Sweating It Out

This was going to be the weekend when the minor league Palm Springs Suns boldly won entry in the baseball trivia hall of fame.

Which professional baseball team allowed fans to show up nude in order to pump up sagging attendance? (Footnote: in the privacy of a screened, 100-person-capacity tent alongside left field.)

But thanks to widespread media exposure (who would have figured?), the promotion became a victim of its own success and was scuttled before the purple-and-teal, 4,500-seat Palm Springs Stadium was overrun. About 10,000 people called seeking more information about the game--and probably not to see the Grays Harbor (Wash.) Gulls play.

So much for watching the diamond in the buff.

A more intriguing sight, perhaps, is watching the Suns when it’s business as normal. Consider Friday night, when the town is wilted from 115-degree temperatures and, half an hour before game time, less than 30 people are counted in the stands. By now it’s only in the upper 90s, and the stadium misters are lowering the temperature by maybe 15 degrees.

Tony DiCarlo, the 75-year-old father of the team president, is lining the infield with lime before the game begins.

Lisa, the president’s daughter, is helping sell tickets at the front booth.

Marc, the president’s son, is playing first base (and batting .442 over the last 16 games).

Karen, the president’s wife, is helping with public relations and payroll in the front office.

And Don DiCarlo, 49, the president, is in the press box, toying with the computer mouse that triggers any of a hundredsomething sound effects. His favorite: the sound of broken glass after a foul ball streaks toward the parking lot.

This is a team on a budget.

By night’s end, paid attendance will hit 813--although less than half of that was present, DiCarlo says. That is above the season average for the team, but still far below the more than 1,200 tickets the club needs to sell every game to break even.

It is hard to imagine attendance getting much better. This is the Friday of the Fourth of July weekend, and the summer will only be growing hotter.

The Suns are losing money. The DiCarlos--bankrolled by their construction, real estate and grocery businesses in the Inland Empire and San Diego--figured they would lose money for several years, but they would really like to turn the corner sooner versus later.

That is why DiCarlo drives the team bus on road trips. And why he beckons kids to return foul balls in exchange for a ticket to the next game. The balls cost about $4.25 each and, well, there are plenty of empty seats to give away.

He is always looking for a gimmick to boost attendance. Like 50-cent beer night, pet tricks night, roses giveaway night, introduce-a-local-businessman-between-innings-so-we-can-network night. When the owner of a clothing-optional bed-and-breakfast inn approached him with the idea of erecting a private tent from which fans could watch the game in the nude, he hardly blinked.

Even though the promotion--scheduled for this Monday night was canceled, DiCarlo figures the team benefited. “It brought a new level of exposure--oh, say ‘awareness’--to our team,” he said, before triggering a Three Stooges snicker on his sound effects computer.

If fan support is based on product quality, the Suns should be holding their own. They’re the best of the independent Western Baseball League’s eight teams in placing young players with major league organizations. They’re playing better than .500 ball. The DiCarlos spent $750,000 last year to improve the stadium where the California Angels once held spring practice, by adding the misters, new seats and other amenities.

The team even has a mascot--some poor fellow stuffed inside a penguin costume who is supposed to make everyone feel cool. He runs the bases with children between innings--then ducks inside an air-conditioned office beneath the stands to cool off.

It’s just not easy making a buck in Palm Springs in the summer. The folks who conduct business indoors even empathize.

Nancy Sonneborn, owner of the Loads of Fun novelty store downtown, complained that customers “only come in to cool off, not to buy anything--and every time they open the door, I get hot.”

And Tia Portaro at Fun in the Sun Candies says customers are more in the mood for hard candies than the store’s signature soft chocolates. For those who do buy chocolate, she sells 50-cent ice packs to minimize melting.

Outdoors, the boys of summer can only grin and bear it.

Tricia Patterson, wife of Suns pitcher Jim Patterson, said the low turnouts frustrate the ballplayers.

“When we played at Lake Elsinore the other day, there were 8,000 people in the stands,” she said. “That was awesome.”

Arguably, small crowds have their advantages.

* Lee Brown, a gospel and jazz singer from Westwood, and her friend from Palm Springs, a torch singer who goes simply by Brina, said the small crowd minimized nervousness as they prepared to fulfill a dream: to sing the national anthem at a ballgame. They stood on the top row of the stadium and sang a cappella into the microphone held by the public address announcer, who stretched out of the press box window.

* Lenny Belanger bought the cheap $4 tickets and sneaked into a premium row of empty seats that seemed to put him closer to the batter than the pitcher was. Belanger came to the game to buy a cap for his brother, who collects minor league baseball hats--and it was the only souvenir sold all night, a concessionaire later conceded.

* Angela Boardman so desperately wanted her 5-year-old son to win a toy giveaway between innings that she went to the press box and unabashedly asked Don DiCarlo to pick the boy’s ticket stub number. DiCarlo shrugged, picked a legitimate winning ticket and then announced the boy’s number as well. Mom smiled.

* There was only one altercation all night involving an inebriated fan--and DiCarlo broke it up himself.

By night’s end, the Suns had beat the Tri-City (Wash.) Posse, 5 to 2.

DiCarlo scanned his computerized menu of sound effects, beckoned the fans to return the next night and, as the stands emptied in a matter of seconds, picked his closing tune: “The Boys Are Back in Town.”