Baseball Dreamers Caught in Squeeze Play

The former big leaguers offered the Little Leaguers a lot, promising to take them to a real-life field of dreams.

Former Pittsburgh Pirate Mike Diaz and former Toronto Blue Jay Mike Maksudian swatted fly balls and pitched to 11- and 12-year-old boys at a tryout at a Pismo Beach park last October, and Diaz promised he could provide the youngsters with a baseball experience to rival anything in his major-league career. The experience: a tournament of the nation’s best young players, in hallowed Cooperstown, N.Y.

“For baseball parents, those guys painted a beautiful picture,” said Pete Bogoyevac, who made a 2 1/2-hour drive from Moorpark to the tryout with his son, Justin.

But as Bogoyevac and hundreds of parents across the country recently discovered, that picture would turn ugly. The parents, and authorities in other states, are asking what happened to all the money raised for the tournament--money that has apparently disappeared.

At the center of the controversy is Timecards Inc. of Arroyo Grande, Calif. Diaz helped launch the venture, which was bankrolled in part by former Philadelphia Phillies all-star catcher Darren Daulton, former company employees said.

Founded in 1996, its original mission was to help schools and youth baseball teams raise money by selling prepaid phone cards--an alternative to the traditional fund-raising merchandise of candy. Then last year, Timecards proposed a competition that would bring together the best young baseball players in every state.

At a cost of $940, plus travel expenses, the players who made the teams would compete in two “elite tournaments” at Cooperstown Dreamspark, a complex of pristine, big-league style fields near the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Dreamspark is a private complex, parents were told by Diaz and Maksudian, and Timecards would reserve space at the facility.

For the talented young players--and the parents who indulge them--it sounded like a dream situation. Parents of the players said they wrote personal checks or sold phone cards to raise the money. And months in advance, they made hotel and travel arrangements. In all, families of about 450 boys from California and 20 other states planned to attend.

Then on June 2--just 24 days before the tournaments were to begin--a letter was sent to coaches of the teams.

It said, in part, “Cooperstown Dreamspark . . . had been promised the registration fees you had raised, but Timecards Inc. never delivered the funds.”

Unless more money was raised, the letter said, there would be no tournaments. To add to the confusion, the letter wasn’t even from Timecards. It was on stationery for a group called Future Stars of America, and added that “we have no information regarding the remainder of the fund-raising dollars . . . “

Exactly what happened to the money has not been determined. The attorneys general in Oregon and New York, as well as major league baseball and the players union, have begun inquiries into Timecards. An assistant Oregon state attorney general has asked to see Timecards’ books. He has also interviewed former Timecards officers and employees.

In interviews with The Times, Diaz, Maksudian and other Timecards employees deny any wrongdoing.

Fortunately for the young players, most families raised the extra $395 needed to play in the tournaments, which ended July 9. Still, the parents worry that something more precious than money might have been lost in the process.

“I used to think that baseball players were the most wonderful people in the world,” said Justin Bogoyevac, 11, who has a mural of a snarling tiger--the Detroit Tigers team logo--painted on his bedroom wall. “Now, after this . . . I don’t know what to think.”

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Timecards began advertising its tournaments late last summer in newspapers across the nation. In California, about 50 players and their parents showed up at the October tryout in Pismo Beach.

Parents said they paid a $50 fee and were told by Diaz and other Timecards employees that if their child was good enough to make one of the two 14-member teams that would represent California--and they could afford the $940 charge--that they were in for the experience of a lifetime.

Diaz, several parents recall, spoke eloquently about how the 105-acre Dreamspark was designed to create a professional atmosphere: A cluster of six manicured infields with wooden outfield fences, public address announcers and clubhouses. Each player would be pictured on his own trading card, inducted into the park’s hall of fame and receive a commemorative ring. The players would sleep and eat in their own dormitory.

“A lot of kids never make it to Cooperstown, even as a visitor,” said Bruce Magley, a Camarillo resident who was at the tryout with his son Greg. “To play there is a great opportunity. Greg had a choice of whether to play all-stars at his [local league] or to play in Cooperstown. There was never any doubt he wanted to play at Cooperstown.”

Five parents, including Pete Bogoyevac, Nora Looney of Arroyo Grande and Diane Roemer of Glendora, said that Diaz explained in detail what they would receive for their money: Timecards would pay Dreamspark’s registration fees for each player and coach. The parents would have to pay all travel expenses and their own lodging and meals.

The price was too high for many parents, Bogoyevac said, but Diaz and other Timecards’ representatives offered a fund-raising program that could help with the expenses.

Under the plan, Timecards would send each family 47 prepaid phone cards worth $20 each. Stamped with a Dreamspark logo, the phone cards worked like credit cards loaded with 30 minutes of prepaid phone time. If the families sold all the cards, they would have raised $940 for their trip.

The cards worked--for a while. Last week, Zenex, the Oklahoma City-based communications company that sold the phone cards to Timecards, canceled all the cards that Timecards bought. The reason: Timecards never paid Zenex for the cards.

“This is a disaster,” Looney said. “I sold to contractors, to teachers at my son’s school, neighbors and relatives. I’m going to have to pay all of them back.”

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When parents and coaches started asking about the June 2 letter, they said, they were told that Future Stars of America, or FSA, was a new company that was offering to help parents find a way to send their kids to Cooperstown after all. Although FSA was in the same Arroyo Grande office as Timecards, and had many of the same employees, FSA officials insisted the companies were different--and that FSA was not financially responsible for the missing money.

