A Whole New Ballgame

It’s perfectly natural for a baseball team to send in a new pitcher when things aren’t going well, so why not a new board of directors and CEO?

The Pacific Suns, who slid into Oxnard in a cloud of hype and have so far distinguished themselves with small crowds, scarce victories and rickety finances, have appointed new board members and corporate officers.

Their mission: to carry on where now-departed team founder Don DiCarlo left off. And to win a few games.

DiCarlo, his wife, Karen, and father, Tony, resigned from the board and executive positions with the club last week after a power struggle among shareholders over control of what was then the nation’s worst professional ball team. A players’ strike over unpaid wages was the final straw after weeks of management unrest. A pair of unidentified investors has agreed to underwrite the team’s payroll.

“There is some baggage out there that we have inherited,” board spokesman Michael Koutnik put it. “However, we have the ability to create an entirely new game plan.”

The new game plan--or at least the adrenaline rush of having new faces in the front office--spurred the Suns to their longest winning streak: four games in a row.

We’ll continue to root, root, root for the home team. Ventura County has waited a long time--and endured a lot of shattered hopes over the years--for professional baseball of any kind. We offer the same advice to the new leaders that we offer to the players on the field: Dig in your cleats and swing for the fence.

As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”