GO SEE CAL : THERE IS NOTHING MINOR ABOUT ATTENDANCE AND PROFITABILITY OF THE CALIFORNIA LEAGUE’S THREE NEW STADIUMS IN RANCHO CUCAMONGA, LAKE ELSINORE AND ADELANTO

In the 1989 film, “Field of Dreams,” main character Ray Kinsella hears a voice in his Iowa cornfield:

“If you build it, he will come.”

It was a baseball diamond. He was Kinsella’s father. The voice was right. Kinsella built it, and his father’s ghost did show up.

Funny thing is, the city fathers of Adelanto, Rancho Cucamonga and Lake Elsinore heard a similar voice a couple of years later. Only they heard it this way:

“If you build it, they will come.”

Again, the voice was right.

They are record-breaking numbers of people who are storming the gates of three new ballparks on the edges of Southern California’s urban sprawl. All three are in California League baseball towns.

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For decades, it seemed, the California League was played out in a collection of old, tired parks in places such as Stockton, Salinas and Modesto.

The league’s Northern Division still has old, traditional minor league parks, but not the Cal League’s jazzed-up Southern Division. Maverick Stadium at Adelanto, home of the High Desert Mavericks; the Epicenter at Rancho Cucamonga and the Diamond at Lake Elsinore are the crown jewels of a renaissance league.

Consider:

--In their first season in the 6,100-seat Epicenter last season, the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes set a Cal League attendance record of 331,005 with a last - place club. This year, the team is a contender and is on pace to draw 380,000.

--Last season, the Quakes outdrew all but two Class-A teams in North America and all but one double-A team. Most triple-A teams would love to draw like the Quakes.

--In its first season, the Lake Elsinore Storm is drawing just under 5,000 a game in its brand new Diamond.

--At Adelanto, in the oldest of the new Cal League parks, Maverick Stadium is in its fourth year and the Mavericks are drawing more than 2,500 fans a game.

The little parks are clean, spacious and comfortable. And they aren’t cheap. Lake Elsinore’s cost roughly $19 million, and the Epicenter, which is the main facility in a softball-baseball-soccer complex, cost $20 million.

The Diamond, with its 6,800 seats, features a sunken field, and its roofed concourse, in the style of Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, evokes a turn-of-the century railroad station theme.

Maverick Stadium seats 5,800, has bright red and blue seats and an architectural style--an above-the-seats concourse--similar to Elsinore’s Diamond.

And take note, Al Davis, all three of these minor league parks also have a feature the Coliseum doesn’t--suites.

A recent check showed Rancho Cucamonga averaging 5,700 a game, Elsinore 4,811 and High Desert 2,591.

Rancho Cucamonga, population 113,200, is in an area where 1.5 million live within 15 miles. Lake Elsinore, population 18,285, draws fans from southwestern Riverside, northern San Diego and eastern Orange counties. Adelanto, a hamlet of 8,517 in San Bernardino County, markets its team in the nearby high desert communities of Victorville, Lancaster and Palmdale.

And what marketing these teams do. Says Cal League President Joe Gagliardi: “I saw a stat that indicated 50% of the people who live in Elsinore have been to at least one Storm game, and that’s amazing.”

Crowds at all three parks show the teams and facilities are attracting every component of their communities, from Little Leaguers to dating teens to parents and grandparents.

Nationwide, a stadium building boom is underway in minor league baseball, similar to that of the major leagues, where new parks have appeared in Arlington, Tex.; Baltimore, Chicago and Cleveland.

“Since 1985, 55 new minor league

parks have been built,” said Larry Wiederecht, information director for the National Assn. of Professional Baseball Leagues.

“What’s happening with attendance in those three Cal League cities is typical. A new Class-A league park went up in Hickory, N.C., in 1992 and attendance went up 577%. The lowest attendance increase we show for a team with a new park is 19%.”

