NEWARK — A small white sticker has been slapped onto the portable batting cage that sits just beyond the center-field wall of Riverfront Stadium, among the weeds and a few winter-ruined baseballs. “Auction,” the sticker says. “Lot Number 163.”

The numbered stickers are everywhere. On the field tarp (182). On the ticket machine (119). On the visitors’ lockers (287). On the hot dog roller (112), the neon Coors Light sign (104), the popcorn maker (248) and the machine that dispenses the nearly fluorescent yellowish goop essential to an order of ballpark nachos (93).

These tiny adornments are all in advance of a Saturday morning event whose formal title underscores the harsh truth that, for all its pastoral charms, professional baseball is a fickle, difficult business: “The Newark Bears Baseball Team Liquidation.”

“There’ve been a lot of phone calls from other minor league teams,” Bill Barron, an auctioneer, said as he rested his Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup on a wooden table (Lot 43) in the front office. “Ohio, Pennsylvania. ...” He had a Newark Bears cap propped on his head.