MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - Baseball great Cal Ripken Jr. is putting his name on a $24 million baseball complex scheduled to open along the Grand Strand next year.

The first phase of the Ripken Experience will have six junior baseball fields, three regulation baseball fields and training fields with batting cages, pitching mounds and practice infields.

It is scheduled to open in June 2006 and have 11 weeks of tournament play.

Tourism officials say it could bring new people to the Grand Strand and bring business to the beach during off-peak times.

"It's a whole new starting point on a market that wasn't there before," said Gov. Mark Sanford, who was on hand Friday when Ripken and others announced the development. "It represents a stake in the ground that leads to other sports-related businesses looking at Myrtle Beach."

Ripken will be joined in the venture by Burroughs and Chapin Co. Inc. of Myrtle Beach.

The developer hopes The Ripken Experience is the first piece of a planned 300-acre Myrtle Beach Sports Resort designed to make the area more competitive for sports tourism. Burroughs and Chapin also wants to build other venues for a variety of sports like soccer, football, lacrosse and volleyball.

Ripken chose Myrtle Beach because of its central location along the East Coast.

When the fields aren't in use for tournaments, they will be available for local teams. "We want the community to feel like it is theirs," Ripken said.

Ripken, best known for playing a record 2,632 consecutive games for the Baltimore Orioles, will pattern the Myrtle Beach complex after the first one he had built in his hometown of Aberdeen, Md.

That facility, called the Ripken Baseball Complex, generated $13 million last year, luring 6,000 players from 35 states, as well as another 12,000 visitors, according to statistics from the University of Delaware.

State and local governments will pay $1.75 million in incentives to build roads and install storm water drainage on the 50-acre site in Myrtle Beach.