Western Carolinas League
The Western Carolinas League was a Class D (1948-52, 1960-62) and a low Class A (1963-79) full-season league in American minor league baseball. The WCL changed its name prior to the 1980 season and has been known since as the South Atlantic League, a highly successful low Class A circuit with teams up the Eastern Seaboard from Georgia to New Jersey.
Originally called the "Western Carolina League," the 1948-52 WCL was composed exclusively of teams located in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge sections of western North Carolina. It merged with the North Carolina State League to form the short-lived Class D Tar Heel League, which lasted only 1½ seasons (1953-54) before folding.
In 1960, the WCL was revived as a Class D circuit intended for farm teams of member clubs of a planned third major league, the Continental League. It featured teams in eight North Carolina locales: Gastonia, Hickory, Lexington, Newton-Conover, Rutherford County, Salisbury, Shelby and Statesville, but soon expanded to sites in South Carolina.
When the CL was torpedoed by the Major League Baseball expansion in 1961-62, the members of the Western Carolinas League became affiliates of American and National League clubs. It was upgraded to Class A in the 1963 reorganization of the minor leagues.
For nearly 60 years, 1948 through 2007, the dominant figure in the WCL/SAL was league founder and president John Henry Moss, who started the WCL as a young man in 1948, refounded it in 1960 and then led it into the new century. Moss retired at the close of the 2007[1] Sally League season and died, at age 90, on July 1, 2009[2].
Contents |
[edit] Member teams
[edit] Western Carolina League (1948-52)
[edit] Western Carolinas League (1960-79)
[edit] See also
- South Atlantic League Hall of Fame (including Western Carolinas League players)
[edit] References
- ^ Baseball America, December 15, 2007
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/sports/baseball/14moss.html?hpw
