The Breakers Need a Big Break

There’s blind faith in the dugout of the Long Beach Breakers, who play their first home game tonight as the new minor league team in town. They know little of Long Beach’s tumultuous history with pro ball.

Imagine the Dodgers being seized by the National League because the owner blew all his money. Paychecks bouncing. Weeks with no owner, not even a team name, the fans singing “root, root, root for the franchise.”

This city of 461,000 had its heart broken before by minor league baseball, and the breakup was ugly. Yet in ways practical and metaphysical, the Breakers are all about second chances.

It is an eager team of youthful has-beens and older wannabes, most of them from Southern California, seven of them from Long Beach. They are coached by retired Dodger catcher Steve Yeager, founded by a retired dry cleaner, their team primarily owned by an Indian casino slot machine maker. And like any gambler, they fervently believe in the long shot.

“I think,” said Josh Pascarella, 24, who chucked house painting for one more swing at the majors, “that’s what everybody’s here for.”

And so tonight begins a 44-game stretch of balancing dreams of the big show with the practical realities of the minors.

The Breakers play in the independent Western Baseball League, whose teams are not affiliated with major league clubs. There are a mind-boggling number of professional baseball leagues and classes in the United States and then still more abroad. Some of the Breakers have hopscotched among such teams and leagues and countries, hoping to impress a scout. Independent leagues are a much harder path to the majors, though Texas Ranger pitcher Jeff Zimmerman, for one, has proved it possible.

“These kids are in it because they love the game, definitely not because of the money,” Yeager said. His son, 22-year-old rookie Steve Jr., is among them. These days, Yeager said, “players don’t have the time [in farm teams] to develop. We hope to do that here. We thought we could field a real hometown team, be a part of the community.”

That fervor to recapture old-time baseball traditions--smaller parks with bigger hometown identity--has been fanned partly by public disenchantment with the big-business aspects of the major leagues after the 1994-95 players’ strike. Several California communities, from Adelanto to Rancho Cucamonga, raced to build their own minor league ballparks, though not every stadium has drawn the crowds cities were banking on.

Long Beach, however, benefits from already having an old and evocative ballpark, Blair Field, edged with greenery and--like Chicago’s Wrigley Field--cars that occasionally go ping when a fly ball soars over the stands.

The city was not shopping for a team. The Breakers approached Long Beach. The team pays rent for the ballpark and says it has made more than $100,000 in improvements that include a public address system, and a picnic area along the third-base line.

“It’s a good marriage,” said General Manager Jerry Schoenfeld, the dry cleaner who unloaded his chain and spent a year selling paint balls at trade shows before the Breakers team took shape. “Given what it’s been through, the city has been more than fair to us,” added Schoenfeld, who is confident Long Beach will embrace the team and its coach.

With his Marlboro voice and been-and-done-that ease, Yeager is a marquee name for those who remember watching him earn Most Valuable Player honors as a Dodger in the 1981 World Series. He all but swats away mention of the last team in town.

“Don’t even wanna talk about ‘em,” he said.

The only Breaker with knowledge of the last team, he said, “is Reggie Leslie, a pitcher who played for the Long Beach Barracuda in that “crazy first season.”

That the city is giving pro baseball a second chance is due in no small part to Long Beach being bullish on the sport. High school and college teams have produced numerous pro draftees, and Cal State Long Beach’s 49ers--people call them the Dirtbags--have made it to the College World Series. Many of the Breakers played on those teams and residents remember them.

“You know, I had more people say they wanted us to bring back baseball,” Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill said. “We’ve had challenges with former teams. . . . Let’s see, the Riptides, and what was the one before that? Well, this is the third team we’ve had--I can’t remember the name of the first, isn’t that awful?”

Awful but understandable.

Only one minor league baseball team has ever graced Long Beach, but by the end of its maiden season, it had played under three names.

How did that story end? The short answer to a complicated saga: The money dried up. Owner Chris Gibbs could be seen hand-painting advertising signs on the outfield fence. Season ticket holders were courted with promises of VIP parking and “waiter service,” which came in the form of a kid named Scott fetching beers from just yards away.

And in spite of all the circus, the team managed to win the Western League championship that year and the second season. Only a few die-hards remained to witness it.

