Young Team Known for Its Debt and Marketing Moxie

The beleaguered Suns will leave a legacy of debt and extraordinary marketing promotions--including “Nude Night” and “Drag Queen Night”--if they leave Palm Springs and move to Oxnard.

The family owned club spent about $500,000 on improvements at the city-owned ball field when it began playing in Palm Springs in 1995. Among the most appreciated: a mister that sprayed fans--and players in the dugouts--with a cooling fog to offset oppressively hot summer nights.

The club--which is not affiliated with a major league organization--played average ball in the 2-year-old, independent AA Western Baseball League and sent several players to the majors.

But the Suns were plagued by the heat and fell deeper into debt in their second season.

The team will have to break its five-year lease, and the city is owed $28,450 in stadium rental payments and other charges. Businesses in town say they, too, are owed money by the Suns.

Suns owner Don DiCarlo’s brazen marketing efforts were either hailed or derided by local businessmen and residents.

At the suggestion of one of the team’s sponsors--who operates a small clothing-optional resort--DiCarlo proposed a “Nude Night”--where a limited number of fans were to watch the game from within a screened tent, presumably in the buff.

The promotion received worldwide notoriety, was the butt of jokes by Jay Leno and David Letterman--and resulted in thousands of ticket requests, apparently by people who thought they could either sit nude in the stands or watch the nudists. DiCarlo canceled the event because of the logistic nightmare.

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Later in the summer, he proposed “Drag Queen Night,” based on the movie “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” in which he promised a “parade of drag queens.” But when that promotion was roundly criticized by gay activists, among others, he toned it down--first suggesting a “Female Impersonators Night” and, finally, staging instead a less-controversial “AIDS Awareness Night.”

More typically, DiCarlo staged mainstream promotions--cheap beer night, cheap hot dog night, family night, and nights when every woman in attendance would receive a free rose. And he was roundly praised in Palm Springs for offering free tickets to area youth--and inexpensive gifts when they returned foul balls, because the club could hardly afford to keep buying new balls to replace ones hit into the stands.

Still, attendance suffered. On paper, he showed reasonable ticket sales, thanks to sponsors who purchased blocks of seats. But that wasn’t enough, and the tickets that were sold frequently were not used, so that at any given game, only several hundred fans would actually show up, while other minor league teams at Lake Elsinore, Rancho Cucamonga and elsewhere were drawing thousands.

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The team was plagued with other bad publicity. One of its pitchers was charged with rape--but later acquitted. And the team’s former public relations director is being prosecuted by the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office on seven felony counts of lewd conduct on minors, involving five boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 15.

Reaction to the team’s departure was mixed.

“Minor league baseball is a good family event and, if run properly, is an asset to the city,” said Palm Springs City Councilman Stan Barnes. He said the city might let the Suns break the lease without further penalty if the club at least pays its debt.

He wonders if any club can make money playing baseball in Palm Springs’ summers. “He marketed his team real hard,” Barnes said, “but the problem is, a lot of people who live here--including families--leave for the summer. It’s a hard sell.”

Tourism officials were marketing the Suns as one of a small but growing number of summertime attractions in the desert, said Laurie Armstrong, spokeswoman for the Palm Springs Deserts Resorts Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“They are the boys of summer, and we need all the activities we can get in the summertime,” she said. “If they leave, it would be really unfortunate.

“I hope they don’t go,” she said. “I like baseball.” But she admitted that, this past summer, she attended only two games. “Shame on me,” she said.

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A concierge at the Marquis Hotel in downtown Palm Springs--just a few blocks away from the Suns’ stadium--said she actively encouraged guests to attend the games, but with little success.

“People liked the idea when I’d mention it to them earlier in the day,” said Nita Rippere. “But then they’d spend the day by the pool, drink frosty drinks and, by nighttime, were too exhausted and just wanted to get some food and crash. They said the heat was too oppressive for them.”

Tom Mulhall, owner of the Terra Cotta Inn and the man who suggested a clothing-optional event at the ballpark, said the DiCarlo family worked hard to make the club successful.

“Unfortunately, they had a hard time getting the fans,” he said. “I’m saddened for them, because they were the only professional sports team in the Coachella Valley. But he’s just a small-business person, and if you don’t get the customers, you don’t eat and you don’t make your mortgage payments, so he’s got to do what’s best for his family.”

Among the Suns’ die-hard fans is Renee Staples, who said she took her children to virtually every home game this summer.

“This is a conservative, retirement town, and that’s what did the Suns in,” she offered. The controversial promotions “were geared toward young people and families, and it made the retirement community and City Hall mad. So they retaliated by besmirching them and blackballing them and practically running them out of town.

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“The Suns were about the only family entertainment we had in the summer, and now I’m brokenhearted,” Staples said.

Palm Springs City Manager Rob Parkins said city officials “had serious questions” about whether DiCarlo could succeed when he signed the five-year stadium lease two years ago, “but he seemed confident he could pull it off, and we regret that he couldn’t.”

Palm Springs Stadium was used by the California Angels for spring training between 1960 and 1992, and was home to the club’s minor league team, the Palm Springs Angels, starting in 1986. But that team left in 1993 for a new stadium at Lake Elsinore when Palm Springs was unwilling to make substantial improvements to its facility.

DiCarlo arrived with his new club in 1995, spent $500,000 of his own money on stadium improvements, but couldn’t make a buck.

“Everything went wrong for that club,” said Bruce Kelly, who owns a Palm Springs advertising agency that included the Suns as a client. “The pitcher, the P.R. guy, the ‘Nude Night,’ ‘Drag Queen Night,’ and no one out here supported the team.

“But Palm Springs gets to 120 degrees in the summer,” Kelly said, “and who the hell wants to sit in a stadium?”