The Eugene Emeralds baseball club would love to make upgrades to the nearly 70-year-old Civic Stadium, but a court ruling has forced them to bring their planning to a halt.

Opening Day for the Emeralds is still about 12 weeks away, but some team officials are concerned that their time here in Eugene may be in the bottom of the ninth.

They're the sights and sounds of summer in South Eugene -- the sounds of baseball at Civic Stadium.

The stadium is plenty old, and more than a little worn down, but "the key is, it has tradition," explains Eugene Emeralds President Bob Beban. "And tradition is what minor league baseball teams are all about."

But nearly 40 years of Eugene Emeralds tradition could soon come crashing down.

The 4J school district owns this piece of property, and a court ruling this week has opened the door for them to sell it down the road if they want to, and potentially put the future of this stadium up in the air.

"Back of the mind, definitely," explains 4J spokesman Kelly McIver of thoughts of selling the stadium. "And we've been trying to say now, ever since the property was put on the district's list of surplus properties, someday we're going to want to unload Civic Stadium, because we don't have enough district use out of it anymore."

But while the school district decides what to do with the valuable land in South Eugene, the ball club has to put any long-term plans on hold.

"We need new lights, we need a roof, and we need to put in new box seats, we need electricity and plumbing," Beban says. "Those are the key issues that need to be done right out of the box."

"That's beyond the scope of the school district to do that," McIver counters. "It's not our mission to spend taxpayer money to build back up a baseball stadium that the district doesn't need or intend to use for school purposes."

Beban says he hopes the City of Eugene could come through and find a way to take the property over, so the stadium could get the fixes it needs, and the boys of summer could build another 40 years of tradition.

"It would be a huge loss to the city to lose the Ems," Beban says. "huge."

Calls to city officials went unanswered Wednesday afternoon. Meanwhile, school district officials say they have no current plans to sell the land, and at least for this season, the Emeralds are on course to play ball.

The current Civic Stadium lease for the Emeralds runs through September of 2008.