L.A. 49ers? Not So Outlandish Now

SAN FRANCISCO — If Joe Montana were still playing quarterback, and looking for Dwight Clark, there would be no doubt, but late into Tuesday night, the 49er faithful were still hunched forward waiting for stadium referendum results.

With 61% of the vote in, San Francisco city voters were rejecting a pair of propositions--51%-49%--calling for $100 million in bonds to help provide owner Edward DeBartolo with a new playpen for his football team.

But the margin of defeat was shrinking, and referendum proponents remained confident the 49ers would pull it out.

If not, football fans in Los Angeles will have two questions to ponder today:

1. Is it time to start lining up for Los Angeles 49ers’ season tickets?

2. If so, where?

The Coliseum? Chavez Ravine? Hollywood Park?

How about longest line wins?

If the 49ers were successful in their election rally, winning the money for their stadium-mall project to replace 3Com Park, then who cares? Jim Druckenmiller would have been just another lumbering Jim Everett or Billy Joe Hobert, and who would want a team that can’t even beat Carolina?

All polls indicated a substantial loss for the 49ers before the referendum, and after 41,000 absentee votes had been counted earlier in the night, the propositions calling for bonds and zoning permits were being voted down 56%-44%.

Team officials, however, had spent more than $2 million campaigning for the new stadium with the threat of moving to Los Angeles if unsuccessful, and a rush of votes in their favor indicated the strategy was working.

A victory celebration, while premature in its billing, attracted hundreds of fans to a large hall with a band playing and red and gold balloons everywhere. The 49er management was a no-show at the party--waiting like everyone else for the outcome.

Opponents, meanwhile, who were limited to a small office with two desks in trying to fight the popular 49ers and their five Super Bowl triumphs, waited at a volunteer’s home for the final score.

A defeat for the 49ers, something DeBartolo has never taken well--note the assault charges filed against him by a Packers’ fan after his team lost in the playoffs at Green Bay last year--had NFL officials and sports fans here predicting the 49ers were goners--to Los Angeles or maybe Cleveland.

Most everyone who knows DeBartolo predicts a campaign of revenge if left on the losing end of the vote. The city of San Francisco would pay for its rebuke in either $117 million in lease-required improvements to 3Com Park, some kind of last-minute financial give-away to keep the 49ers from moving or the agony of a nasty civil war with Los Angeles for DeBartolo’s favor, the fight would be on.

The Giants lost four of these stadium referendums--two in San Francisco and two in Santa Clara--before agreeing to privately finance a new baseball stadium. DeBartolo, however, has already declared there will be no more referendums.

Before officials had even started counting the votes, DeBartolo had predicted if the team lost the election it was going to take advantage of a loophole in its lease and consider moving to an alternative site “like Los Angeles,” as early as the 1999 season.

If so, this much is known: DeBartolo knows R.D. Hubbard’s phone number at Hollywood Park.

More than that, they share a business interest in a Compton card club with Hubbard owning 88% and DeBartolo 8%, and the two had a verbal agreement to become involved in further gambling interests in Palm Springs a year ago before circumstances beyond their control quashed the deal.

“I hope things work out for Eddie up there, but I would be the first one to welcome a phone call from him,” Hubbard said. “We have had no conversations because he has been working his butt off on making it work up there.

“Realistically, if things didn’t work out in San Francisco, you’d have to look at it from the standpoint that Eddie was born and raised in Ohio and Cleveland needs a team. That’s an easy move, and if you really looked at it, it would solve the league’s problems.”

But if the phone rings, and it includes an opportunity to showcase Steve Young and Jerry Rice at Hollywood Park, Hubbard would listen.

“You know I don’t know what the league thinks about this situation,” Hubbard said. “I’ve heard no comments from the league. The NFL still maintains L.A. belongs to the league, and is this something they would welcome? If it is, then we would be very excited about it, because the 49ers really are L.A.’s No. 1 team.”

The NFL would never publicly advocate such a move and promised a Super Bowl in 2002 or 2003 in a new stadium to better the 49ers’ chances for success. But behind the scenes, they admitted, if San Francisco lost the referendum, they would probably not fight too hard to keep the 49ers in place.

NFL owners could use a DeBartolo defeat in San Francisco to their advantage. They could point to San Francisco and tell their own voters: Look what happens when a team is unable to strike a financial partnership with a city--there is the very real danger it will leave.

As for L.A., the most important date is not Super Bowl XXXII, but Jan. 1, 1998 if the 49ers lost their vote. The city of San Francisco must demonstrate a willingness to begin $117 million in improvements to 3Com Park by that time, or the 49ers would be free to break their lease.

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown has already said the city will not be able to meet that financial consideration.