Baseball Magic: Owner Pulls Team Out of Trunk : Bobby Brett Makes Salinas Franchise Suddenly Appear in Riverside as Red Wave

Bobby Brett isn’t a magician, but it was a pretty neat trick last year when he bought a minor league baseball franchise in Salinas and stuffed it into the trunk of his car.

Then, voila! --that same franchise reappeared this April--a team clad in crisp new red and white uniforms, in a beautiful stadium in Riverside so new you could smell the fresh paint during the team’s home opener.

Presto-chango . The team is the Riverside Red Wave--and it’s enjoying its debut season in the Class A California League. As the league season enters its final week, the Red Wave is playing at a .672 clip (43-21), and is generally making Brett, a Manhattan Beach real estate broker and the Red Wave president, feel like a proud papa.

Brett has good reason. When Brett and baseball-loving brothers George, John and Ken purchased the financially crippled Salinas franchise for $250,000 last year, basically all they took with them was a piece of paper giving them ownership.

“We took the contract and a couple of rusty old filing cabinets and a trainer’s table,” Brett said. “You could literally put it all in your trunk.”

The creation of a minor league operation had begun--from the ground up. The Bretts scrapped the Salinas franchise’s tacky blue and orange uniforms, abandoned most of the equipment up north among the artichokes and headed for Riverside.

Then the Salinas franchise’s parent organization, the Seattle Mariners, signed an agreement with San Bernardino of the California League. So the team the Bretts actually got was the San Diego Padres’ Class A team at Reno, which moved out and affiliated with the Bretts.

Sound confusing? Try getting a minor league team and its stadium ready for the league opener under a deadline of 66 days. That’s how long Brett and Leanne Pagliai, the Red Wave’s general manager, had after the Riverside City Council approved $1.2 million in funding to transform the ballpark at UC Riverside into a minor league complex.

The money from the city came through on Feb. 8--and the Red Wave’s opener was slated for April 15. That meant a little over two months for Brett and Pagliai to round up uniforms and equipment and set crews to work on the stadium renovation. New locker rooms, clubhouses and offices had to go up, along with concession facilities and seating to raise the capacity to 3,500 from 1,200.

Pagliai ticked off the days on her calendar. When the Riverside Press-Enterprise ran a “Name-the-Team Contest” and “Red Wave” was picked out of 3,000 entries, the community had a name to stitch across the stylish button-down uniforms its team would don on opening night. But Pagliai still had to find a place for the bathrooms--and a place for the plug on the popcorn popper.

The Seabees would have been proud. The crews did a fantastic job. But despite Pagliai’s frantic efforts, some of the construction still didn’t go up in time.

“Five minutes before game time on opening night we had people out there in the stands with drills and screwdrivers,” Pagliai said. “Unfortunately, we had to operate with temporary concession stands.”

On opening night, only part of the stadium’s extended seating was complete. Nonetheless, a capacity crowd of 2,700 showed up to watch the Red Wave take on Reno in Riverside’s first taste of professional baseball since the Riverside Comets of the Sunset League hung up their spikes in 1952.

By the end of June, Pagliai’s crews had completed locker rooms and clubhouses for the home and visiting teams.

“As soon as the guys moved into a complete clubhouse, they went on an eight-game winning streak at home,” Pagliai said.

The improvements were the last touches on what Brett considers one of the best baseball facilities in the California League. Brett, an outfielder in the Kansas City Royals organization in 1972 at Class A Billings, Mont., and San Jose, breathed a sigh of relief.

“As a player, all you had to do was show up to the park at around 4 p.m.,” Brett said. “And when you got there, your uniform is clean and all the balls are on the field.

“As the president of a franchise, though, you have to make sure those balls get onto the field. You also have to make sure that the food is being cooked, that there are people in the booths selling tickets, that the bus comes on time and that the players have their meal money.”

Since opening day, the Red Wave has averaged 840 fans per game, which ranges in the middle of the league. One reason attendance isn’t as high as Pagliai and Brett would like is the lack of a little slip of paper--a beer license.

“We’re probably the only professional baseball stadium in the country that doesn’t serve beer for the fans,” Pagliai said.

When the Red Wave applied for the license, a handful of Riverside residents protested in court. A judge’s decision is pending, and approval of the beer license would be subject to a 40-day appeal period.

One of the reasons Brett chose Riverside over Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo and Ontario for his franchise was the ballpark at UC Riverside, which had ample parking and a maintained playing field with light standards and a gorgeous backdrop.

Another thing Riverside had was natural rivalry because of proximity to California League teams at San Bernardino (Mariners) and Palm Springs (Angels).

In fact, the front offices of the San Bernardino Spirit and the Riverside Red Wave have initiated the Challenge Cup series--whichever city wins the majority of the two teams’ 24 meetings this season will capture the trophy.

“(San Bernardino General Manager) Bill Shanahan and I came up with the idea of a Challenge Cup to instill a friendly sort of rivalry,” Pagliai said. “We don’t want a menacing sort of rivalry. Just one that will help out each team at the gate and give each city something positive to rally behind.”

So far, Riverside and San Bernardino, which are only 15 miles apart, have split their 20 games, which adds suspense to the final four-game series between the two beginning tonight at Riverside.

Another suspense factor will be the Red Wave’s drive for a playoff bid. Riverside is four games ahead of second-place Visalia (Twins) for the second-half Southern Division title with six games to go. That title would earn the winner a playoff berth against Palm Springs, the first-half winner.

Under Manager Tony Torchia, the Red Wave has the talent to pull off that first-season Cinderella story. Riverside’s lineup is chock-full of fearsome hitters, led by right fielder Warren Newsom (.296, 22 homers), utility-man Greg Hall (.303), second baseman Paul Faries (.319) and third baseman Dave Hollins (.310, 9 homers).

The best pitchers are fireballing southpaw Rich Holsman (2.41 earned-run average, 165 strikeouts in 134 innings) and right-hander Ricky Bones (14-6, 3.61 ERA).

Players like those are the future of the Padres, and if they can keep it up, the future could be bright in San Diego. In January, the parent club made a “caravan visit” to Riverside as a promotional boost. General Manager Jack McKeon, erstwhile manager Larry Bowa, star outfielder Tony Gwynn and pitchers Eric Show and Mark Grant appeared at a reception for local community businessmen.

Brett predicts smooth sailing for Riverside and the Padres in the future, one in which the Red Wave can develop talent for San Diego under the lights on top-notch facilities and fields. The Brett brothers already have a hand in another Padres farm club at Spokane of the Class A Northwest League, a franchise they purchased in 1985.

“It got a little tiring to be hopping flights up to Spokane to check on the franchise,” Brett said. “Riverside’s a little bit closer to Manhattan Beach. Maybe I can actually go to a game once in a while.”