Team Walking on Sunny Side of Street in Oxnard

Maybe it was just that desert heat.

Because a year after ditching parched Palm Springs for coastal Ventura County, the minor league Pacific Suns baseball club has pulled off a comeback to behold.

The Suns--notorious for an outlandish “Nude Night” promotion in Palm Springs--seem to have been on their best behavior in Oxnard.

Forced to sit out the 1997 season by Western Baseball League officials after the move to Oxnard left them searching for a home field, the newcomers have spent a long off-season building close ties with school districts, civic groups and city leaders.

Once viewed as the scourge of Palm Springs, the Suns are the apparent darlings of this seaside city.

Suns players travel to local classrooms, telling kids to stay in school, study hard and steer clear of gangs. Youngsters swarm around Sunny the penguin, the team mascot. Preaching volunteerism and togetherness, team officials have ordered players to spend at least 12 hours a month on community service.

Outside classrooms, the Suns have paired with such benevolent groups as the Salvation Army, helping them to raise money and offering free advertising.

In fact, the team’s aggressive marketing blitz--which targets everyone from working-class Latinos in south Oxnard to affluent suburbanites in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley--is often hard to distinguish from the philanthropic campaign.

On both fronts, the team promotes baseball as the ultimate in old-fashioned family entertainment.

The club’s pitch book to potential business partners just about oozes Americana:

“Remember those days as a child, when a hot dog, a bag of peanuts and a baseball game made everything that was wrong with the world right for at least three hours? Do you want those days back again for today’s kids?”

Said team owner Don DiCarlo:

“We’ve had time to work out the kinks, bring the community together, and listen to what the community wants.

“And the strong message is, ‘Give us a place to go with our kids.’ ”

What a difference a year can make.

When the Suns cleared out of Palm Springs last November, many in that desert community cheered, snickering at Oxnard for embracing the controversial, financially troubled club.

The team had shocked desert residents with the 1996 “Nude Night” promotion, designed to allow fans to cool off by stripping down and watching the game from inside a tent. The gimmick attracted enormous publicity--becoming the butt of jokes on the Jay Leno and David Letterman talk shows--but was then canceled.

Later in the summer, a “Drag Queen Night,” which DiCarlo remembers as incredibly funny, ignited controversy once again.

The 50-year-old club owner does not regret those eyebrow-raising marketing schemes.

“We kept those going, so everybody would know who we were,” DiCarlo said. “They weren’t designed to offend the community, and we got incredible exposure.”

In Ventura County, however, DiCarlo and his wife, Karen, say they would never even consider such stunts.

Community Leaders

The couple, devout Presbyterians who grew up in San Bernardino and met in Sunday school as youngsters, say they have always been community leaders. It’s just that in Palm Springs, they didn’t fit in.

“We’re just average people,” explained Karen DiCarlo, director of community relations. “Most of the philanthropic organizations in Palm Springs are run by Barbara Sinatra, Dolores Hope. It’s a certain group, and we were not in that circle. It’s much more down to earth here.

“We got dragged into a couple of off-the-wall promotions,” she added. “Those were more in desperation than anything else.”

But this past year’s focus on community is no turnabout for the DiCarlos, the family says. Just look at their tight-knit Italian clan, they say.

Their son Marc, 27, a former college baseball standout, is the team’s first baseman. Tony DiCarlo, Don’s father, tended to the ball field every night in Palm Springs. He and his wife have moved to Ventura County with their son and daughter-in-law, and live with them in a Port Hueneme condominium.

For years, Don DiCarlo worked in his father’s prosperous chain of lighting fixture stores in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Later, Don DiCarlo launched a successful auto service center in San Diego, which helps pay for the minor league franchise’s operating costs.

“Our focus has never changed,” Karen DiCarlo said. “We’ve been here a year, and we’ve proven where our hearts are.”

City Councilman Dean Maulhardt, who lauds the club’s free Little League clinics, is one of many local leaders who admit they’ve been won over by the team’s good deeds.

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“Sure, any organization does those things for marketing purposes,” said Maulhardt. “But I feel in talking to both the DiCarlos that they really enjoy the community here. Any time you ask them for support, they’ve been right there.”

For some people around town, opening day at Oxnard College next May can’t come soon enough--and not just because they love baseball.

With its high rate of juvenile crime, south Oxnard desperately needs the Suns, says Kelli Jo Travers, who lives in a mobile home park near the field.

“If you look around, all we have is 7-Eleven and the college,” said Travers, who thinks the ballplayers will make excellent role models. “I’d much prefer kids learn to hit a ball, than things or people.”

On the other hand, some people are angry that Oxnard ever got involved with the Suns.

Mobile home activist Martin Jones argues the team will bring unbearable traffic congestion and noise to his neighborhood near Oxnard College. But even more troubling, Jones says, are the team’s unsavory marketing promotions and history of debt.

In addition to the dubious promotions, a pitcher was accused of rape, but acquitted.

“This particular team has shown itself to be irresponsible,” Jones said. “This particular team is just disreputable.”

The DiCarlos acknowledge that problems arose during the team’s rocky two seasons in the desert.

The team recently settled a $28,450 debt owed to the city of Palm Springs for game and concession fees. Meanwhile, a lawsuit brought against DiCarlo by GTE Leasing Corp., which alleged the team failed to pay more than $8,000 for use of telephone equipment, was dismissed this fall. DiCarlo said he has settled that and other such suits out of court.

Officials from the Portland-based Western League of Baseball--who ordered the Suns to sit out this year and secure a home field for 1998--said they are satisfied with the club’s efforts to clear its debts and build community support. Ventura Community College District trustees are expected to make final arrangements for the ballpark lease in January.

