The iron unkind: Pearls shut down for season

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Shortly after the Baltimore Pearls defeated the Strong Island Sound, 117-115, on Nov. 4 to open their sophomore season, a reporter approached Pearls guard Mark Karcher for post-game comments.

Karcher looked at the visitor and bluntly replied, “I don’t mean any disrespect, but if I don’t get paid, I’m not talking to any reporters.”

Karcher’s words turned out to be ominously prophetic. On Monday night, Pearls owner/CEO Matthew Bradby announced the local American Basketball Association team would not finish its schedule this season for financial reasons.

The Pearls, Baltimore’s latest professional basketball team to struggle, cited “several financial backers and investors not following through with their individual proposals” in Monday’s press release. The team went 1-1 in its first two games, losing to the Rochester Razorsharks, 103-73, on Nov. 5. The team did not play its other scheduled game before Monday’s announcement, a Nov. 12 home game against the Brooklyn Wonders.

Going the way of the Bullets and Claws, former Baltimore pro teams who closed shop, the Pearls will forgo the remaining 34 games on their schedule, which was to extend into mid-March. After going 2-23 in their inaugural season, the team was hoping for a renaissance this year. Now, it has to start over.

“After paying off the team debts and assuring that all players are compensated for past games, we will recruit new staff and rebuild this team in order to participate in the ABA next season,” Bradby said in the release.

Attempts to reach Bradby for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Despite fielding a competitive team comprised of local standouts like Karcher, Ernie Graham Jr., and Cornelius Williams, the Pearls only drew about 350 fans to the Nov. 4 game, their first home contest at Coppin State University.

According to the release, Bradby’s rebuilding plans include keeping a core of players together who will play in national tournaments, charity games and summer leagues as the team prepares for a return in 2007. The Pearls will also retain head coach Ollie Matson, a former NBA draft pick of the Phoenix Suns, according to the release.

Other teams have already inquired about the availability of several of the players who were on the roster, according to the release. One of those players is likely Todd Galloway, a former standout at Florida State.

“I will gladly help [them] find a place,” to play, Bradby said in the release.