Ken Stickney bought the San Bernardino Spirit in 1986 for $250,000 and moved the team to Rancho Cucamonga last year. Today, he says, you couldn’t buy his team for $2.5 million.

Rancho Cucamonga made only one mistake with its new park--it didn’t build it big enough.

The original design was for 3,500 seats, but that was quickly raised to 6,100 when season-ticket requests started pouring in before the park was completed. Now, playing regularly before capacity crowds, the Epicenter might be enlarged by 2,000 seats for next season.

Each of the three teams pays about $50,000 a season in rent to play in the new stadiums.

California League baseball is an owner’s delight. Principal reason? Low overhead.

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Class A is where young, newly signed players are sent to learn how to play professional baseball. The Quakes are a San Diego Padre affiliate, and the Padres pay Stickney’s player salaries, which range from $1,000 to $1,200 a month.

“The beauty of our division is that we have bare minimum travel expenses,” he said. “Our longest road trip is an hour by bus, so we commute to all our away games. Our only true road trips are when we go to Northern Division cities.”

The Cal League Southern Division: Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino, High Desert, Lake Elsinore. Northern Division: Modesto, San Jose, Bakersfield, Stockton, Central Valley (Visalia).

Stickney brags that a family can go to one of his games and spend less money than it would at the movies. Tickets are $3 to $6, parking $2. The team sold 3,000 season tickets, at $225 to $350 each.

And the fans keep coming, win or lose.

“At the Class-A level, winning and losing doesn’t seem to have much to do with attendance,” said Stickney, who also owns the Las Vegas Stars of the triple-A Pacific Coast League.

“It matters at triple A, but not here,” he said. “Fans here understand these are very young kids, just learning how to play. They see the kids playing hard, and they’re forgiving. But at triple A, it’s different. Players there are expected to win.

“Our goal with the Quakes this season is 380,000. We’ll be lucky to do 380,000 at Las Vegas, which is what we did last year and only Albuquerque (in the PCL) outdrew us.”

Stickney said that besides player and staff salaries, the Padres pay for the Quakes’ uniforms, bats and balls.

He said the formula for success in owning a minor league franchise is to find a city roughly an hour’s drive from the nearest major league stadium and one that’s eager to build a modern facility.

“It works because you’re providing an alternative to a guy who doesn’t want to drive his family 50 miles on the freeway near rush-hour time when he can see baseball in a place like this that’s closer and much cheaper.

“For example, I’ve always felt Thousand Oaks would be an ideal Cal League city.”

Another plus: Class-A fans spend proportionately more money on souvenirs than do major league spectators, according to Stickney.

“Our fans are spending money on souvenirs (caps, shirts, jackets) 25% to 50% above their ticket costs, which is above the major league average,” he said.

Gagliardi said other communities have seen the crowds at Rancho Cucamonga, Adelanto and Lake Elsinore, and have also heard the voice: “If you build it, they will come.”

“I’m hearing from about a dozen groups now who are interested in obtaining franchises,” he said.

“A Camarillo-Oxnard group has money ready to build a park. So does Oceanside-Carlsbad.”

The league’s squeaky clean, new parks have suddenly endangered old, traditional parks.

“I’ve told some of our cities that if stadium improvements aren’t made, we’ll have to move some teams,” Gagliardi said.

“Stockton’s locker rooms are atrocious. Modesto’s park is very old. San Bernardino has the same problem.”

Rancho Cucamonga’s wildly successful romance with minor league baseball may spark ventures into other sports.

Rancho Cucamonga city officials are looking at a plan to build a 6,000-seat indoor arena near the Epicenter for recreational ice skating, but it would also serve as a venue for minor league basketball and hockey teams.

The Epicenter’s horizons, too, are expanding. Crowds of 10,000 can be accommodated for concerts, and a plan is afoot to hold pro boxing shows there, too.

Of course, this is really getting away from our plot line.

After all, the voice in the cornfield didn’t say anything about hockey.