For employees of the South Coast League of Professional Baseball, what happens on April Fool’s Day will hardly be a joke.

That’s the day the league suspends operations for 2008.

The league announced Friday there would be no season this summer, with the hope that a new ownership group could come aboard and restart the league in 2009. Mired in debt, the SCL still owes employees and vendors for services rendered during the 2007 season, and there was an insufficient infusion of cash to pay off those debts and move forward in 2008.

“Any business that thinks it can finish in the black in its first year is naïve,” said J.D. Hardin, chief development officer of the SCL and acting chief executive officer. “I just don’t think we knew how much in the red we’d be.”

The league debuted in 2007 in six markets — Anderson (Joes), Aiken (Foxhounds), Macon, Ga., (Music), Albany, Ga., (South Georgia Peanuts), Bradenton, Fla., (Juice) and Port Charlotte, Fla., (Charlotte County Redfish).

Early on during the first season Bradenton became a “traveling” team due to stadium issues, and by the end of the year news of the league’s financial woes began to overshadow what occurred on the playing field.

At one point the league owed vendors more than $750,000, and although the debt was paid down, many individuals and companies still are yet to be paid.

“There are three main income sources for minor league baseball — ticket sales, sponsorship- merchandising and marketing,” Mr. Hardin said. “It was as though one team would have great attendance, but corporate sponsorship was down. Or one might have sponsorship money but low attendance. There were a lot of different issues.”

The SCL announced it was adding an expansion franchise in Jackson, Miss., on Jan. 17, with the new club replacing the dormant Bradenton team. But on Feb. 23, it was revealed that both Jackson and Charlotte County would not be part of the league lineup in 2008, leaving the SCL with just four teams.

According to a press release issued by the league Friday, “… recent developments within the company as well as lengthy discussions with the entire ownership led to the decision.”

The SCL operated under a single entity model, meaning all franchises are property of the league itself.

“We have to be fiscally responsible,” Mr. Hardin said. “The league hasn’t folded, and we want to do everything we can to come back in 2009. But that means paying off our debts and getting enough money to have a league in the future.”

Scott Adamson is sports editor of the Independent-Mail. He can be reached at (864) 260-1237 or by e-mail at adamsonsl@IndependentMail.com.

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