In 1993, shortly after the owners’ departure, the young and ambitious American, Andy Karetsky, bought the team.

After Karetsky, local baseball junkie and businessman Geoff Pearce purchased the majority ownership of the Reds, leading into the most difficult time of the ABL.

Dwindling crowd numbers, severe lack of media attention and the ever-shrinking budget of the club took away a lot of the early excitement and entertainment from the Reds games.

However, with all these factors Pearce lead the club to its last hurrah in the 1997/98 Championship, becoming the only team to win the ABL competition 3 times.

Late into the 1998–99 Australian Baseball League championship, the Reds were in the process of making a deal with ACES Sporting Club in Keysborough to convert their golf driving range into a light baseball diamond with grandstand to be the home of the Reds, however with the Australian Baseball League collapse after the 1999 Championship this deal never went ahead, however the Sporting Club entered into a sponsorship with the successor Victorian team after the ABL, the Victoria Aces as naming rights sponsors of the team.

The Reds played off with cross-town rivals, the Melbourne Monarchs, winning 3 out of the 4 play-off games to take out the Inaugural ABL championship.