Glacier Outlaws baseball season in jeopardy

The Glacier Outlaws, Whitefish’s new minor league baseball team, is on the precipice of folding less than two weeks into the inaugural season.

Mount Rainier Professional Baseball League commissioner Mike Greene sent out a press release May 30 saying if financial help is not available within 24 hours, “the league will be done.”

On June 1, Greene announced that the league is in the process of restructuring.

Two of the league’s six teams will be dropped and each of the four remaining teams will have separate owners. The four teams will be announced on Tuesday, he said.

The new professional league includes the Glacier Outlaws, Skagit Valley Lumberjacks, Grays Harbor Gulls, Oregon City Mud Turtles, Ellensburg Bulls and Moses Lake Rattlesnakes.

There are 24 players on the Outlaws roster. Players are staying with host families locally during the season.

“All players who want to leave will leave and understandably,” Greene said in the release. “I apologize for the way things have gone so far. Never my intent and we are trying to fix this.”

It’s been a rocky start to the league since play began May 21.

The Skagit Valley Lumberjacks team bus engine overheated on its way to Whitefish for the season opener, delaying the game an hour.

Neither of the team had uniforms for the opener. The Outlaws played in Glacier Twins uniforms while the Lumberjacks wore blue T-shirts.

On Saturday, the Outlaws borrowed a bus to drive the team to Ellensburg a four-game series, and then were left stranded without a hotel.

The league is supposed to provide transportation, lodging and meals for the teams.

A player’s parent paid for the lodging one night. The Outlaws paid for another evening from their home gate receipts.

The team used the Glacier Twins bus to leave Ellensburg on Sunday after learning the league was in jeopardy.