This was the phone call that Dan Shaughnessy had dreaded for close to a year.

PLYMOUTH - This was the phone call that Dan Shaughnessy had dreaded for close to a year.

The Plymouth Pilgrims team president had to call the office of the New England Collegiate Baseball League earlier this week and make the official announcement that the 4-year-old team would be ceasing baseball operations.

As a last resort, Shaughnessy spoke before the Plymouth School Committee two weeks ago with a plea to use the baseball field at Plymouth North for the next couple years at a reduced rate while other options were explored. The school committee answered back that the team could use the field for home games, but they would have to pay the same fee as other organizations pay.

Even if the School Committee had approved their request to use the field at a reduced rate, the Pilgrims would have lost the money they've traditionally earned from ticket sales as well as food and refreshment concessions from each home game, two of the larger pieces of the financial pie that can off-set the $150,000 needed each year to operate the team. The way the field at Plymouth North is situated it would be virtually impossible to charge admission. In addition, there are no concession stands located near the field.

About this time last year, former Pilgrims leaders David Dittmann and Chris Patsos announced their intention to step away from the team. After meeting with the rest of the local ownership group to plan their next step, Shaughnessy decided to take over as team president, install Ben Fey as general manager and give it one more try to make things work.

"I wanted to give this a year to see if I could wrap my hands around things and make it work, and, unfortunately, despite the tremendous effort of everyone involved, it can't work. I got more than I bargained for," Shaughnessy said Thursday morning. "There's been a lot of sleepless nights, but we can't keep going down this road. It was something that needed to be done."

But, adds NECBL Commissioner Sean McGrath, don't put the lawn chairs back in the shed just yet. The league still hopes to have a team in Plymouth in the summer of 2017. McGrath said he's been talking with Shaughnessy and his business partners for some time now about what to do next and one option might be bringing a new ownership group into the picture.

"As of right now I still hope to have a team in Plymouth next summer. I'd go as far as to say that the NECBL needs to remain in Plymouth. It's a perfect baseball town and the players love playing in America's Hometown," McGrath said. "Playing at Forges Field has worked for the last four years, and we need to explore ways to continue to make it work. Some teams in this league play in baseball stadiums like we have in Sanford, Maine, and some other teams play at community fields like the Pilgrims do. All of the playing fields have little things that make them special and unique experiences.

"Without a doubt, we still very much want to have a presence in Plymouth."

Almost all of the 13 member teams of the NECBL operate at either a small profit or break even each year, but the Pilgrims lost an estimated $24,000 this summer. Most of the operating loss can be traced back to work that had to be done on the Forges Field baseball diamond that the Pilgrims have called home for the last four years.

When they started play in 2013, the Pilgrims shared the field with Plymouth Babe Ruth and Plymouth North JV baseball programs. Since then those programs have also had to make time and room for the Rising Ride Charter School and Plymouth South varsity baseball teams as well as the Plymouth Senior Little League program on the town-owned field.

"Honestly, this town needs more of the bigger baseball fields," Shaughnessy said. "We did our best to make the field meet the standards of a top-level college summer baseball league, but we were constantly fighting an up-hill battle to stay ahead of the curve in taking proper care of the field."

Shaughnessy estimated that the team has put $100,000 into maintenance and improvements around the field over the years. New concrete dugouts were poured this season and other additions have included a scoreboard, additional seating and safety netting along the foul lines, and a new clay surface in the infield of the baseball diamond.

The decision to close shop was made after several different options were explored that would have kept the team going for another couple of years, but Shaughnessy said some of the measures would have "only been a Band-Aid" to the issues facing the team.

One option explored was to build an additional Babe Ruth-sized diamond at Forges Field. Another idea floated was to use the field at Plymouth North for free or at a reduced rate for a couple of years while other options were explored in more depth.

Neither of those options proved feasible.

"I wanted to bring a couple of solutions to the table," Shaughnessy explained. "You can't just complain about problems. You need to offer solutions to those problems."

Email the reporter at dwolcott@wickedlocal.com and follow him on Twitter, @DavidWolcott1.