Vigilantes Leave Field and Creditors Behind

The bats and balls are gone, the uniforms consigned to the nostalgia bin. The Mission Viejo Vigilantes play only in court now, with the city suing the team and the team suing the city.

The minor-league baseball team vacated its offices soon after its second season in Mission Viejo ended in September. The team disconnected its phone and left no forwarding address, leaving an angry band of creditors wondering when--and if--they might get paid.

The city of Mission Viejo has filed suit to collect $135,000 in back rent. The Vigilantes’ largest shareholder said the team owes him even more and has secured the legal right to jump to the head of the line of creditors.

Several local businesses have retained lawyers to pursue bills they say are months past due, with at least six merchants chasing payments ranging from $1,000 for ice delivery to $25,000 for painting signs around the team’s makeshift stadium at Saddleback College.

The combined debt, according to various creditors, exceeds $350,000. The Vigilantes, however, hope to win a $400,000 judgment in their suit, one that blames the city for the failure to build a new stadium and, by implication, for the failure of the franchise.

Patrick Elster, one of the Vigilantes’ two managing partners, declined to state the exact amount of debt but vowed to pay.

“If you took your wildest dreams, ones you worked so hard for, and saw them turn into nightmares, that’s what happened in Mission Viejo,” Elster said. “The result of that was not only heartbreaking but financially breaking.

“It left us in debt. It may take us some time to pay off the debt, but we’re working on it. However long it takes, it will get done.”

When the Vigilantes moved from Long Beach to Mission Viejo, the city embraced the national renaissance of minor-league baseball and the team trumpeted affordable family entertainment.

As negotiations for stadium improvements collapsed, so did those soaring aspirations. The team and the city pointed fingers at each other through most of this summer, and the team withdrew from the Western Baseball League in October with barely a whimper from the community. The Vigilantes are not alone in dropping out: Of the eight teams that joined the league in its inaugural 1995 season, two remain.

Elster and Paula Pyers, the other managing partner, sold the Vigilantes’ franchise rights last month, promising league executives the proceeds would cover the debts.

The sale price did not exceed $350,000, said Pam Walsma, attorney for the buyers, Family Baseball of Yuma. The group plans to move the franchise to Yuma, Ariz. and start play in the 2000 season.

If the Vigilantes lose in court, however, proceeds from the sale might not cover all the debts, placing at risk payments to small businesses such as Jerry Ohmer’s, whose Lake Forest company painted signs for the team.

“The box seats were great, but they didn’t pay the bills,” said Ohmer, who says the team owes $25,000 to his company. “We danced for those guys. We were out there Saturday mornings. We snapped our fingers for them, and we got screwed.”

Ken Ackerman would like to collect the $1,000 he says the Vigilantes owe him, but all he has is the courtesy team hat he laughingly calls “my $1,000 cap.”

“To run off and say, we’re not going to pay our debts and we’re leaving no forwarding address?” said Ackerman, whose Laguna Niguel company sells and delivers ice. “People don’t just disappear off the face of the Earth.”

Elster has moved to Utah as president of the Zion Pioneerzz, a new team in the same league in which the Vigilantes played. His departure troubles Clayton Shurley, who runs a Newport Beach restaurant and catering company and says the Vigilantes have yet to pay a $5,000 bill from July.

“If you run into a problem, do you just up and move and start over?” Shurley said. “That’s not right.”

Loan Kept Team Going

The Vigilantes lost “significantly more” than $300,000 during their second and final season in Mission Viejo, Elster said. The team never paid rent after the first homestand, according to Mission Viejo deputy city manager Rick Howard.

Manager Buck Rodgers, a former Angel manager and the most recognizable face associated with the Vigilantes, said he advanced money--”like an idiot,” he said--so Elster could pay the players.

Dennis Narlinger advanced money too but not without taking legal precautions. Narlinger, president and chief executive officer of Shugart Corp. in Mission Viejo, largely bankrolled the franchise in the final weeks of the season and thus became its largest creditor. He declined to state his total investment but confirmed it exceeded the $135,000 owed to the city.

“I’m the largest shareholder in the Vigilantes--unfortunately,” Narlinger said. “I was the one that funded the team to keep it alive. The club would have folded last year if I didn’t fund it.”

Narlinger, intimately aware of the Vigilantes’ finances, lent money on the condition Elster and Pyers sign a financing statement, filed in August with the secretary of state’s office in Sacramento.

The document secures Narlinger’s loan by including as collateral “all tangible and intangible assets now owned by debtor . . . including . . . all franchise rights granted by the Western Baseball League and the proceeds from the sale.”

Because the sale price did not exceed $350,000, and because Elster and Pyers allowed Narlinger to legally stake the first claim to that money, merchants such as Ackerman, Ohmer and Shurley could be forced to write off their losses. If the city prevails in its lawsuit, and if the Vigilantes owe Narlinger much more than $135,000, the sale proceeds could run dry without the merchants receiving a dime.

Too bad, said Narlinger. Without his investment, he said, the Vigilantes would have folded over the summer and the merchants would have lost any chance to recover their money.

“Was I real happy to make that investment? No,” Narlinger said. “Was there anybody else to step up? No.”

The Vigilantes blame the city of Mission Viejo for their predicament. After rejecting the city’s bill for back rent, the team sued for nearly three times the amount, with fraud, breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress among the charges.

“We’ve been severely damaged by their inability to follow through on what they promised,” Elster said.

The Vigilantes’ suit alleges the city “fraudulently induced” the team to move from Long Beach but “never intended to provide an adequate stadium.”

