The California League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in California. Having been classified at various levels throughout its existence, it operated at Class A-Advanced from 1990 until its demotion to Single-A following Major League Baseball's 2021 reorganization of the minor leagues. The league temporarily operated for the 2021 season as the Low-A West before reassuming its original moniker in 2022.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, league attendance continued to increase each season, with over one million fans attending games per year, part of a general nationwide growth and expansion to smaller towns, cities, and regions below those in the National League or American League with Minor League Baseball at various levels of play in growing popularity in the last few decades.
History
There were various attempts in the late 1800s and early 1900s to form a "California League" on the West Coast, considering the distance of the two current major leagues which generally had teams only in the Northeast and were restricted at first until World War I by long-distance train travel. The first organized California League lasted from 1887 to 1889, then another followed in 1891, and 1893, and finally in 1899–1902. After the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, an organization of minor leagues was formed in 1902, (following the "truce" and agreements between the older National League of 1876 and the newly "upstart" American League of 1901), the California League operated outside the NAPBL system as an independent league in 1902 and again from 1907 to 1909. This led to huge differences in the quality of teams competing with each other. In 1907, the San Francisco team was 3–34, while later in 1908 San Francisco was 9–67 and Oakland was 4–71. Oakland and San Francisco competed in every year of these various state leagues, with San Francisco having two teams during 1887–88.
The latest version of the California League was founded in 1941, and included teams in Anaheim, Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, and Stockton. The following year, as a result of World War II, the league dropped to four teams, then ceased and suspended operations altogether, although major league baseball and some minor leagues continued as much as possible with limited availability of players during the war years. It reorganized and came back in 1946, adding teams in Visalia, San Jose, and Ventura by 1947. Further east, Reno, Nevada joined the league in 1955 with the movement of the old Channel Cities Oilers in Santa Barbara and continued as a member for 37 years.
Though nicknames and affiliations shifted, the California League's postwar configuration was largely stable by the late 1950s; four of the six cities in the league in 1960 would still be part of the league 50 years later. The league reached eight clubs in 1966 and would hold that for ten years, briefly dipped to six before wavering between eight and nine clubs in the early eighties, then reached ten in 1986 and held that configuration for thirty-one seasons. From 1996 to 2016, the league had a remarkably stable alignment for Class A baseball, with no teams moving or folding for twenty-one years. After the 2016 season, the Bakersfield Blaze, long dogged by inadequate facilities and unable to negotiate significant repairs, and the High Desert Mavericks, suffering from falling attendance and a lease dispute with the city of Adelanto, were folded; the High-A level replaced them by expanding the Carolina League to ten teams.[1]
The start of the 2020 season was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic before ultimately being cancelled on June 30.[2][3] As part of Major League Baseball's 2021 reorganization of the minor leagues, the California League was demoted to Low-A and temporarily renamed the "Low-A West" for the 2021 season.[4] Following MLB's acquisition of the rights to the names of the historical minor leagues, the Low-A West was renamed the California League and reclassified as a Single-A league effective with the 2022 season.[5]
The Los Angeles area, Riverside, San Bernardino, Palm Springs, Yuma (AZ) and Las Vegas (NV) were also major league spring training site cities, as well possessed California League teams on different occasions.
Northern California is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's 58 counties. Northern California in its largest definition is determined by dividing the state into two regions, the other being Southern California. The main northern population centers include the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Sacramento area, the Redding, California, area south of the Cascade Range, and the Metropolitan Fresno area. Northern California also contains redwood forests, along with most of the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite Valley and part of Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta, and most of the Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions. Northern California is also home to Silicon Valley, the global headquarters for some of the most powerful tech and Internet-related companies in the world, including Meta, Apple, Google, and Nvidia.
The San Joaquins is a passenger train service operated by Amtrak in California's San Joaquin Valley. Seven daily round trips run between its southern terminus at Bakersfield and Stockton, with onward service to Sacramento and Oakland. For Fiscal year 2025, two additional trips to Sacramento will be added.
The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes are a Minor League Baseball team of the California League and the Single-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. They are located in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and play their home games at LoanMart Field.
Central California is generally thought of as the middle third of the U.S. state of California, north of Southern California and south of Northern California. It includes the northern portion of the San Joaquin Valley, part of the Central Coast, the central hills of the California Coast Ranges and the foothills and mountain areas of the central Sierra Nevada.
The Anaheim Aces were a charter member of baseball's California League, founded in 1941 as a Class "C" minor league. The other charter teams were the Bakersfield Badgers, Fresno Cardinals, Merced Bears, Riverside Reds, San Bernardino Stars, Santa Barbara Saints, and Stockton Fliers. The Aces folded after the 1941 season, with America's entry into World War II.
The Fresno Giants were a minor league baseball team that played in the California League from 1941 to 1988. The team was based in Fresno, California.
The Lodi Dodgers were a minor league baseball team based in Lodi, California. The "Dodgers" were a minor league affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1976 to 1983, playing as members of the Class A level California League and winning two league championships.
Wings West Airlines was an American regional airline headquartered at McChesney Field (SBP), unincorporated San Luis Obispo County, California. The airline initially began scheduled passenger service as an independent commuter air carrier and then subsequently became an American Eagle affiliate of American Airlines operating turboprop aircraft on code sharing flights on behalf of American.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U.S. state of California:
The Big West Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Year is an annual award given to the Big West Conference's most outstanding player. The conference was formed in 1969 and known as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association until 1988. The award was first given following the 1969–70 season. No player has won the award three times, but there have been eight two-time players of the year. Larry Johnson of UNLV was also the national player of the year in 1990–91, the same season of his second consecutive Big West Player of the Year accolade.
There were at least three class D California State Leagues in operation at some point in minor league baseball history. Two lasted just a single season and the other lasted three seasons 1913 through 1915.
The California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is a freely-available, archive of digitized California newspapers; it is accessible through the project's website. The collection contains over six million pages from over forty-two million articles. The project is part of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California Riverside.
1 2 3 4 Go to the California League website (Minor League Baseball; retrieved on 2017-05-23), click on "About" and then "League Award Winners" and then scroll down through the five awards. The Doug Harvey Award is at the bottom.
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