SLIPPERY ROCK— The name is the same. The manager, players, league and ownership are different.

So is the competition.

But the Slippery Rock Sliders are back and a franchise in Butler is joining them.

Both baseball teams will be part of the newly formed Prospect League, a summer collegiate wooden-bat league that is an extension of the former Central Illinois Collegiate League.

Slippery Rock area businessman Mike Bencic, who attempted to buy the Frontier League's Sliders a year ago, will own the Slippery Rock team in the Prospect League. He also acquired the rights to the Sliders' name and logo.

The Sliders will play their home games at Slippery Rock University's Jack Critchfield Park.

"I had formed an investment group to try to keep the Sliders from leaving, but that proposition was more expensive than anticipated,"Bencic said.

The former Slippery Rock franchise in the Frontier League carried a price tag of about $1.2 million. Afranchise in the Prospect League can be had for between $300,000 and $600,000.

Leo Tritsch, former deputy commissioner of development for the Frontier League, has left that circuit to devote his full attention to the Prospect League. He will be majority owner of the Butler franchise, which will play its home games at Pullman Park.

Tritsch said a news conference will be held next week to announce details of the Butler franchise.

"There will be some local ownership involved to assure this won't just be a one-year deal,"Tritsch said.

"I have a strong belief in Butler as a baseball town. Pullman is a beautiful ballpark and the community will be excited about this."

The Prospect League will meet NCAAguidelines for player eligibility. It will consist of players with collegiate eligibility remaining or who complete their collegiate eligibility before the start of the Prospect League season.

League play will consist of a 54-game schedule and runs from June through August. Each team will get 27 home games.

"There will be 12 teams in 2009 with another four to eight teams joining in 2010," Bencic said.

Each team will have 24 players and three coaches. The leading candidate for the Sliders' field manager post is Knoch graduate and former SRU third baseman Chase Rowe.

SRUbaseball coach Jeff Messer is rounding up players for the 2009 season and has gotten 12 to commit thus far. Three of those players are from SRU, three are from West Chester University, two from Maryland and one each from Louisville and Youngstown State.

The Sliders are reinstating the host family operation used by the Frontier League team in 2007. Call 888-458-8831 or write to the Sliders at 102 North Gait Drive, Slippery Rock, Pa., 16057 for details.

East Division teams in the league will be Butler, Slippery Rock, Chillicothe and Lorain in Ohio, and Richmond, Ind. A sixth team will be announced later.

West Division teams consist of the former CICL:Danville, Quincy, DuPage and Springfield in Illinois, Hannibal, Mo., and Huntingburg, Ind.

The CICLwas formed in 1963 as a charter member of the NCAA's certified summer baseball program. Nearly 150 CICLalumni, including Kirby Puckett, Mike Schmidt, Jonathan Papelbon and Ryan Howard, went on to play in the major leagues.