Elster initiated contact with the city in August 1996, according to city documents. In January 1997, the team agreed to play in temporary facilities at Saddleback College. In return, the city agreed to spend $6 million on a permanent stadium and other facilities at the college, with the money to be recouped from the city’s share of admissions, parking and concessions revenue.

Under the agreement, the city would receive 25% of ticket revenue after the 1,750th ticket. The Vigilantes drew an average of 2,099 fans during the 1997 season, according to league records, far below the 3,750 attendance projected by the team in a 1996 letter to the city. The city received $55,000 instead of the anticipated $250,000, Howard said.

“The reality was far from what their projections were,” he said.

The Vigilantes have no quarrel with the stadium landlord, the South Orange County Community College District.

“They needed to have the ability to tell investors we would eventually have a permanent facility,” district Chancellor Cedric Sampson said. “We couldn’t make that commitment. They couldn’t afford that, either.”

The city was the only party that could afford that $6-million investment. However, as the 1997 season progressed and attendance persisted below team projections, city officials grew concerned that the Vigilantes would not generate the revenue necessary for the city to recover its investment. The city and college district discussed for months a downsized stadium costing $3 million to $3.5 million, but negotiations broke off last summer.

“We were caught smack in the middle of that,” Elster said. “It was a terrible place to be.”

Said Howard: “Pat’s right. They got stuck between a rock and a hard place. But he knows better than anybody else the stadium was not constructed as a result of the city and college not being able to reach an agreement.”

With the bickering between the city and college district and the accompanying sense of uncertainty over the team’s future, the Vigilantes’ season-ticket revenue plummeted from $400,000 last year to $100,000 this year, Rodgers said.

“The city took a hike on us,” Rodgers said. “You can say the team failed. You can say Pat and Paula failed. But I think the city reneged on a deal.”

Creditor Hires Elster

Narlinger, the Vigilantes’ largest creditor and largest shareholder, owns another Western League franchise that recently moved from Salinas to St. George, Utah. As club president, the owner hired none other than Patrick Elster.

“It’s nice to have a job,” Elster said. “I didn’t take a paycheck in Mission Viejo because we couldn’t afford to do it.”

Pyers, the Vigilantes’ other managing partner, is not involved with the Utah franchise. Narlinger said he did not think twice about hiring Elster for a job that requires the support of local businesses.

Elster introduced him to the Western League, Narlinger said, and his troubles in Mission Viejo should not detract from his administrative experience.

With Narlinger signing the checks, league officials are not concerned about Elster’s role in the Utah franchise. The league urgently wants Elster to settle the Vigilantes’ debts and, as a result, assisted in the franchise sale, which closed Nov. 25.

Indeed, league President Bruce Engel said, the Vigilantes then paid a small part of the more than $12,000 owed to the league.

The Vigilantes have not, apparently, paid any other parties.

“I’ve been getting a fair number of calls from creditors wanting to know how to get hold of them,” Engel said.

Elster says he doesn’t yet have all the money he needs to satisfy the Vigilantes’ creditors. Walsma, attorney for the group that purchased the franchise, said the Vigilantes have received a down payment, but not the entire purchase price.

Elster said he has hired an attorney to contact creditors. Can proceeds from the franchise sale satisfy all the Vigilantes’ creditors?

“I hope so,” Elster said.

Those three words are three more than local merchants say they have heard from Elster since the season ended in August.

“If they had called me,” said Shurley, the Newport Beach restaurateur, “and said, ‘We’re having some rough times. . . . We can’t pay you all of it right now, but we’ll pay you $500 now and the rest over the course of the year,’ I would have been cool with that.”

Rodgers, the former manager, said Elster and Pyers “kind of ran and hid” as soon as the season ended Sept. 2.

The Vigilantes owe Rodgers $18,000, he said. The Angels paid him $1 million to settle his contract after firing him in 1994, and insurance companies paid him millions more to settle his lawsuit after he nearly died in the Angels’ 1992 bus crash, so he does not need the Vigilantes’ money as desperately as the local businesses.

“I’m not counting on it,” Rodgers said. “If I get it, it will be a nice Christmas bonus.”

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Team in the Red

The Mission Viejo Vigilantes owe at least $359,000, according to the creditors listed below. The Vigilantes’ managing partners have refused to confirm specific amounts. The team sold franchise rights last month and plans to use those proceeds to satisfy its debts. However, the attorney for the buyers said the sale price does not exceed $350,000.

Creditor Amount

Dennis Narlinger (1): $135,000 +

City of Mission Viejo (2): $135,000

3-D Signs, Lake Forest: $25,000

Buck Rodgers, manager: $18,000

Newport Printing Systems, Irvine: $16,000

Western Baseball League (3): $12,000

Pepsi, Aliso Viejo: $10,000

Texas BBQ, Newport Beach: $5,000

Booster’s Sports Bar and Grill, Mission Viejo: $2,000

ABC Ice House, Laguna Niguel: $1,000

Total: $359,000+

(1) Narlinger, the Vigilantes’ largest shareholder, said only that the amount owed him exceeds the amount owed the city.

(2) The city has sued for $135,000 in back rent. In contesting that suit, the Vigilantes countersued the city, seeking $400,000 for charges including fraud, breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

(3) League president Bruce Engel said in October the Vigilantes owed between $12,000 and $15,000. He said the Vigilantes had paid a small installment upon the franchise sale last month, but he declined to reveal the specific amount.

Source: Individuals, organizations and businesses listed

Graphics reporting by BILL SHAIKIN / Los Angeles Times