Prologue: The Deal on the Brink (January 9, 1976)

On January 9, 1976, the air in Toronto was thick with anticipation. In his office, Metropolitan Toronto Chairman Paul Godfrey got ready for a press conference. This event would change the landscape of Major League Baseball. Beside him were executives from the Labatt Brewing Company, led by president Don McDougall. After months of intense, behind-the-scenes negotiations, they had an “agreement in principle”. For a reported price ranging from $13.25 million to $13.8 million, the Canadian consortium planned to buy the San Francisco Giants. This storied franchise was set to move north for the upcoming 1976 season.  

The move felt so imminent that its physical manifestations were already taking shape. Logos for the “Toronto Giants” had been designed. They featured a “TG” insignia in a style reminiscent of Japan’s famed Tokyo Giants. Executives from the Labatt group were already posing for photographs in Toronto’s snowy, recently retrofitted Exhibition Stadium. They proudly wore “G” hats. They were also discussing models for a future ballpark. The  

New York Times was preparing to run the story: the Giants were leaving America.  

For Toronto, the news was the culmination of a decade-long quest for a major league team. It marked a moment of civic arrival. This moment would finally put Toronto on equal footing with its rival, Montreal. Montreal had been home to the National League’s Expos since 1969. For San Francisco, it was a recurring nightmare. Less than two decades after celebrating the team’s arrival from New York, the city faced a daunting prospect. The city might lose its beloved Giants. This potential loss was a devastating blow to its identity. It also threatened the city’s prestige. For the team’s long-time owner, Horace Stoneham, the sale was a final, desperate act of financial self-preservation. The deal was done. All that remained was the official announcement and the perfunctory approval from the other National League owners.  

The drama unfolded over the next two months. It involved a web of characters. Their motivations would shape the destiny of two franchises and two cities.

Key Protagonist	Organization	Role & Motivation
Horace Stoneham	San Francisco Giants	The financially struggling owner. An “old-school baseball man,” he relied on the team as his sole source of income. Plummeting attendance had pushed him to the brink. His motivation was simple: financial survival.
Paul Godfrey	Metropolitan Toronto	The political champion for MLB in Toronto. His motivation was civic pride and elevating Toronto to major league status, a crusade he had been on for years.
Don McDougall	Labatt Brewing Company	The corporate leader of the Toronto consortium. His motivation was a strategic marketing initiative. It aimed to elevate the Labatt brand. Another goal was to compete with rival breweries tied to hockey and football.
George Moscone	City of San Francisco	The newly inaugurated mayor. He wanted to prevent a catastrophic political and civic disaster. His strategy was to keep the team in his hometown during his very first days in office.
Bob Lurie	Lurie Co. / Giants Minority Owner	The local “white knight.” Bob Lurie was a wealthy real estate developer. Mayor Moscone persuaded him reluctantly. He led a local ownership group out of civic duty.
Peter O’Malley	Los Angeles Dodgers	The rival power broker. His motivation was preserving the historic and highly lucrative Giants-Dodgers rivalry, which would be destroyed by a move to Toronto.

Part I: The Unraveling by the Bay: A Franchise on the Ropes

The Giants’ path to the brink of relocation was not a sudden development. It was the culmination of a slow, painful decline. This decline began in the early 1970s. The franchise had won more games than any other National League team in the 1960s. Now, it found itself adrift on the field. The franchise also struggled at the box office.  

A Legacy Fading

After winning the National League West division in 1971, the team’s fortunes plummeted. The Giants became a perennial second-division club, finishing no higher than third place for the rest of the decade. The franchise made a series of moves that lacked clear direction. They parted with players who would go on to achieve stardom elsewhere. This included future MVP George Foster and All-Stars Garry Maddox, Dave Kingman, and Gaylord Perry. While the farm system produced two Rookies of the Year in Gary Matthews Sr. (1973) and John “The Count” Montefusco (1975), it wasn’t enough to build a consistent winner.  

A far more significant problem was brewing just across the water. In 1968, the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland, instantly creating competition for the Bay Area’s baseball fans. This rivalry became completely one-sided. The colorful and charismatic Oakland A’s were led by owner Charlie Finley. They achieved this by winning three consecutive World Series championships from 1972 to 1974. The A’s dominated headlines and captured the region’s imagination, while the Giants faded into mediocrity. This dynamic forced a painful question: was the Bay Area large enough to profitably support two major league teams?. By the mid-1970s, the answer appeared to be a resounding no.  

