Friday night, the Guelph Royals were supposed to take to the field in London.

Instead, their players will spend the night learning which uniforms they’ll be wearing for the rest of the season.

The Royals announced this week that they have suspended their operations for the remainder of the 2017 Intercounty Baseball League Season.

They hope to be back in business by 2018 – but say that can only happen if new ownership is found.

“It was certainly a shock to me and to the rest of the league when we found out the news,” league commissioner John Kastner said in an interview.

“We hope that a pause is what this amounts to be, and that we do have baseball in Guelph in 2018.”

Under one name or another, Guelph has been a fixture in the IBL since the league’s 1919 founding. Players like Rob Ducey and Scott Diamond made stops in Guelph on their way to careers that took them all the way to Major League Baseball.

Guelph teams have won nine league championships, with the most recent coming in 2004.

This year’s team wasn’t hitting the same heights. When they suspended their season, they were in last place in the eight-team league with a record of 1-15.

Team officials blamed the Royals’ poor performance on a combination of factors, including injuries and some players leaving the team.

Jim Rooney and his family, who bought the team earlier this decade, say declines in attendance and sponsorship money also contributed to their desire to sell the team.

Paul Ante, a coach with the team, says he’s heard fans blame Rooney for pulling the plug on the team – an opinion he doesn’t share, considering the position the Royals were in when he bought the franchise.

“(Rooney) was the one guy that stepped up to try to keep baseball alive here,” he said.

“I just don’t see anybody stepping up to take the reins.”

Kastner says the Rooneys have been looking for new owners for the team for some time. Some opportunities have looked likely to pan out, only for something to come along and scuttle the deal.

“They’re confident they’ll find somebody,” he says.

The league will hold a dispersal draft on Friday, in which the three remaining teams at the bottom of the IBL’s standings – Burlington, Hamilton and Brantford – will be able to add members of the Royals’ roster to their own squads.

The Royals say anyone who had purchased season tickets or flex packs for future games can obtain a refund by emailing iblguelphroyals@gmail.com.

With reporting by Randy Steinman