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- THE WEEK, Page 22SOCIETYStay by the Bay
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- Baseball's owners veto the San Francisco Giants' move to Florida
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- The winds of change -- and money -- seemed certain to lift the
- San Francisco Giants baseball team out of their drafty,
- weather-beaten stadium and carry them to a new air-conditioned
- dome and a $115 million buyout offer in St. Petersburg, Florida.
- Then the wind shifted. Baseball team owners voted 9 to 4 to keep
- the Giants put, opting for a $100 million counteroffer and a
- pledge for a new stadium. "It's a game of tradition," trumpeted
- Chicago Cubs owner Stanton Cook in explaining the vote.
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- Tradition or no, the decision made for big winners and big
- losers. Tops among the winners is Giants owner Bob Lurie, who
- bought the club for $8 million in 1976 and will cash out
- handsomely. Other winners are the team owners, who in keeping
- baseball's geographic balance also keep their market monopolies.
- The losers? St. Petersburgers, who have now been jilted for the
- seventh time by baseball, and San Franciscans, who kept a team
- but will probably get socked with a big bill for that new
- ballpark.
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