Coastal Plain League (1941-1952)
Tombstone
Born: 1941
Folded: January 30, 1953
First Game:
Last Game:
Coastal Plain League Championships: None
Stadium
Ownership & Affiliation
Major League Affiliation: None
Owner: Frank Walker
Background
The Rocky Mount Leafs were a low-level minor league baseball team from North Carolina, active intermittently from 1941 until 1952. The Leafs played in the Class D Coastal Plain League. Class D is a classification that was retired in 1963, roughly equivalent to the modern-day Rookie League classification.
The Leafs began play in 1941. But the Coastal Plain League went dark for the next four seasons during World War II. When the loop resumed play in 1946, Rocky Mount got a new team named the “Rocks”. The Rocks won the 1946 Coastal Plain League crown. But when the team returned in the spring of 1947, it took back the old Leafs name.
According to Baseball-Reference.com, the only Leafs player who ever played in the Major Leagues was Turkey Tyson. Tyson was a thirty-something journeyman by the time he showed up in Rocky Mount, where he played in 1948 and 1952. Tyson’s Moonlight Graham-like Major League career consisted of a single pinch-hit at-bat for the Philadelphia Phillies on April 23, 1944.
The Coastal Plain League voted to revoke the Leafs membership during a league meeting on January 30, 1953 as the circuit struggled to pull together a 1953 season. The league folded a short time later without staging a 1953 season.
The Leafs name was revived by Rocky Mount’s Class A Carolina League ball club from 1962 to 1972.
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