The South Atlantic League includes minor
league teams from New Jersey to Georgia. The league
is a Class A league that
plays a full season, and its teams are composed of players in their second or
third year of professional baseball. The South Atlantic League’s history in
minor league baseball has been around since 1904, although there have been a
few years where the league did not exist and it went through several name
changes. The league began in 1904 running until 1917 as a class C league, then
started up again in 1919, also class C. It then operated from 1919 to 1930, as
it move up to class B beginning in 1921. There was about a 5 year break for the
league until the league came back as a class B from 1936 to 1942. The league
was shut down during War World II and returned in 1946 as a class A league. The
AA Southern Association (which
never integrated) failed after the 1961 season, this brought about the SAL
being promoted to AA in 1963 to take the place of the Southern Association and
was called the Southern League. The South Atlantic League name went 16 years
without being used, but in 1980 the Western Carolinas League
brought back the name at a time when the league worked toward changing their
identity. The SAL has continued to grow as the evidence can been seen by the
number of fans (2016 Attendance was over 3 million) getting out to each of the
respective teams ballparks. To get information about the current teams in the South Atlantic League visit their website http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=l116 .
