Colangelo Thinks Phoenix Will Get Baseball Franchise

The head of the group seeking an expansion team for Phoenix said Tuesday he was promised a franchise by at least one baseball owner if he put together financing for the group and the stadium.

“I’ve spent a lot of money moving forward on this,” Jerry Colangelo said, “because I was told if I took care of my end of the bargain - putting an equity group together, we’ve done that, and coming up with the financing package for the stadium, we’ve done that - there would be franchise.”

Colangelo, who is president of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, declined to say which baseball owner or owners made the promise. Acting commissioner Bud Selig and John Harrington, chairman of baseball’s expansion committee, did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.

“Ownership has not yet made a commitment to expand,” Selig’s spokesman, Rich Levin, said.

Harrington said last week his committee will ask at the next owners’ meeting - as of now March 8-9 - for a vote on whether to go ahead with adding two teams for 1997 or 1998. He said if owners give the go-ahead, his group would come back with recommendations on the two cities within 30-to-60 days.

Colangelo, who said he has spent $3 million on his baseball efforts, has an April 1 deadline to obtain a franchise. Maricopa County voted last Feb. 17 to finance a $238 million domed stadium, but the authority will lapse if a franchise isn’t awarded by midnight March 31.

Groups from Orlando, Fla., and St. Petersburg, Fla., and two from Northern Virginia also want expansion teams.