Horace Stoneham’s Financial Plight

The financial pressure landed squarely on the shoulders of owner Horace Stoneham. He was one of the last of his kind. He was a “baseball man” who had inherited the team from his father. The Giants were his sole source of income. Stoneham was unlike the diversified corporate owners who were starting to enter the sport. He had no other businesses to offset the team’s losses. Every empty seat was a direct hit to his personal finances. As early as 1970, the need for cash was overwhelming. Stoneham arranged a spring training tour of Japan. This tour provided a “fat payday” of $150,000 to help shore up the books. By 1976, attendance was cratering. He was facing financial ruin. He had no choice but to put the team he had owned for four decades up for sale. 

The Curse of Candlestick

At the heart of the Giants’ failure to connect with San Francisco was their home: Candlestick Park. The stadium was a monument to poor planning. It offered miserable conditions. As a venue, it seemed to actively repel the very fans it was meant to attract.

The original sin was its location. It was built at Candlestick Point on the city’s southeastern edge. Local San Franciscans knew it to be one of the windiest, coldest, and foggiest spots in the entire city. The decision was driven by the availability of land. Crucially, there was space for parking cars—a priority in the late 1950s. However, it ignored the area’s brutal microclimate. The result was a fan experience defined by misery. Blustery, swirling winds whipped off the bay, making routine pop flies an adventure and chilling spectators to the bone. Temperatures could drop 25 to 30 degrees. This could happen in a matter of minutes once the sun set. Alternatively, it could occur when the fog rolled in. The park had a state-of-the-art radiant heating system. It was designed to warm the seats. The system was a complete failure because the pipes were installed too deep in the concrete to have any effect. The park’s absurdity is captured in baseball’s enduring images. A gust of wind famously blew pitcher Stu Miller off the mound during the 1961 All-Star Game.  

The playing conditions were no better. From 1970 to 1978, the field was covered with artificial turf. Over time, the under-padding deteriorated, making the surface, in the words of 49ers quarterback John Brodie, “rock-hard” and dangerous. The plastic blades of grass became matted. Seams split apart, creating hazards. When wet, the field was as treacherous as the poorly drained natural grass it had replaced.  

This combination of a bad team and a terrible venue fostered a grim atmosphere. Accounts from the era describe a fan experience affected by widespread drunkenness. There were frequent fights in the stands. This rowdy atmosphere alienated families and casual observers. 

Attendance Hits Rock Bottom

The numbers told the story in stark, undeniable terms. After drawing a respectable 1.1 million fans during their division-winning 1971 season, attendance fell off a cliff, plummeting to just 647,744 in 1972. The franchise hit its lowest point in 1974 and 1975. It drew a dismal 519,987 and 522,919 fans, respectively. This was the lowest attendance in all of Major League Baseball. The financial unsustainability was laid bare by comparing the Giants’ gate to that of their chief rivals.  

Year	SF Giants Attendance	Giants Rank in NL (12 teams)	Los Angeles Dodgers Attendance	Oakland A’s Attendance
1971	1,106,043	5th	2,064,594	914,993
1972	647,744	12th	1,860,858	921,323
1973	834,193	9th	2,136,192	1,000,763
1974	519,987	12th	2,632,474	845,693
1975	522,919	12th	2,539,349	1,075,518
1976	626,868	11th	2,386,301	780,593

Source: BallparksofBaseball.com  

The data illustrates a perfect storm of decline. The flawed stadium was a constant drag on revenue. The arrival and subsequent dynasty of the A’s provided a superior and more exciting alternative for Bay Area fans. The Giants’ own mediocre on-field product gave fans little reason to endure the cold and wind of Candlestick. For an owner like Horace Stoneham, this convergence of negative factors was severe. His entire financial well-being was tied to the team. It was more than problematic; it was existential. The sale to the Toronto group was not a choice born of greed, but a move born of sheer desperation.

Part II: North of the Border: A City and a Corporation’s Ambition

The Giants were collapsing in San Francisco. Meanwhile, a powerful combination of civic ambition and corporate strategy was coalescing 2,500 miles away in Toronto. The city had long craved a Major League Baseball team. This aspiration was sharpened by the success of the Montreal Expos. They had captured the imagination of Quebec since their 1969 debut.  

Paul Godfrey led the political charge. He is the ambitious chairman of Metro Toronto. He made securing a team a personal crusade. The real driving force behind the Toronto bid was not a politician. Nor was it a wealthy baseball fanatic. Rather, it was one of Canada’s largest corporations: the Labatt Brewing Company.  