Desert Heat

The biggest problem in Palm Springs, according to the DiCarlos, was one that the club simply could not control:

That in-your-face, triple-digit, stifling desert heat.

“The heat wreaks havoc,” Karen DiCarlo said.

To cool down sweltering fans and players, the DiCarlos spent $500,000 on a misting system and other improvements to the city-owned stadium. The mist was no match for the hot weather, and the fans stayed home. Only about 800 seats a night got filled at the 4,500-capacity ballpark.

With their financial losses mounting, the DiCarlos knew they had to make a move.

Coming to Ventura County made sense, said Bill Fulton, a Ventura-based urban planner.

At the very least, Fulton said, the comfortable weather in south Oxnard should help the team draw bigger crowds. And Fulton agrees with the DiCarlos’ argument that the demographics in Ventura County are right for minor league baseball. Lots of families are looking for a place to take their children.

Still, Fulton said, the team’s plan to target potential fans in every Ventura County city seems a bit ambitious.

For residents in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, Dodger Stadium is just as close as Oxnard College, Fulton noted. And at Dodger Stadium, fans watch big league superstars play; the Suns, members of the independent AA-caliber Western Baseball League, are not affiliated with a major league club.

“If you’re going to get in your car to go to a ballgame from Simi Valley, why not just go to Dodger Stadium?” Fulton said.

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Over the long term, the Suns face another hurdle, the planner said. To keep fans coming back, they cannot stay at the rundown Oxnard College field forever. The Suns need a stadium, he said.

“When you’re converting a college field, you’re not selling the experience,” Fulton said. “The stadium is part of the draw.”

The optimistic DiCarlo--who has been working on a stadium deal but added that he might have to keep the team at Oxnard College through 1999--is convinced fans from Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley will trek to Suns games.

In fact, DiCarlo says, about 30% of the 400 season tickets already sold have gone to residents in eastern Ventura County. To help get the word out, the team will open a Suns merchandise store in Simi Valley, in addition to the one already at Oxnard’s Esplanade mall.

Closer to home, the team has used a Spanish-language sportsradio show to target the baseball-loving, largely Latino community in south Oxnard. Moreover, DiCarlo says the Suns are trying to sign some Latino ex-big leaguers to bolster the fan base.

And the Suns say that fans in all income brackets will be attracted by ticket and food prices far less expensive than those at Dodger Stadium. Ticket prices for Suns games range from $3.50 to $7.50. Hot dogs and sodas are expected to cost about $1 each.

Of course, all start-up businesses go through lean times, and the team’s budget for this year projects only a $5,000 profit on $858,000 in revenues, DiCarlo says. Most of the money is expected to come from ticket sales, concessions and ballpark advertisements.

Once the team gets established, the profit margin will surely fatten, DiCarlo predicts.

“I’m absolutely convinced of the success of this market,” he said.

Still, the Suns hesitate to call themselves Oxnard’s team.

That is because the team is looking all over Ventura County for stadium sites.

DiCarlo would provide few details on stadium negotiations, other than to say he has lunched with longtime Oxnard real estate tycoon Martin V. “Bud” Smith for advice on how to do business in town.

Stadium Complex

The club owner said the idea is that a development firm would build a stadium with 6,000 seats. The Suns would anchor a complex used for baseball, and also promote boxing, soccer and concerts.

Yet while DiCarlo has grown close to Oxnard community leaders, he says that Ventura, Camarillo and even Moorpark are possibilities for a stadium.

“It’s a big, big county,” DiCarlo said. “We’re being very sensitive to Oxnard. But my job is to look out for the financial health of the franchise.”

Oxnard Councilman John Zaragoza, for one, says he would be outraged if the Suns abandoned this city’s sports fans--just as the Los Angeles Raiders football team dropped Oxnard as their practice site.

“I would feel betrayed,” the councilman said. “We’ve taken the heat for them, and they’ve used Oxnard as a marketing base.”

On the other hand, Zaragoza and other Oxnard councilmen are wary of subsidizing the Suns. After learning of the team’s debts, the council dropped plans to lend the team $250,000 to install lights, bleachers and a security fence at the aging Oxnard College ballpark. The club will have to make those improvements on its own.

And with cities such as Lake Elsinore saddled with debt from minor league stadiums, communities across Southern California have turned skeptical of minor league baseball deals.

Sensing that opposition, DiCarlo has vowed not to ask this county’s taxpayers to help pay for a new stadium.

“It’s a much cleaner way to do business,” DiCarlo said.

For a man whose baseball club hasn’t played a game in more than a year, DiCarlo does not lack confidence. As he hustles to complete the 1998 player roster, DiCarlo offers a few promises and predictions:

* Only squeaky-clean, family friendly promotional themes at Suns games. No “Nude Night”--just good, clean fun.

“If you’ve ever been to a party you’ve really enjoyed, where every minute you’re dancing, eating or talking to someone you like, that’s what I want the games to be.”

* Forget the puny crowds in Palm Springs, DiCarlo says. Every game at Oxnard College next year will sell out--that’s 2,500 seats a night, 45 home games.

* And even though the lineup is far from set, DiCarlo is absolutely certain the Suns will post a winning record, staying in the running for the nine-team league’s championship.

This long year off has had its frustrations, and for a while DiCarlo gave up reading box scores and watching baseball on television.

Now he can’t wait for opening day.

“I really missed being a part of the game,” DiCarlo said. “And now I’m going to get a chance to do it again.”