The South Coast League of Professional Baseball announced Tuesday that Jamie Toole, one of the league’s founders and its chief executive officer, has resigned — effective immediately.

“I want to thank the SCL Ownership Group for the opportunity to assist in building an independent league in the Southeast,” Toole said in the release. “It is bittersweet to leave the South Coast League’s day to day operations. The last two and a half years have been extremely rewarding and my hope is that the SCL will reach its full potential in the coming years.”

I hate to come across like Chicken Little here, but I’m guessing the SCL reached its full potential last season — and the noise you’re currently hearing from league headquarters in Macon is the sound of the sky falling.

It has not been a good offseason, to say the least.

Aside from a mountain of debt the league doesn’t seem to be able to dig out of, employees have been resigning right and left. And just days after announcing Jackson, Miss., as an expansion franchise the SCL decided to shut down that club (as well as the Charlotte County franchise) for 2008.

More recently the tryouts scheduled for April have been moved to May — the same month the season is scheduled to start.

So now we’re left with a four-team league and the promise of a weird round robin series to determine the championship, making the regular season absolutely meaningless.

Honestly, I just don’t see how the SCL can go forward. I’ve heard it has new investors and sponsors for this summer, but what about the old sponsors — the ones that haven’t been paid yet?

There are still a lot companies and individuals waiting for checks that might never come.

And the folks who haven’t been paid have long since run out of patience.

I don’t blame them.

And what in the league’s history makes anyone think it will be better equipped to pay its bills now than it was a year ago?

Independent leagues are risky propositions, to be sure, especially at this level. Even though several players from the 2007 season signed with affiliated clubs (the stated goal of the league), they were few and far between. And with tryouts in May, most decent players will have already suited up with other teams in other leagues.

The SCL no longer has the “novelty” factor working for it, and with all the financial troubles it has, less people view it as a viable business.

It might be too soon to write the obituary for the league, but it’s probably a good idea to at least have a rough draft handy.

I’ve got a feeling we’ll be reading it sooner than later.