Labatt’s Strategic Play

For Labatt, pursuing an MLB franchise was a calculated and aggressive marketing play. In the mid-1970s, the Canadian beer market was a battleground where brand association was paramount. Labatt was losing ground to its chief rivals: Molson, which was deeply tied to hockey through its ownership of the Montreal Canadiens and sponsorship of  

Hockey Night in Canada, and Carling O’Keefe, which had strong links to the Canadian Football League. Baseball represented an untapped national marketing platform. Labatt executives identified an opportunity to associate their flagship brand, Labatt Blue, with a major league team. They hoped to replicate the success they achieved in Manitoba. There, their pilsner became nicknamed “Blue” due to its sponsorship of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team.  

This dynamic reveals a fundamental shift in the business of sports. The potential sale of the Giants pitted two vastly different ownership models against each other. Horace Stoneham was part of the old guard. His was a family-run, single-income enterprise. It was driven by the direct profit and loss of the team itself. His financial distress was deeply personal. The Labatt group represented the new guard. They were a diversified corporate consortium. They viewed a sports team as a strategic marketing asset. Their goal was to achieve larger business objectives. The old model in San Francisco failed because it couldn’t withstand the pressures of local competition. A bad stadium deal also contributed to the failure. This is precisely what made the team available to the new corporate model from Toronto.  

Building the Consortium and Preparing the Ground

MLB might be wary of a brewery having sole ownership. Labatt’s board did not want to take on the full financial burden. Therefore, they mandated that it could not own more than 50% of the team. To meet this requirement, Don McDougall and his team assembled a powerhouse consortium. They partnered with R. Howard Webster. He was the influential owner of Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail. He also owned the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), one of the country’s largest financial institutions. The final ownership structure gave Labatt and Webster each a 45% stake, with CIBC holding the remaining 10%.  

This was not a passive effort. The city of Toronto wanted to prove its readiness to Major League Baseball. It undertook a costly renovation of Exhibition Stadium. This stadium is a multi-purpose facility on the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. The project cost between $15 million and $18 million. It reconfigured the stadium to make it suitable for professional baseball. This sent a clear signal that Toronto was a turnkey market ready to host a team immediately.  

The Negotiation

Serious negotiations between the Labatt consortium and Horace Stoneham began in the fall of 1975. A major sticking point in early talks had been the 19 years remaining on the Giants’ lease at Candlestick Park. The final agreement cleverly resolved this issue. The sale price, announced on January 9, 1976, was approximately $13.25 million, with an additional $1 million to $1.25 million placed in a trust specifically to cover any potential legal costs associated with breaking the stadium lease. With a deal in hand and a plan to manage the legal fallout, the Toronto Giants were seemingly a reality.  

Part III: The Eleventh Hour: Politics, Law, and a Frantic Scramble

The announcement from Toronto sent immediate shockwaves across the continent. It landed directly on the desk of a man. He had been mayor of San Francisco for less than 24 hours.

The Mayor’s Gambit

George Moscone was inaugurated on January 8, 1976. A San Francisco native and sports fan, he faced a major challenge on his first day in office. He received the catastrophic news that the Giants were leaving town. Refusing to let his tenure begin with such a devastating civic loss, Moscone immediately sprang into action. He publicly promised a “battle royale” to save the team. More importantly, he instructed the city attorney to file a lawsuit against the National Exhibition Co. The Giants’ parent company was targeted with an injunction to block the sale. The sale would cause “irreparable harm” to the city.  

The Power of the Injunction

The court’s decision to grant a temporary restraining order was the pivotal moment in the saga. The injunction did not kill the deal with Toronto, but it did something far more valuable: it bought time. It froze the transaction. This action prevented the transfer of ownership. It created a precious window of opportunity for a local buyer to emerge. The buyer could present a viable alternative to the National League.  

With the clock ticking, Mayor Moscone scrambled to find a local “white knight.” He persuaded Bob Lurie. Lurie was a prominent real estate developer and a minority owner on the Giants’ board. He was asked to lead the effort. Lurie’s initial attempt to form a partnership with Bob Short quickly fell apart. Bob Short was a controversial former owner of the Texas Rangers. The other National League owners were wary of Short’s track record. They insisted that Lurie, as the San Francisco resident, have the controlling vote in league matters. Short refused this condition and backed out of the deal on March 2, 1976.  

The Five-Hour Scramble

Lurie was now alone, with spring training just days away and the fate of the franchise hanging by a thread. The National League owners joined a dramatic noon conference call. He pleaded with them for 48 hours to find a new partner. The league, impatient to resolve the messy situation, gave him just five.  

