A Ball Team in the Shark Tank : Barracuda Make Playoffs in 1st Season but Lose Name in Off-Field Squabble

When the season began, they were known as the Barracuda. Now the team has this mouthful of a moniker: The Long Beach Franchise of the Western Baseball League.

So begins the constantly changing saga of Long Beach’s minor league baseball team, now just known as “The Franchise,” which started the season with great promise, only to end up in an acrimonious legal morass.

Along the way, former Barracuda President Chris Gibbs has tried to have new team executives arrested in the middle of a ballgame--while they were sitting with the mayor.

The team’s players have been reduced to wearing batting practice uniforms borrowed from Cal State Long Beach because they can no longer sport the Barracuda logo. The reason: Gibbs owns the rights to it.

There have been court appearances galore, a bankruptcy, pleas before the City Council and threatening letters.

On the day “The Franchise” clinched a playoff spot by beating the Salinas Peppers, the hot topic was not about the game but about the latest flurry in the battle of who controls the team.

“We’ve felt like pawns in a chess match between the owners and the league,” said first baseman Don Barbara. “We came to play baseball, not keep track of what was happening in the front office.”

The Barracuda made its debut in May with great fanfare at a luncheon aboard the Queen Mary. The ‘Cuda players were toasted by civic leaders and the bleachers were packed for the home opener.

People in the stands said they liked the idea of having a minor league team in Long Beach better than emptying a wallet to watch spoiled major leaguers.

But things began to happen in the front office. The $40,000 check a local company donated to finance a flashy new scoreboard somehow got used for other things. Creditors started calling the Barracuda office demanding to be paid.

“We began to get very worried as creditors began beating down the doors,” said Pat Elster, who was part of the original Barracuda and is now one of two people running the team. “You couldn’t get reimbursed for expenses. Pay was always late. We knew something was amiss.”

The person handling the money was then-team President Gibbs, a tall, overweight, baby-faced man who is a self-described entrepreneur with an office in downtown Long Beach overlooking the harbor. Gibbs says that the bills could not be paid because he made bad business decisions--including a failed radio broadcast venture--that put the team deeply into the red. “I tried to do too much too quickly,” he said.

League officials believe they were deceived by Gibbs, who only months before being granted the Barracuda franchise filed for a $2.3-million bankruptcy. Gibbs said the bankruptcy came in the wake of a failed film project.

Bruce Engel, founder of the Western League, said Gibbs never would have been granted the franchise had they known of the bankruptcy.

“We know a lot of money was collected by Long Beach, but we have no way of knowing where that money went,” Engel said.

A month after the season began, the team was in trouble. On June 25, virtually the entire office staff resigned from what was clearly a sinking ship. Shortly thereafter, Gibbs declared bankruptcy again, citing debts of $1.1 million run up by the ball team.

Among the debts listed were $120,000 owed to the Internal Revenue Service for federal payroll taxes, $40,000 in printing costs, $15,000 for team shoes and accessories and $3,000 for fireworks.

By declaring bankruptcy, Gibbs effectively blocked the league from rescinding his franchise. He did so less than half an hour before other league owners were to vote on whether to take away the franchise from him.

Still, the Barracuda played on, though Barbara said there were many times when their paychecks bounced.

On Aug. 15, Gibbs withdrew his bankruptcy, saying he intended to restructure the team and attract new investors. Almost immediately, the league yanked the franchise from him and made Elster and Paula Pyers, the original Barracuda general manager, co-operators of the team for the remainder of the season.

The uniforms with the Barracuda logo came off. The batting practice uniforms from Cal State Long Beach went on.

“One day we were the Barracuda, the next day we were The Franchise,” said team equipment manager Jerry Medina. “When that day happened, I was really tossed in the air.”

Gibbs tried to get a restraining order against the league but was turned down. He then tried to have Pyers and Elster arrested last Monday at Blair Field, accusing them of stealing files and computer records from him in June.

The police declined to take the two into custody, saying the matter sounded more civil than criminal. Pyers and Elster say his charges are laughable.

The next day, Gibbs made an appeal before the City Council in his quest to regain control of the team. During the meeting, Councilman Jerry Schultz quoted a Kenny Rogers song, saying Gibbs needed to “know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”

Later, Schultz said the matter of who owns the baseball team’s ownership should come to a close.

“In his effort to regain the team, he’s making Long Beach look bad and baseball look bad,” Schultz said. “In this case, I don’t think he’s got a good hand. It’s not fair to the fans or the players.”

At Blair Field, team manager Jeff Burroughs was sitting in the dugout this week while the opposing Salinas team was taking batting practice.

“In baseball, we have some pretty unusual occurrences,” he said, pausing as if that was the end of his thought. “But this one pretty much takes the cake.”

Burroughs, the American League’s most valuable player in 1974, has taken a philosophical attitude about losing the Barracuda logo.

“The barracuda is a kind of slimy, lazy, almost inedible fish that gives up too easily,” he said. “Now tuna, there’s a fish for the ages.”

Elster and Pyers are basically running the team from a cellular phone. They do not know whether they will be granted the franchise permanently, but are hoping that that will be the case.

Gibbs’ fancy digs have a certain empty feel to them. On one afternoon this week, the only people present were Gibbs and a receptionist.

On Thursday, a Superior Court judge in Long Beach again declined to issue a temporary restraining order barring the league from taking over the club.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” said Gibbs. “There will be a book in this someday. People will someday know what happened.”

The Franchise will be given a new name at the game Sunday, when admission will be free.

“We can’t have them going into the playoffs without a name,” said Pyers. “It will have something to do with the ocean and the beach.”