Stay by the Bay

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.

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.