Play Ball, No-Names!
It may not rank with the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn, but there is important news on the baseball front this winter. Barring last-minute complications, the minor league professional baseball team known as the Riptide is about to move from Long Beach to Mission Viejo.
This is not just any team, mind you. This is a club that while playing in Long Beach the past two years had a team dentist (that’s how he advertised on the outfield wall) and boasted the Queen Mary as the “official” team hotel. But wait. There’s more.
The Riptide also won the Western Baseball League championship in every year of the league’s existence. True, that was only twice, but dynasties have to start somewhere. The first year the team played as the Barracuda, until a messy fight among partners led to one owner being forced out and the name getting changed to Riptide.
The club should pick a new moniker for Mission Viejo. A “name the team” contest would be a good method of whipping up enthusiasm and letting fans know professional baseball has arrived in South County. Also worth continuing are the numerous between-innings stunts presented in Long Beach, from Frisbee-catching dogs to men blowing up balloons, climbing inside them and tumbling around. Often wacky, sometimes fun, typical minor league baseball.
On the field, too, the play was distinctly minor league. Unaffiliated with any major league team, stocked for the most part with players who never quite made it to the big leagues, the Mission Viejo No-Names will play at the A level, three notches below the majors. Still, these are professional athletes who offer entertaining baseball. They’re not in it for the money but for the enjoyment of playing. Fans, seated so much closer to the field than Dodger Stadium or Anaheim Stadium that they have to pay attention to avoid being beaned by a foul ball, can sense the players’ enthusiasm.
If the prices are kept low (supposedly $7 for a top seat last year, but generally marked down as heavily as after-Christmas merchandise), the games would be a good buy. The team formerly known as the Riptide is due to play in a temporary field at Saddleback College. If the permanent one is as nice as Blair Field in Long Beach, all to the good. Play ball!