Previous Team Had Money Woes

Gibbs said he swiftly shot all his dough in the doomed launch of a sports-talk radio show, for which he could sell no ads nor pull down reception--the broadcasts could not be heard in the stadium or anywhere else. A pair of employees turned on him, he said, payroll evaporated and the league effectively seized his Barracuda.

Gibbs was a man without a team, but it did not prevent him from coming to watch the team, or trying to unload some Barracuda merchandise. He filed for bankruptcy and lawsuits ensued. By the end of the second season, owners of what became the Riptide demanded, among other things, a new stadium whose schedule they would control. The city, which hosts Cal State Long Beach and other sports teams at the stadium, balked.

The team moved to Orange County, called itself the Mission Viejo Vigilante, then eventually--well, the short answer to another complicated story is, they left. One of the owners is general manager of the St. George, Utah, Pioneerzz, the Western Baseball League defending champions, who Thursday night opened the season by defeating . . . the Long Beach Breakers.

Clearly, it helps to maintain some levity in the minors, where fun is a substitute for the big time.

Which is why the Breakers will have “Hooters family night” at the ballpark, where waitresses of the local restaurant and sports bar, dressed more warmly than usual, will toss drink cozies into the stands. It is why the Breakers have a mascot called “Dude.” He is a giant spongy surfer guy with an enormous head and a vague resemblance to a Tolkien character. He also has his own e-mail address: https://dude@breakersbaseball.com.

Breaker coaches and owners understand they will need to prove their long-term commitment as the home team to make a go of it, and say they have the money to ride that out. They expect to take a financial hit until they show local businesses that they are worthy of advertising and sponsorship.

“No way do we expect to make a profit the first year,” said Chris Anderson, the gaming machine maker who owns 80% of the Breakers. The lingering cloud from their predecessors has has hovered over the box office as well.

“It’s been a bit disappointing,” said pitching coach John Curtis, who pitched in the majors for the Angels, Cardinals, Padres, Giants and Red Sox. “The season ticket sales have been less than the 500 we expected--350 by Wednesday--but we feel walk-up sales will pick up each game.”

That hope fuels Breaker players like Gabe Gonzalez, an ex-Dirtbag pitcher.

“I was born and raised here, went to Wilson High and Cal State Long Beach and I still live here,” said Gonzalez, 28, whose wife teaches second grade.

Gonzalez was a 1995 draft pick by the Florida Marlins and played the first seven days of that season before returning to the minors. After he was cut by the Houston Astros last year, he went back to teaching high school math.

Now, like Long Beach itself and those who love baseball there, he’s looking for that second chance. And he’s thinking not just of himself, but the kids in his old neighborhood.

“I want them to see that I grew up low-income too, and I accomplished not just one, but both, things I wanted to do: an education and playing major league baseball,” Gonzalez said. “So here I am, trying to make it back again. This team really wants us to do that. That’s the kind of people they are.”

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Foul Balls

Long Beach’s dizzying history of minor league baseball is more names than teams. Blair Field is where all the home games were played, but much of the drama unfolded off the field:

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THE BARRACUDA

May 22, 1995: The city’s first minor league baseball team, owned by entrepreneur Chris Gibbs, opens its home season to a sold-out crowd of 3,000. The costume for the mascot Barry the Barracuda bears resemblance to a giant baked potato with teeth.

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“THE FRANCHISE”

Aug. 15, 1995: The city terminates its lease with the financially struggling Gibbs and signs a new one with the league, which guarantees rent through season’s end. Acting team co-managing partners drop the Barracuda logo but have no name. “One day we’re the Barracuda, the next we’re ‘the franchise,’ ” a player said. The team plays in Cal State Long Beach baseball practice uniforms.

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THE RIPTIDE

Sept. 3, 1995: With the aforementioned partners at the helm, the team is renamed following a contest. Its new mascot is Buoy, but he looks like Bob’s Big Boy. The team wins the league championship this and the next season. But the partners demand a new stadium and control over it to match Mission Viejo’s offer. Long Beach passes, the team leaves.

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THE BREAKERS

May 2001: Former Dodger catcher Steve Yeager becomes manager of a new franchise in Long Beach that draws 300 to one of its March, 2001 tryouts. A wacky surfer character named “Dude” is the mascot. His head is wider than it is tall and he’s a mute Dude, to preserve what a team publicist called “the theater of the mind.”