Team May Swap Desert Heat for Coastal Cool

Beating neighboring Ventura to the plate, officials will announce today a preliminary agreement to bring minor league baseball to the city--specifically a Palm Springs ballclub that won notoriety last summer for promoting “Nude Night.”

The deal, still to be finalized, calls for the Palm Springs Suns, an independent AA Western League team without major league affiliation, to relocate to Oxnard City College in time for games next summer.

The move may stymie efforts by Ventura and Camarillo to bring professional baseball to their cities, but would resolve a three-year effort to introduce the minor league sport to Ventura County.

Three years ago, Oxnard, Camarillo and Ventura agreed to build a baseball stadium but, after Ventura was selected to host the team, Camarillo and Oxnard withdrew.

Today, Ventura has a team waiting to play, but no stadium, while Camarillo has plans to build a stadium, but no team.

In the Suns, Oxnard would get a financially beleaguered organization that drew a paltry number of fans to its Palm Springs stadium and that previously tried to find a home in Oceanside and Chula Vista, both in San Diego County.

According to the tentative agreement with Oxnard’s Economic Development Commission, team owner Don DiCarlo will pay to relocate the team but Oxnard will loan him about $200,000 to improve the college ball field with additional lighting, seating and other amenities.

If the team is successful in its debut season, the city and DiCarlo will discuss building a multi-use stadium, said Steve Kinney, president of the Economic Development Corp.

The deal must be approved by the Oxnard City Council and the college Board of Trustees. The agreement must be struck by Nov. 20 if the Suns are going to play ball in Oxnard next summer, said Bruce Engel, president of the Western League.

“We would be happy to have a team in that area,” Engel said. “If the necessary requirements are met, there is no reason why this shouldn’t happen.”

DiCarlo said Oxnard is perfect for minor league baseball. “The number of young families is wonderful. Its geographic position in the tri-cities area is perfect. . . . This is a long-term agreement. We hope to be here for many, many years.”

Oceanside City Manager Tom Wilson said the Suns first came to the city this summer to measure the city’s interest in hosting the team. Team officials brought with them, he said, a “Field of Dreams” mentality.

“They said if we could assist with a facility, they could deliver the attendance and the excitement and the identification,” Wilson said.

But the city was concerned that the club was thinly capitalized and has no major league affiliation, he said, and the talks went nowhere.

The club then looked to Chula Vista, where it was more warmly received. But a proposed negotiating agreement--including talk of building a ball field--was withdrawn at DiCarlo’s request just before the Chula Vista City Council was scheduled to consider it this past week.

With several good Cuban players on its roster, the Suns played decent baseball--but struck out with fans because of hot summer nights. Only several hundred fans attended the home games, refreshed by misters that spewed a cooling fog over them.

To boost attendance this summer, DiCarlo promoted “Nude Night,” when a limited number of fans--presumably in the buff--could watch the game from within a screened tent. The promotion--the butt of Jay Leno and David Letterman jokes--gained such notoriety that the club couldn’t handle the resulting flood of ticket requests and canceled it.

Later, DiCarlo promoted “Drag Queen Night,” but after gay activists and others objected, toned it down to an “AIDS Awareness Night.”

The outrageous promotions were hailed by some in Palm Springs, but others--including City Hall--cringed.

Adding to the team’s woes: A pitcher was tried--and acquitted--on rape charges last year, and the team’s former publicist is being prosecuted for lewd conduct with minors. The team also caught flak for hiring former Dodger executive Al Campanis as its vice president.

DiCarlo sank $500,000 in improvements into the Palm Springs Stadium when the team was formed two years ago, but now the club owes the city $28,450--reflecting mostly unpaid fees to the city for concession sales.

DiCarlo’s short-term loan from Oxnard would be backed by “hard assets” collateral--although Kinney said he wasn’t sure what the city would seek.

The proposed move to Oxnard leaves Ventura in the lurch. That city has been scouring its budget for money and trying to finesse agreements with a local developer to build its stadium.

The Stockton Ports are on deck to play ball in Ventura, and the stadium proposal is set to go before voters this spring. But the plans remain stalled as Ventura agonizes over how much cash it is willing to fork over for the facility.

Meanwhile, developers in Camarillo say they are prepared to move ahead with a privately funded baseball stadium. But they lack a team.

No one, in the meantime, was watching Oxnard. Negotiations between DiCarlo and Oxnard have been quietly advancing for several weeks, kept under wraps for fear that publicity would spoil the deal.

The negotiations were so quiet, in fact, that even Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez was kept in the dark.