As Lurie later recounted, his frantic calls to supposedly interested local investors went nowhere. They were all conveniently “out to lunch for more than five hours”. Just as hope seemed lost, around 3 p.m., an unexpected call came in. It was from Bud Herseth. He was a Phoenix-based cattle rancher and meat packer. He loved baseball and had heard about the Giants’ predicament. In a whirlwind of phone calls over the next two hours, the two men, who had never met, spoke extensively. They hammered out a verbal agreement to become partners.  

At the 5 p.m. deadline, Lurie called the league back. He had a partner. The owners, who knew and respected Herseth, gave their unanimous approval. On March 4, the sale was finalized. Bob Lurie and Bud Herseth became the new owners of the San Francisco Giants for $8 million. This was more than $5 million less than the Toronto offer. The team was staying put.  

Behind the scenes, there was an effort to keep the Giants in California. This effort was quietly supported by an unlikely and powerful ally. Los Angeles Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley provided this support. His actions reveal that the “save” was not merely a story of civic pride. It was also a calculated business decision by the team’s greatest rival. Lurie himself recalled that Walter O’Malley (Peter’s father and predecessor) was a “great help” during the five-hour scramble. He “didn’t want to see the rivalry disappear”. Peter O’Malley later publicly expressed his relief, telling  

The Sporting News stated that moving to Toronto would have been “awfully tough on us travel wise.” It also would have been challenging schedule wise and rival wise. In fact, it would have been difficult in just about every way. Preserving the historic and immensely profitable Giants-Dodgers rivalry was a powerful business incentive. Influential owners like O’Malley had a vested interest. They ensured a local solution was found and approved. This dynamic appeared again in 1992. O’Malley played a key role in blocking the Giants’ proposed move to Florida.  

Epilogue: Two Cities, Two Destinies

The dramatic collapse of the Toronto deal initiated a series of events. These events would redefine the baseball map for decades to come.

Toronto’s Consolation Prize

Though devastated by the 11th-hour loss of the Giants, the Labatt consortium found itself in an enviable position. The ownership group was fully vetted and well-funded. They were politically connected in a major city that had just spent millions to make its stadium baseball-ready. They had proven their viability and eagerness to Major League Baseball.  

Their disappointment was brief. At the same time the Giants saga was unfolding, MLB was being forced to expand. The city of Seattle sued the American League. This lawsuit was due to the relocation of the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee after just one season in 1969. To settle the lawsuit and balance the league, the AL needed to add two new teams for the 1977 season. With a team guaranteed for Seattle, the league needed a second partner. The choice was obvious. Less than a month after Lurie bought the Giants, on March 29, 1976, the American League owners voted 11-1. They decided to award an expansion franchise to the Labatt group. The fee was $7 million. The Toronto Blue Jays were born.  

The Aftermath in San Francisco and Divergent Paths

For San Francisco, the celebration was tempered by a harsh reality. Bob Lurie had saved the team. However, he also inherited all of its problems. These included a mediocre roster, a disenchanted fanbase, and the albatross of Candlestick Park. His entire 17-year tenure as owner was marked by a continuous struggle. This struggle was ultimately fruitless in securing a new ballpark. Four separate ballot measures failed in San Francisco and the South Bay. The relocation threat resurfaced in 1992. Lurie, exhausted by financial losses, agreed to sell the team to a group from Tampa Bay. However, another last-minute local effort kept the team in the city.  

The two franchises born from the crucible of 1976 embarked on starkly different paths. The Blue Jays were built from the ground up by a stable and well-resourced ownership group. They became a model expansion franchise. This culminated in back-to-back World Series championships in 1992 and 1993. The Giants continued to struggle for years. Their dynastic run of three World Series titles in five seasons only arrived after they escaped Candlestick. They moved into a new, privately financed ballpark on the shores of McCovey Cove in 2000.  

In retrospect, Mayor George Moscone’s injunction had a far greater impact than he could have ever imagined. His desperate move to save one city’s team had the unintended consequence of creating another. It positioned the Labatt group as the immediate, perfect solution for the American League’s expansion problem. Without the high-profile drama of the failed Giants deal, Toronto’s bid might have languished. It could have lost out to other contenders, like Washington, D.C., which had support from the White House. The saga birthed the Blue Jays. It also created a natural, cross-country rivalry with the Montreal Expos. This rivalry sparked a golden age for Major League Baseball in Canada. It stands as one of baseball’s great “what if” moments. It tells a story of how a single legal filing in California reshaped the sporting destinies of three cities. It also impacted an entire country.