feel badly for the people of St. Petersburg, who were eagerly looking forward to have Major League Baseball in their area.

And finally, I congratulate Peter Magowan, the entire San Francisco investor group and everyone throughout the bay area who worked so hard to keep the Giants in San Francisco. I know the feeling you have today. I had the same wonderful feeling in 1976.

Lurie (who declined to be interviewed) would have a $10-million stake in the Giants according to USA Today. The amount could be paid back to him within four years if he so chose. Peter Magowan would be the next largest investor with $6.6-million in the pot, followed by Walter Shorenstein's $5.5-million and Charles Schwab's $5.5-million. The rest of the investment group were in for as little as $1-million.
* * *

Frank Morsani watched the unraveling of Vince Naimoli's contract to buy the San Francisco Giants as if he were watching dust-covered kinescopes of his own business dealings with Major League Baseball. Change the team names and a few of the key players and this could have been the Tampa Bay Baseball Group's unsuccessful purchase of the Minnesota Twins. Or the Texas Rangers. Or the awarding of an NL expansion franchise.

Not long after the NL awarded teams to South Florida and Colorado, Morsani announced his intent to sue Major League Baseball. He didn't file it right away, however. Morsani didn't want to interfere in the process of a possible relocation by the Seattle Mariners. And the Giants deal looked like so sure that he waited until it was concluded.

The week before the owners met in Scottsdale, it was clear to Morsani and his attorneys that Naimoli's bid would be rejected. Morsani knew how to read the signals. He saw it coming. Within minutes of the owners' emergence to announce that the Giants would stay in San Francisco, a lawyer walked into the Hillsborough County Courthouse in downtown Tampa to file Frank Morsani's 55-page suit against Major League Baseball.

Tampa Bay Baseball Group vs. Major League Baseball, et al. was set forth as a case of continuing interference, breach of trust and misrepresentation alleged against three baseball commissioners, four league presidents and majority and minority owners of all 28 baseball teams. The complaint listed four separate counts of tortious interference with a contractual relationship and violation of the Florida Antitrust Act of 1980. The suit sought damages in excess of $100-million, which could be tripled if the antitrust claim were upheld.

For the first time in years, Morsani felt whole again. His eyes even twinkled.