NORMAL - The commissioner of the independent Northern League believes a Normal baseball team and stadium could be ready for play by May 2009.

Clark C. Griffith said he is looking to expand the six-team Northern League and is enthused by the potential of Normal and a possible stadium site at Heartland Community College.

"May 2009 is what I'm thinking about. Absolutely," Griffith said Tuesday after speaking to a committee interested in bringing professional baseball to Normal. "We could have a team and investors in place by May 2008. But the stadium takes time."

Griffith is not alone in his aggressive vision. Alan Sender, who chairs a group of community leaders studying the project of bringing professional baseball to the Twin Cities, believes it can be pulled off in Griffith's timeframe.

"If this goes, it's going to go pretty quickly," Sender said. "This will not be a process that is going to drag on. … (Griffith) is not the first person to say that it can be done in that period of time."

Investors are what the project lacks, but Griffith said he believes he can assist in that pursuit.

Sender said discussions taken place with one potential investment group.

The cost of purchasing an expansion Northern League franchise is $1 million. After that, Griffith said, it is difficult to put a price on how much it would take to get a Normal team in place.

The average Northern League stadium is less than 10 years old, costs $20 million and has a seating capacity of 6,000. The league has teams in: Joliet, Schaumburg, both in Illinois; Gary, Ind.; Kansas City, Kan.; Fargo-Moorhead, N.D.; and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The stadium in Kansas City was constructed in less than 11 months, said Mike Thiessen, a representative from The Madison Group hired to study the feasibility of the Twin Cities project.

"The only thing that worries me is that you'd like to have a full year to build," Thiessen said. "That's in addition to the architecture and engineering. But I don't want to say it can't be done, because it can."

The only other likely league would be the 12-team Frontier League, Sender said, all but ruling out the far-reaching American Association, which also has expressed interest.

Griffith said there is no minimum seating requirement for a Northern League stadium, although at least 5,000 seats in preferred. He also said his league's average attendance is 4,600 fans per game, which leads independent baseball.

"The Northern League has the best business model of any independent league in terms of the way our stadiums are operated, the way our teams are operated and our business success," Griffith said.

Griffith said the $20 million stadium cost was not a starting point but an average, adding that a 4,500-seat stadium would obviously cost considerably less than one that holds 7,500.

Heartland already plans to build an athletic complex with softball, baseball and soccer fields by fall at its Raab Road campus. The college has said it needs to know by April 1 if investors are willing to build an upgraded facility to share with the minor league team.

A Minneapolis attorney and the grandson of baseball Hall of Famer Clark Griffith, Griffith would like to see the Northern League expand to eight teams by 2009 and 10 teams by 2010.

"Our business model is one in which we have great communities, great ownership and great stadiums," he said. "We want to continue on that same process. Just adding somebody is not what we want to do. We want to have quality stuff and I think this is the right location for that."

Griffith also believes having a baseball team in Normal offers enormous marketing potential.

"I have been thinking for several weeks now of putting Normal on a baseball shirt and how many millions of those shirts we're going to sell," Griffith said. "I just want to make sure I have the trademark to that one or the owners do and they are able to sell that. It's going to be absolutely huge."

The Northern League plays a 96-game schedule that runs from mid-May to around Labor Day.