Camarillo Has Minor Problem With Baseball : Despite Enthusiasm, Commitment to Team Has Been Slow in Coming

They’re thinking optimistically in the city of Camarillo, making plans and raising money for a baseball team and stadium they don’t even have.

The city of 37,797 has a major dose of minor league fever.

In March, three Ventura County businessmen--Ken McMullen, Jim Colborn and Jim Biby--purchased the option to buy the Class-A Lodi franchise of the California League. They said their goal was to bring minor league baseball back to Southern California after an 18-year absence.

Sites in Camarillo and Oxnard were being considered. Committees were formed. Petitions were drawn up.

They had to hurry because McMullen said his group needed a commitment for a permanent home by May 1. Otherwise, he said, the group might choose to pass on their option to buy, thereby returning the team to its previous owner.

It has been nearly three months since that deadline and plans have dragged. The group purchased the rights to the team without a commitment, and it still does not have one. There is no team name, no home field, no major league team from which to draw players.

Enthusiasm over the possibility of having a team still flourishes, however, buoyed by the preliminary results of a feasibility study that indicates Camarillo’s Freedom Park is a physically and financially attractive site for a 4,000-seat multipurpose stadium.

A spokesman for Harrison Price Co., a Los Angeles planning firm that was commissioned to do the study, told the Camarillo stadium steering committee last week that the demographics of the area would support a minor league baseball team in Camarillo.

The study will not be completed until Aug. 15, but Harrison Price estimates that the stadium would generate $1.03 million in gross revenues if it were used for 65 minor league baseball games, 12 other sporting events, 10 concerts, 12 family shows, 4 community shows, and 2 miscellaneous events each year.

DeeWayne Jones, a Camarillo dentist who is the chairman of the committee, said the study shows the city could expect an annual net income of $500,000 to $600,000.

“We’re very encouraged,” Jones said. “We always felt Freedom Park was the right spot to have a first-class facility. Now that the site has been selected we can get on with the rest of the game plan.”

In a telephone interview, Harrison Price was much more cautious in appraising the project.

“What we gave them was a progress report,” Price said. “We’re still two or three weeks away from quoting exact figures. We went into that meeting with a fairly optimistic viewpoint. What we have found so far is that it’s worth looking into more. We’re still pretty far away from making a public announcement endorsing the stadium.”

Jones said that the odds are “better than 50-50” that Camarillo will have a team next year--and even better in 1987.

“At first it looked like we were going to have to tell them to look for a temporary site to play next year while we built the permanent facilities,” Jones said. “Now, it looks like we might be able to use temporary facilities at the permanent site. We could have the permanent field, lights and fence all in, then put up temporary seating. We could then build the permanent seats around the temporary ones.”

McMullen, who played with the Dodgers and Angels during a 14-year major league career, said that he has not been satisfied with the progress of efforts to secure a site for the team.

“Obviously, I’m not happy it has taken so long to get the ball rolling,” McMullen said. “We haven’t been able to approach a (major league) team about securing a player contract because we don’t even know where we will be playing next year. I’m happy with the findings of the feasibility study so far, but the key will be generating public interest after the entire report is in. To use Freedom Park we need money.”

McMullen said that the team will donate a large number of tickets to the stadium commission. The profit from the sale of those tickets would go toward the construction of the stadium.

In May, a group of Ventura County investors offered $500,000 and 20 acres of a 158-acre parcel of land to the stadium project if Camarillo would change the zoning of the parcel from agricultural to industrial.

The property is bordered on three sides by industrial complexes. Dave White, vice president of Ag Land Services Inc., one of the land owners, said he expects the city to make the zoning change.

Each city in the state, however, is allowed only four general plan changes in a calendar year. Camarillo has already used all four, according to city Planning Director Tony Bodin.

McMullen said that the team might play in Lodi next year while the Freedom Park stadium is being built.

“We would rather play here, but if no site is available, we will have no choice,” he said. “That would make it tougher to attract a team, but they will just have to bear with us for a year.”

The team’s owners would have to petition the California League for the right to move the franchise from Lodi to Camarillo.

League president Joe Gagliardi has already come out in favor of the plan.

In a March interview, Gagliardi said: “I’m enthusiastic about that area because I think it has expanded greatly since when baseball was there before.”

Southern California has not had a minor league team since the Santa Barbara Dodgers folded in 1967. The Channel Cities Oilers, who played in Ventura and Santa Barbara, moved to Reno in 1966.