But FSA offered a solution. Dreamspark, a private business, charges each player $395 for tournaments it organizes. That fee was to have been covered by the $940 parents paid Timecards. If parents were willing to pay $395 for registration fees to Dreamspark, FSA employees told the parents, the tournaments could continue.

Many families felt they had no choice but to shell out more money.

“The kids’ hearts were so set on going,” said Roemer, whose son Wesley was on the Boys of Summer, one of two California teams. “We had to do everything possible to keep the tournaments alive.”

Some parents borrowed or sought donations to raise the extra money. Craig Bartenhagen, who coached both teams from Arizona, went on a Phoenix television station to seek funds.

“It was all we could do,” he said.

The Capital Games California team made a plea to Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) and 33 other state legislators, who chipped in $100 each to help pay the team’s registration fees.

Pete Bogoyevac’s father initially put up the $5,530 for Justin’s 14 teammates on the Boys of Summer, until their parents could pay him back.

“Baseball is in this family’s blood,” Bogoyevac said. “My dad told me that since he never made it to Cooperstown as a player, that he wanted his grandson to at least have a chance to visit there.”

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Many parents who got involved with Timecards say they understand how the situation could develop. The Timecards plan played to their weakness--their ball-playing children.

Pete Bogoyevac has indulged Justin by paying $5,000 for a portable batting cage, including a pitching machine, and $180 for Justin’s Mizuno fielder’s glove. When Justin needs a little thunder at the plate, he reaches into his equipment bag, which his father has stocked with about $800 worth of aluminum bats.

“Most of us are baseball junkies,” Roemer said.

Diaz and Maksudian played only briefly in the big leagues, but when the parents met a pair of former major leaguers, they were nevertheless impressed.

In two seasons with Toronto and one with the Chicago Cubs, Maksudian had a combined 36 at-bats. Diaz had a little more success, playing in 293 games in four seasons with the Pirates and Phillies. In 1987, his best year, he played in 103 games for the Pirates, batting .241 with 16 home runs.

Many parents boil when they recall details of the first tryout. They want to know how former major leaguers could allow children to have their hopes dashed.

“What we would all like to know is, if they didn’t pay the registration fees,” Roemer said, “then what did they do with our money?”

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Former employees and investors of Timecards have trouble answering that question.

In the June 2 letter to coaches, the one in which FSA said it had no information regarding the missing money, FSA suggested “contacting Mr. Mike Miller, CEO/president, or Mr. Robert Hill, CFO, formerly of Timecards Inc.”

Miller is an Arroyo Grande businessman who started Timecards with Diaz in 1996. Reached at his home in June, Miller declined to discuss the issue. “The truth will eventually all come out,” he said.

Diaz, in a telephone interview from his home in Henderson, Nev., said Miller and Hill, the company’s former chief financial officer, controlled all of Timecards’ funds.

Daulton, a 14-year major league veteran, said he invested in Timecards through Parigee Inc., the company that handles most of his investments. Daulton and Hill say they were among Timecards’ original investors. Through two Las Vegas companies he partly controls, Hill said, he invested $150,000 into Timecards and also got the companies to guarantee Daulton’s investment.

Hill says he doesn’t know why the tournaments fell into financial trouble. Company funds that were under his purview, he said, were properly spent.

Records show that Hill, a former attorney, was suspended in 1984 from the State Bar of California for misappropriation of a client’s funds. He was accused again of the same charge in 1989 and with disciplinary proceedings pending, he resigned from the bar in 1991.

Although he denies any wrongdoing, Hill acknowledges the past charges against him and said he paid restitution in the first case. He denies mishandling Timecards’ money.

Bill Duval, a former Timecards bookkeeper, said the company was nearly broke in February, when Daulton called a meeting in Las Vegas.

At the meeting, Duval said, Miller and Diaz told Daulton that Timecards was sinking and needed another $300,000 to remain afloat.

“We had not seen a penny back on our original investment and they were asking us for more money, which they said was mostly for salaries . . . it was too much,” said Hans Johns, the president of Parigee, the company that handles Daulton’s investments.

As the major investor, Daulton said, he removed Miller and Diaz from control of Timecards and turned the company over to Maksudian.

“Timecards sounded like a great opportunity for kids,” Daulton said. “These guys [Miller and Diaz] seemed to know what they were doing. If I thought differently, I wouldn’t have recommended them to Parigee.”

Maksudian, a consultant to Timecards since the October tryout, said he now oversees a new company--Future Stars of America. Its mission: organizing youth baseball tournaments.

Future Stars of America kept many Timecards employees, the same phone number and the same address. In fact, when FSA offered to help parents pursue the tournament in the June 2 letter, it suggested they contact a man who had been a Timecards employee.

“It sounded like they just changed the company’s name,” said Looney, whose son Jason was on the Boys of Summer California team.

Maksudian said the new company is completely independent from Timecards, but because he cares about kids, he sought donations on behalf of the families who lost money on the Timecards deal.

“I’m doing the best I can,” he said. “We’ve tapped every single person that any of us know, every corporation we can think of. We sent in excess of 400 faxes. We’ve done everything we can to try and help the kids. The truth is we are as sick about this thing as anyone.”

Maksudian said last week that he has raised $33,140, which was dispersed between 19 teams. It didn’t cover all the expenses, but it did help some parents.

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As for the teams originally organized by Timecards, the players and parents say they all had a wonderful time at the Dreamspark tournaments.

“Wesley had a blast,” Roemer said of her son. “But it could have been better if it hadn’t cost me so much. This was a real awakening. These boys are becoming men and they are learning that baseball is a reflection of life.

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you get cheated.”