Gulf Coast League
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| sport | baseball |
| abbreviation | GCL |
| League foundation | 1964 |
| Teams | 17th |
| Country countries |
 United States
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| Title holder | GCL Tigers West (2018) |
| Record champions | GCL Yankees (12) |
| Website | milb.com/gulf-coast |
The Gulf Coast League is an entry-level minor league baseball league operating in Florida , USA . Together with the Arizona League , it forms the lowest class in the North American minor league.
The teams play at and are owned by their partner major league baseball clubs in the spring training facility. The players assigned to this tier are players who were selected in the MLB draft a few weeks before the start of the season and therefore the emphasis is placed on skill development rather than competitive play.
history
Before the founding of this league, three different leagues used the name Gulf Coast League, a Class D League operating from 1907 to 1908, a Class D League operating in 1926 and a Class C League existing from 1950 to 1953. All three leagues operated on the Gulf Coasts of Texas and Louisiana.
Complex baseball leagues, which played in front of sparse crowds and often scheduled morning games to avoid the summer heat and afternoon thunderstorms, were introduced after the sharp decline in minor league baseball in the 1950s and 1960s. MLB teams needed entry into professional baseball for 18- and 19-year-old players. They are generally considered to be the lowest level of the minor league ranking and are therefore one level below other beginners' level leagues such as the Appalachian Mountains - or the Pioneer League .
The league was founded in 1964 as the Sarasota Rookie League (SRL) with four teams playing in Sarasota. Originally it was supposed to be the Golf Coast Division of a nationwide rookie league, with the East Division in Cocoa . However, the East and West teams never played against each other. The four teams in the SRL were made up of cadres from the Chicago White Sox , Milwaukee Braves , New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals .
The league added teams in Bradenton in 1965 and changed its name to the Florida Rookie League.
The league adopted its current name, Gulf Coast League, for the 1966 season. In the 1990s, the league expanded to the east coast of Florida.
On June 21, 2016, GCL hired Jen Pawol. She is the first minor league baseball umpire since 2007 and the first in the GCL since 1978. In 2017, the GCL hired another female umpire, Emma Charlesworth-Seiler.
Individual evidence
- ^ Gulf Coast League (C) Encyclopedia and History | Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved November 2, 2018 .
- ↑ St. Petersburg Times - Google News archive search. Retrieved November 2, 2018 .
- ↑ St. Petersburg Times - Google News archive search. Retrieved November 2, 2018 .
- ↑ Minor League Baseball hires first female umpire since 2007 . In: Sporting News . June 21, 2016 ( sportingnews.com [accessed November 2, 2018]).
- ^ Another crack in Major League Baseball's glass ceiling . In: espnW . ( espn.com [accessed November 2, 2018]).