- Gulf Coast League
Infobox sports league
pixels = 100px
caption = Gulf Coast League logo
sport =Baseball
founded = 1964
motto =
teams = 16
country = USA
champion =Gulf Coast Phillies
folded =
website = [http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/leagues/ip_index.jsp?sid=milb&lid=l124 Official Website]The Gulf Coast League is a
minor league baseball league which operates inFlorida . It is a Rookie League, with a season running from mid-June to late August. The season is 60 games long and teams in the league are divided into three divisions, East, North and South. After the regular season the division champion with the best record gets a bye into the best-of-3 championship. The two other division champions play a single game to determine who will move on to the championship series.GCL teams generally play at the minor league spring training complexes of their parent major league clubs, and are uniformly owned by those parent clubs. Their games are usually played in the afternoon, for very few (if any) spectators. GCL games are perhaps the least competitive of all minor league games, as most of the players were just drafted in that year's entry draft (2-3 weeks before the season's start) and are there to develop skills under their employer's tutelage rather than (necessarily) to win games or entertain fans.
GCL teams are not referred to by their home city, but simply by their parent club's name, and the prefix "GCL" or "Gulf Coast" if necessary to differentiate between them and another club sharing the nickname. Some of these teams share stadiums with their club's High-A affiliate in the
Florida State League , which can lead to confusion, as FSL teams "do" use the city name (e.g. theDunedin Blue Jays , three levels up from the GCL Blue Jays).Current teams
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