From: jwc@netx.com (Jeffrey W. Comer)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Giants Sale Rejected 9-4
Date: 12 Nov 92 16:58:06 GMT
Organization: The Chaos Bobs

This one is going to get even more interesting. Here you have Bob Lurie, 
who wanted to sell the team to a group who will move it to Florida, where 
baseball has been eagerly awaited for years. But the owners club, headed 
by hatchet man Bud "Don't call me non-partisan" Selig, nixes the move,
forcing Lurie to settle for less and keep the club in the Bay Area. So now 
the Floridians have been spurned, and there are noises of lawsuits. Back in
SF, there are the voters who at last count rejected a new stadium proposal 
four times, on environmental and financial grounds. This leaves the Giants
playing in a stadium they don't like. And here on Capitol Hill, there is 
talk of revoking the anti-trust exemption.

What gives??

If a threat in Florida builds, then the anti-trust exemption is in danger.
And indeed, there is no valid argument against baseball being a business.
The owners, seeing this, may be forced into a premature round of expansion.
Of course, the owners may *not* see this, and may attempt to ride out the
storm. If so, they risk losing the protective status for baseball. I'm not
sure expansion is a good idea at this point anyway, considering the avail-
able pool of talent.

So what can the Tampa group hope to accomplish? Well, they've been pretty
quiet to now, hoping baseball will bless them with a franchise. You see how 
far that's gotten them. The same thing has happened in DC since the Nats II 
left in 1970: promises, talk, disappointment. So by bringing a suit, the 
Tampa group may actually force the establishment to crack. I am no lawyer 
(for which I am eternally grateful), but I would guess they have a case on 
the grounds of failure-to-perform.

I don't think Tampa can get the Giants back; doubtless there were plenty of
escape clauses in the contract. But Tampa might be able to force a move in 
the expansion timetable. The AL has sworn off expansion before the next 
century, but that's only 7 years away now; moving it to up 3 or 4 years 
might not be too disruptive. That would yield 8 teams in each AL division,
and might pressure the NL to also fill out to 8. I can see four new clubs
in Tampa, DC, Buffalo, and Charlotte(?). But that brings up another geo-
graphical nightmare. This might cause a major reshuffling of teams, which
would surely yield more litigation.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other nightmares going on in baseball:
there is still no legitimate leadership in the commissioner's office, there
are threats of lockouts and shutdowns next spring, there is a bumper crop
of free agents whose final signing prices are anybody's guess and whose
salaries may break a few clubs, and there is talk of TV scaling back after
next year (ESPN and CBS).

The leadership problem I see as most serious. There is no non-partisan
entity between the owners/clubs and the players/union. This is akin to
having two 8-year-old kids without a parent to mediate. The current leader-
ship is ludicrous, and totally violates the whole concept of having a
commissioner. If this isn't reason enough to revoke anti-trust protection,
what is? The owners must move quickly to fill the void in the commissioner's 
office, or they might as well declare a lockout now and get the whole thing 
over with. Is this even on their agenda?

And here I thought this was basketball season.....

-JC
Your faithful Orioles cub reporter.
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball