Opening Night shine dimmed by boring league

LAKE ELSINORE -- They threw out a first pitch Friday night. There was a first hit, a first out, a first inning and all the other firsts of Opening Night.

The sights and smells of a new baseball season were in the air.

Unfortunately, so was the stale look that's begun to set over the California League. This league, which bloomed brilliantly in the renaissance of the mid-1990s, now seems to plod along in cruise control.

Some of the evidence you've heard before, such as the 24-percent drop league-wide in attendance the last six years. Some have to be felt or seen, such as the novelty of the grand South Division ballparks wearing off.

From losing the Dodgers' affiliation to the Florida State League, to horrendous scheduling, to some pretty shady cities, this is much is certain: This league needs a boot to its rear end.

"You're right, there has been some stagnation," Storm general manager Dave Oster said before Friday's home opener against the Inland Empire 66ers. "But I have seen improvement through some new energy, new ownership and new general managers . The process takes some time."

The franchises, save for a few stragglers, do their part. Year after year, the Storm put on a good show, as do the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. The Inland Empire 66ers, when not selling sponsorships to everything but the players' shoelaces, do as well. So do the Lancaster JetHawks, and to a lesser extent, the High Desert Mavericks.

But for once, we're not talking about marketing or in-game production, though I'd still like Rancho's on-field announcer to tone it down and the mascots to outrun a kid now and then.

Baseball can be a monotonous game. Let's mix it up and shuffle the deck. Do something different -- heck, you have 140 games to work with. We can start with the unbalanced schedule, a financial savings, but a fan's bore. The Storm this season will travel to Visalia, Modesto and San Jose for a three-game series once each, but they'll play the 66ers a whopping 25 times. I've got nothing against the Seattle Mariners, but I'd rather not see their prospects more often than my own family.

Dump the unbalanced schedule, and while you're at it, break up that 40-game stretch the Storm have in May and June without a day off. For heaven's sake, this is minor-league baseball, not Noah's Ark.

How about more scheduled doubleheaders? The bean counters don't like this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if Saturday doubleheaders meant Mondays

off, everyone -- from players, to team officials, to the clowns who run the sports sections -- would applaud.

Oster, for his part, says the Storm would like to play more of these.

"We're doing one this year," he said, "but the schedule fell differently, so we couldn't do more."

The Storm are also doing their part with 6 p.m. starts on Wednesdays for Family Nights, recognizing that family time is not always best spent with the youngsters sleeping on their parents' laps in a cold stadium seat when the game runs late.


