New Team Heading to South County
They were the Long Beach Barracuda, then the Long Beach Riptide. And next season? The Mission Viejo Red Hawks?
The baseball team’s new nickname hasn’t been determined, though team officials are mentioning the Red Hawks as one possibility.
Regardless, the independent minor league baseball team is headed to South Orange County after a vote Monday that gave the two-year-old franchise a lease to play at Saddleback College.
So what type of team will Mission Viejo be getting?
Well, it’s one of eight teams in the independent Western Baseball League.
And playing in an independent league means just that. The teams have no affiliation with any of the major league teams, and players are signed individually.
“There’s been some talk about us going co-op [with major league teams] in the future, but we sort of like the way it is right now because we don’t have to worry about losing a star player to a higher-level team right at the peak of a pennant race,†said Pat Elster, president and a co-owner of the franchise.
The Riptide has won the league’s championship series twice in two years.
“We catch some players on the way down, as well as some on the way up,†said Elster. “Since our league doesn’t start until late May, we are able to sign some players who are released after playing at higher levels earlier in the season. We picked up Don Barbara, the former Long Beach State player who played in triple-A after he was released by the Boston Red Sox organization, for example.â€
Barbara, a first baseman, played triple-A ball for four of his seven seasons in the minors.
Andy Allanson, a designated hitter and catcher for the Riptide last season, was the only former major league player on the team’s 1996 roster. Allanson, who was in the majors with the Angels and Cleveland Indians, hit .300 in 35 games last season.
How good is the level of play in the league?
“It varies from team to team,†catcher Eric Brooks said. “You see one team and you think they’re pretty good, but then you see another and it’s not so good. It’s minor league baseball, but I’d have to say it’s probably around mid-double-A, although some of the teams probably aren’t quite at that point. You get four, maybe five, players on each team who are legit upper-level professional players.â€
The team’s manager is Jeff Burroughs, who had a 16-year career in the majors, mostly with Texas and Atlanta.
Paula Pyers, who played women’s college basketball at USC and then professionally in Switzerland, is the team’s general manager as well as a co-owner. Bobby Grich, who played with the Angels and Baltimore Orioles, is assistant general manager.
Pyers and Elster took over the franchise in 1995 when its first owner, Chris Gibbs, was ousted by the league. At that point, they changed the team’s name from Barracuda to Riptide.
The league was founded by Bruce Engel two years ago. As late as last season, Engel still owned at least a majority share of three of the league’s teams, though the league’s executive director, Tom Kowitz, said Engel is in the process of selling his interest in two of them, retaining only the Reno Chukars.
Three of the other franchises--Bend, Ore., Aberdeen, Wash., and Pasco, Wash.--are in the Pacific Northwest, and three others are in California, at Salinas, Chico and in Sonoma County at Rohnert Park. Palm Springs had a team in the league but has dropped out this year and was replaced by Chico.
“Our franchise has always had a good crop of Southern California players on our roster, and we don’t expect that to change,†Pyers said. “We think improving our playing facility also will help us attract even more talented players.â€
* GLITZY BALL
Team owners plan to put on a show, and some baseball, when play opens in Mission Viejo. B4
