GBL expanding to Maui

The Yuma Scorpions may or may not be making any trips to Tijuana, Mexico next season - but there will be a Maui vacation to make up for it.

With Tijuana's expansion into the Golden Baseball League up in the air, the league announced Wednesday a 10th team to begin play in 2010 in Wailuki on the island of Maui in Hawaii.

"We're very excited to add Maui as a member of the GBL for this coming season," said David Kaval, CEO of the Golden Baseball League in a statement. "Hawaii has a fine tradition of baseball, and Maui is a wonderful location with a passionate fan base, strong support from the businesses and community officials, and an excellent tourism industry that draws lots of baseball fans from all over the world. We are thrilled to have XnE and their local partners as part of the league and look forward to a successful franchise in Hawaii."

Hawaii hasn't had professional baseball in two years according to the statement, although did have a Pacific Coast League team in the past. No team name or manager has been announced yet.

The Maui team will join the nine 2009 members of the league, including the Scorpions. The league will play between 88 and 96 games next year, with the schedule to be finalized in November.

There are still other details of the 2010 season to be worked out. Commissioner Kevin Outcalt said the league and the Colombian Professional Baseball League haven't had serious talks about renewing their mutual option on an affiliation deal with the Scorpions. The Yuma team, owned by the league, featured almost all players from the Colombian pro league last season, finishing with the worst record in the league.

Also still to be worked out is the status of the Tijuana Potros, who were to join the league last year before the swine flu scare put a halt to their season and created a GBL schedule with an uneven amount of games for each team and stretches of up to five days without any games.

Outcalt said a new ownership group has taken over the team but still has a lot of work to do.

"Tijuana's status is currently on hold," Outcalt said. "There's a new ownership group that's trying to put together the revenue and the stadium rights, but there's still a lot to do. We'll have talks to see if it's viable, but there's still a lot to do before it even gets to that stage."

Outcalt said that further expansion of the league is likely, with talks taking place among the league and two possible expansion cities. He said he couldn't identify the cities but expected an announcement by the end of October.

The two teams would join Maui, two Arizona teams, three Canadian teams, a team in Utah and three in California.