NL Expansion Vote Could Be Back On : Baseball: Denver and Miami appear to have enough support as major leagues consider holding vote in Santa Monica.

Denver and Miami appear set as the National League’s expansion cities for 1993, and an announcement and vote could still take place at an owners meeting in Santa Monica Wednesday and Thursday, it was learned Sunday.

The National League had announced Wednesday that the vote, originally scheduled for the Santa Monica meeting, would be delayed indefinitely to give the major league ownership committee time to study financial statements and partnership agreements from respective groups and individuals in the six cities under consideration.

The ownership committee received that material Tuesday.

Why the possible reversal now? Have the members of that committee proved to be fast readers?

According to a National League owner, baseball was embarrassed by criticism of the delay, which touched off speculation and the belief there might be a hidden agenda.

“We are all aware that it may not make sense to expand at a time of economic recession, but the process is in place, we have been committed to it by the last three commissioners, and there is no real reason to delay it,” said the owner, who requested anonymity.

“We need to go ahead, to put down rumors that we are not going to expand at all.”

Several NL owners, according to a source, are pushing for the process to be accelerated and the vote to be made Wednesday, as originally scheduled.

It’s also believed that nothing is going to shake support for Denver and Miami. However, some owners are concerned about the snub of Tampa-St. Petersburg and needed to be convinced about Miami’s comparative strength.

While Tampa-St. Petersburg has a dome--a $135-million white elephant?--to protect against the summer heat and humidity, there is concern about the debt ratio of the ownership group when compared to the ability of Miami’s Wayne Huzienga to pay the $95-million admission fee on his own.

Huzienga owns 50% of Joe Robbie Stadium, 15% of the Miami Dolphins and is chairman of Blockbuster Entertainment Corp., which had 1990 revenue of $1.1 billion.

Miami’s population area also ranks 11th in the nation, according to Census Bureau figures, compared to 21st for Tampa-St. Petersburg.

Concerns about Denver’s financial structure were apparently put to rest when Coors Brewery recently joined the ownership group, pledging $30 million--or enough to get a stadium that will be built for the 1995 season named Coors Field. Also, although there are only 2.6 million people within 70 miles of Denver, there is no other major league team in the Mountain time zone, which translates to a large untapped market.

The two expansion cities will need approval by nine of the 12 NL owners and a majority of the 14 AL owners.

“I’d say it’s a strong possibility that it will still happen this week,” the NL owner said.

Orlando, Fla., Buffalo, N.Y., and Washington are also in the expansion field.