Atlantic League (1998-Today)

Background

The Atlantic League of Professional Baseball is an independent baseball league that played in first season in 1998. As independents, Atlantic League teams have no parent club affiliations with Major League organizations and are responsible for 100% of their own operating costs. Unlike many of the other leagues that popped up during the independent baseball boom of the 1990’s and early 2000’s, the Atlantic League boasted deeply experienced minor league owners. League executives also successfully lobbied for the construction of high quality publicly-financed stadia in many cities.

Six franchises began play in 1998 representing the states of Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York. By 2001, the Atlantic League successfully secured new ballparks in Atlantic City, Bridgeport, Camden, Long Island, Newark and Somerset County, New Jersey. During these same early years, stalled stadium projects doomed teams in Aberdeen, Maryland and the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania.

In 2010 the Atlantic League announced an expansion team in Sugar Land, Texas, a suburb of Houston. The Sugar Land Skeeters began play in 2012.

After the 2017 season the Bridgeport Bluefish franchise folded. The demise of the Bluefish left the Somerset Patriots as the only founding Atlantic League club still in business.

In 2018, the league expanded into the Southeastern United States, adding the expansion High Point Rockers franchise in North Carolina. The Rockers began play in 2019.

The league’s 2020 season, like virtually all of Minor League Baseball and independent pro baseball in the United States, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the Major League Baseball-dictated re-drawing of Minor League Baseball in the fall of 2020, two of the Atlantic League’s top clubs defected from independent baseball to become Major League affiiates. The Somerset Patriots will become the Class AA farm club of the New York Yankees in 2021. The Sugar Land Skeeters will become the triple-A farm team for the Houston Astros in 2021.

Notable Players

The Atlantic League has long been considered to offer the highest caliber of baseball of any independent league. A number Major League superstars have spent time in the Atlantic League, typically at the tail-end of their careers. The big names include:

• Ruben Sierra (Atlantic City Surf 1999)
• Tim Raines (Somerset Patriots 2000)
• Jose Canseco (Newark Bears 2001)
• Rickey Henderson (Newark Bears 2003)
• Juan Gonzalez (Long Island Ducks 2006)
• Scott Kazmir (Sugarland Skeeters 2012)
• Dontrelle Willis (Long Island Ducks 2013)

Sierra, Raines, Canseco, Henderson and Kazmir all returned to the Major Leagues following their Atlantic League stints. Kazmir earned a 3-year, $48 million dollar deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016, four years following his stint with the Sugarland Skeeters. It is the richest pro contract to date for an Atlantic League alumnus.

Roger Clemens pitched a single game for the Sugar Land Skeeters in August 2012. Clemens was 50 years old at the time.

Atlantic League Franchise List

Atlantic League Shop

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