Denver, Miami Given Approval to Join NL

NEW YORK — Denver and Miami were given formal approval Friday as the National League’s expansion franchises and immediately began preparations for their 1993 debuts.

Denver’s team will be called the Colorado Rockies, and Miami’s will be the Florida Marlins. They will be the first new major league teams since 1977 and the first new members of the National League since 1969.

The unanimous decision of the 26 major league owners, who met by telephone conference call, was anticlimactic. The NL expansion committee’s recommendation of the two cities became public June 10 and there was little doubt that owners would approve it.

“It’s been almost a year since this process was set into motion,” Rockies Chairman John Antonucci said. “When we delivered the expansion application to the league office in September, we probably were the longest of all longshots. . . . But we persevered. We convinced the expansion committee and major league baseball that this city and this region would support major league baseball.”

Miami had been considered the expansion favorite since last autumn, when Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. Chairman H. Wayne Huizenga said he would become sole owner and pay the entire $95-million expansion fee.

“It’s a very exciting and emotional day for us here in the Huizenga family,” he said. “We’re all enthused and excited about it.”

The new franchises will give the NL and the American League 14 teams each. The NL is expected to adopt a schedule in which teams will play divisional opponents 20 times per season and teams in the other division six times each. AL teams currently play 13 games against each division foe and 12 against those in the other division.

Some in Denver had hoped the team would be called the Denver Bears, the former nickname of Denver’s minor league team. In addition, some objected to calling the team the Rockies, the name of Denver’s failed NHL franchise.

“This is a Colorado team,” Gov. Roy Romer said. “What I think of when I think of the Rockies is you’re looking from the top down on the rest of them. And after a couple of years, I’m confident this team will be doing just that.”

Colorado unveiled its logo, featuring a soaring white baseball against a snow-capped purple mountain backdrop.

The Rockies will wear black caps with purple buttons on top. They will have an interlocking purple “C” and “R” outlined in silver. Doug Richardson, manager of the Sportsfan store in downtown Denver, said the shop already has a waiting list for caps.

“I just think it’s great to get a team,” he said. “I don’t think it’s settled in yet, though. It’s just like winning the lottery.”

Florida will unveil its logo on July 18. Its colors are expected to be aqua and orange, also the colors of the NFL’s Dolphins. Some baseball officials had preferred the alliterative Miami Marlins, but Huizenga wanted the state in the name.

“When we found out that we would be the only team in Florida, we broadened our horizon a little bit,” Huizenga said. “We want to make as many fans throughout the state . . . as possible.”

Colorado will start play in Mile High Stadium, current home of the Zephyrs of the triple-A American Assn. The Rockies are scheduled to move into a 43,000-seat, baseball-only stadium in downtown Denver in 1995.

The Marlins will play in Joe Robbie Stadium, home of the Dolphins that was renovated for baseball last winter.

Antonucci and Steve Ehrhart, the Rockies’ president, say they hope to hire a general manager within a month. Carl Barger, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ president, is expected to become president of the Marlins. He and Huizenga haven’t yet set a timetable for hiring a general manager.