CAMARILLO BASEBALL DEAL IN THE WORKS.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

An investors group is negotiating to move the Stockton Ports to Camarillo, the latest bid to bring minor-league baseball to Ventura County, officials said Friday.

After more than a year of talks between the owner of the California League franchise and the investors group, representatives said a sale could be announced this fall. Leading the group is an Orange County attorney whose family owns 50 acres of farmland south of the Ventura Freeway near Las Posas Road.

``They've agreed in principle to a lot of different things,'' said Dan Chapman, the Ports general manager the past eight years. ``I've met with them several times . . . and I still expect them to buy the team.''

Chapman said team owner Dick Phelps of Boston wants to sell because Stockton's attendance has consistently been near the bottom of the 10-team California League.

Steve Loiselle, the Camarillo real estate broker representing landowner Robert Pearson, would not disclose who the investors were, but he said a deal is in the works.

``That's safe to say,'' Loiselle said. ``They're not prepared to go public with anything right now.''

Landowners and civic leaders have been working more than three years to find sites and financing for stadiums in Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo.

What began as a combined effort by the cities began to splinter when a site committee selected 20 acres of farmland next to the Ventura Auto Center more than two years ago. Camarillo, then Oxnard, pulled out after the stadium became linked to a much larger project and public improvements around the site on Ventura's eastern fringe.

California League officials were committed to move a team to Ventura. Then the landowner dropped the proposal in January after city officials expressed concern over potential environmental impacts because the site is near the Santa Clara River.

Ventura County remains an important and untapped market for the California League, officials said. The top-drawing teams in Rancho Cucamonga, Lake Elsinore and Lancaster all came from other cities and moved into new stadiums, and similar success could follow in a county with some 750,000 residents, said Joe Gagliardi, league president.

``We'd like to be in the area,'' he said.

After 18 years as league president, however, Gagliardi is wary of pinning any hopes on proposed purchases.

``He (Phelps) has been trying to sell the ball club for two or three years. That's not a mystery. Where it's going to go, nobody really knows,'' Gagliardi explained.

Any sale must be approved by league owners, who will scrutinize the buyers and the proposed or existing facility. The sale then must pass both the National Association of Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball.

Gagliardi noted a California League team wouldn't play ball in Ventura County until at least 1999 if a sale was announced this fall.

Camarillo is ready if the deal is done. The City Council two years ago approved a zone change that makes a sports facility an allowable use on the 50-acre plot now zoned for commercial planned development.

The stadium must be built with private money, though the city would consider sharing costs such as streets and utilities that a team would repay from revenues. The site, west of the new Target Center, is in an area where the city plans a new freeway interchange, said City Manager Bill Little.

``They know what the rules of the game (are) as far as we have them, and now it's up to them,'' Little said.

Oxnard already has gained a minor-league team, with the Pacific Suns of the upstart Western Baseball League set to begin play at Oxnard College in May.

The Suns moved after two seasons of winning baseball but disappointing attendance in Palm Springs. Owner Don Di Carlo has said the Suns hope to draw more than 2,000 fans per game in Oxnard, where the weather is cooler and the market larger.