Barracuda minors' baseball team bounces through bankruptcy.

The president of the Long Beach Barracuda, a minor league baseball team that started play in May, said he expects the organization to emerge from bankruptcy next week, six weeks after it filed for Chapter 11 protection.

The team went into bankruptcy following what organization officials claim was an unsuccessful takeover attempt by two franchise officers. President Chris Gibbs said the attempted takeover included the entire office staff of the team resigning from the organization in late June, amid a move by the officers to remove him.

Gibbs said last week the team should come out of bankruptcy on Aug. 15 under a refinancing plan agreed to by the team's original investors.

The team has continued to play during the bankruptcy and them are no plans to disband the franchise, said Barracuda spokesman Tom Simmons.

The organization, said Simmons, has met its payroll but bankruptcy papers show that it has fallen behind on payments to other creditors. Those payments will be resolved under the refinancing plan, said Gibbs.

In the petition filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles in late June, the team, under its corporate name of 643 Sports Inc., listed liabilities of $1 million and assets of $150,000. Among the largest creditors was the United States government, which at the time of the filing was owed $120,000 in payroll taxes.

The largest claim listed in the petition was $250,000 owed for improvements to 49'er Field, the stadium at Cal State Long Beach where the team plays its home games.

KMAX, the Pasadena-based radio station that was supposed to broadcast Barracuda games, was owed $150,000 at the time of the filing.

'Too much too soon'

Gibbs, who founded the Barracuda, said he tried "to do too much too soon" and the result was the team ran into trouble.

He said he put the team into bankruptcy in order to prevent two franchise officers from gaining control of the operation from the league.

The two officers were Paula Pyers, who was general manager, and Pat Elster, another executive with the club, said Simmons.

Gibbs hired Pyers, who is in her late 20s, when he was putting the team together late last year. She is a law school graduate and a former captain of the USC women's basketball team.

Information about Elster was unavailable.

According Simmons, Pyers and Elster have left the organization and formed their own company in Los Angeles called P&P Sports. There is no listing for P&P Sports in the Los Angeles telephone directory.

Simmons said Pyers and Elster attempted to take over control of the team by going to league officials and complaining about Gibbs' management of the franchise.

"They claimed there was mismanagement and mistakes in running the team," said Simmons.

Infighting 

Gibbs said Pyers and Elster had gained the support of the office staff when they went to league officials. Just prior to the bankruptcy filing, all 11 members of the office staff resigned in support of Pyers and Elster, said Gibbs.

The office staff has since been replaced and as of late last month there were eight people working for Gibbs running the team, he said.

Late last year, as Gibbs and Pyers were organizing the team, they said the operation's first-year budget would entail revenues of about $1.6 million and expenses of $1.3 million.

As of last week, the team had played 61 of its scheduled 92 games and had a record of 34 wins and 27 losses.

Simmons said the team was averaging 1,500 tickets sold for each home game, with an average attendance of between 700 and 800. He said those numbers are below what management was projecting before the start of the season but Simmons would not release those figures.